[lug] Linux Compatible Webcam

[Ed Hill]

On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 13:00 -0600, Daniel Webb wrote:
> > 
> > If you have the time, could you please hook up your Powershot A75 to a
> > Linux machine via USB and see if it will indeed take take photos with
> > gPhoto2?  And then perhaps send us a quick summary?  I'd like to find a
> > newer, faster, and higher-res camera that has that capability.
> 
> Well, this is probably too late to be any help, but I finally (!) found
> my lost USB cable for this camera and tested this out.  I can barely get
> gphoto2/gtkam to download pictures (it has to be loaded at a precise
> time after the USB cable is plugged in or it doesn't see the camera).
> Trying to use image capture hangs gtkam, and gphoto2 gives a nondescript
> error message.  In general, my impression of Linux photo support is not
> much better than my impression of Linux audio and video support, but
> maybe I'm just unlucky.

Hi Daniel,

Well, thats unfortunate.

While you were trying, did you get any indication whether you were using
the PTP or non-PTP mode?  Did you try both?  The reason I ask is that
your model supposedly supports both a "native" (or non-PTP driver)
along with a PTP mode driver:

  gphoto2 --list-cameras | grep 'PowerShot A75'
        "Canon PowerShot A75"
        "Canon PowerShot A75 (PTP mode)"

The former is supposed to provide capture capabilities in addition to
downloads, etc. as reported by:

  gphoto2 -a --camera='Canon PowerShot A75 (PTP mode)'

and the latter supposedly provides downloads, uploads, and some other
capabilities:

  gphoto2 -a --camera='Canon PowerShot A75'

So its possible that you only tested the inferior of the two available
drivers for that model.  But then, I'm an optimist.  ;-)

Ed

ps - You may have to go into the camera's configuration menu to 
     turn on/off the PTP support.

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
office:  MIT Dept. of EAPS;  Rm 54-1424;  77 Massachusetts Ave.
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