A Follow-up to My Own Question
DJA wrote:
My mom has a Kodak DX7430 digital camera.
Correction: it's a CX7430. No wonder I couldn't find it listed as a
supported camera.
It uses an SD card to store
the images, plus it has a USB port. She has been getting prints of
images at the local grocery store, or CD's made through some other
retail expert, but she'd really like to print her own pictures.
I've been experimenting with [transferring pictures from the camera
> to] FC4.
I have finally had success. The problem was not Linux. Read on.
I can read the SD card in FC4, see the directory, see the files and
their sizes. The problem is that none of the graphic apps in FC4,
including The GIMP can actually interpret the files which are reported
as being JPEG. I can copy a file from the flashdisk to the HD, but still
can not find an app that will show me the picture. The most informative
message I get is "Unknown file format".
After reporting this, my Mom called all panicked because all the pics
were gone from the SD memory card (known as "Favorites" by Kodak). I was
a bit worried that something I had done had corrupted or erased the
data: I had forgotten to write-protect the card when last I plugged it
into my laptop.
I checked the camera - indeed it could not read the SD card. In fact, it
insisted there was no card in the camera. I plugged the card into my
laptop (write-protected this time) and found that the files were still
on the card. However, they were still unrecognizable by any appropriate
app (see my post earlier in this thread).
I decided to take a new picture and transfer it to the SD card. The
picture would not transfer: no card in the camera (yes it is!).
I thought that maybe the camera's battery was too low to support both
its own internal RAM (there were now two pictures on internal RAM) and
the SD card. So charging the battery seemed the next logical step.
Stupidly, Kodak does not include a battery charger with the camera, even
though it comes with a rechargeable battery. The charger is considered
an accessory. But this camera came in a CostCo bundle with a
printer/dock. The dock will charge the camera. It's like the computer
world's biggest battery charger.
After placing the camera onto the dock, I was able to view all the pics
on the SD card. So, maybe the battery was the issue. I don't know yet
because I didn't have a new battery at the time.
Transferring Pictures to the Computer
I was not able to transfer pics directly from the camera (with SD card
installed) into the computer. I was able transfer all pictures (internal
and external) by using the dock's own USB port (with camera on dock). At
that point I stopped experimenting, so it may actually be possible to
transfer from camera to computer without the dock. I may have not tried
hard enough.
It appears that the pics are stored on the SD Memory card in a form that
is not understandable by most or any graphics apps. In fact, I also
tried reading the card in XP with whatever the built-in picture-reading
applet is that comes with XP, and that was a bust also - so it's not
Lame Linux but Krumby Kodak.
But using the demons living inside the Kodak dock and the import
function on the KDE Thumbnail Viewer app, the pictures were magically
transformed into human viewable images on the computer. It even imported
all the EXIF data for each pic.
BTW, Kodak's EasyShare System software seems to work just fine under
CrossOver Office, although I haven't actually tried to move live data
from the camera to the software yet. But since the distro-installed apps
in Fedora Core work, who needs it.
Next step is trying to print from the computer to the dock/printer. The
dock shows up as something like usblp0. Interesting how the dock can be
managed as both a USB storage device and a USB printer.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
--
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