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Nikon considers Linux support for its Digicams
Obscura writes "Recently I bought a Nikon Coolpix 950. When visiting the Nikontech Digital Camera Support Forum the admin mentioned that Nikon was considering official support for Linux and software for use with its digicams.
In a post he mentioned that they are watching the number of Linux related questions and requests for support.
" Hold your horses folks - I've got e-mail from the web master - it looks like the point has been made, and things taken a bit out of context- so no more posting, k?
Shied away from the olympus due to the whole smart media vs. compact flash deal
Does Linux have smart media support????
Thanx!
motjuste@briefcase.com
Wonderful UI, Great portraits, so so Macro but:
Objects at infinity are blury.
Seems to be a common problem.
Anyone know a fix?
motjuste@briefcase.com
Anyone get one of these to work w. linux???
www.sagelec.com will even sell you a computer w. the PCMCIA pre-installed
The nikon looks really cool but you may want to take a look at the Kodak DC265 too. I know most of the features favor Windblows but if you are going to do any printing, the flashpix format is by far the best IMHO (there is a photoshop plug-in). And transferring images by USB is much faster than crappy old serial.
Those digital cameras with the 3.5in floppy adapter work just fine under Linux. The snapshots show up as garden variety .JPG files on /dev/fd0. I actually prefer the floppy method because it works under M$, OS/2, Linux, BSD, BeOS, AmigaOS, MacOS,... you get the idea.
It would be cool to 'control' the camera with cron and do a time-lapse study of a pizza slice decaying.
How about using a Nikon digicam as a high quality web cam?
There are a lot of things that could be supported beyond just getting pictures off the CF card.
-- Obscura
I want support for F5 and their scanners.
Digital in 24x36 or smaller is not ready for me yet.
Actually, it's nice news, in that it promises formal support, but there's already pretty good support for the Nikons under linux. See http://www.average.org/digicam/ or download the photopc software from ftp://ftp.average.org/pub/photopc/. It works great with my nikon 700, which is the smaller brother of the 9xx series. I did try gphoto, which seems to be partly built on the photopc software, but it was a bit too buggy for me. (Crashed a lot, and it doesn't seem to show which pictures you've selected.) Photopc + gqview works just fine for sucking down the photos and displaying them.
It was certainly a hell of a lot easier to install than nikon's windows software =). More powerful too.
I like to see as many companies as possible support Linux (and even better open protocol/technical specs), but in the case of the Coolpix 900/950 it seems like getting a Linux application is just HALF the battle. Where does someone relibably get the camera itself?! I have yet to find a store that is keeping these things in stock for over 48 hours.
It would be nice but I've got an old 486 running windows on my home network for just such purposes. Using VNC I don't even have to turn on the monitor!
I would however definitely consider a Coolpix 900 as I have heard they have great image quality! My home-porn pictures of me and the wife will turn out much better that way!
;)
I ordered one from this place out of new york and got it in 5 days...
I appreciate that the bulk of the Linux users posted the comments and requests in the new area created for "unsupported operating systems". Please do not post Linux requests in the general support area on the Nikontechusa.com forum areas.
With Best regards,
Webmaster
Nikontechusa.com
Why not just download the pictures from the web server that will run on this embeded linux product?
Since Linux supports Compact Flash Cards, and the Nikon uses Compact Flash Cards......
What more do you need, except the Gimp????
Serious question, considering upgrading my Kodak DC210 Plus to Nikon.....
motjuste@briefcase.com
You know what to do!
What? Spam another support site, to convince them that Linux users are a bunch of nice guys who they really want as customers?
Do these mail-bomb campaigns really represent a forward-looking attitude for Linux? Or does it make the whole community seem like a bunch of thugs?
It'll only harm Linux when vendors get a lot of feedback to support a product, and when they OD support it, no one buys it. That's crappy.
Before you request support for Linux, ask yourself whether you have or are going to have a digicamera. If not, then don't request for support. If you do so w/o having a sincere need for Linux support you only:
1) hurt Linux,
2) hurt Nikon's businesses.
Nikon and other individuals (companies should be consider individuals, too) have a genuine and sincere interest in supporting those platforms where there will be a healthy profit margin. If these people are misled to believe that there is a profit, they would most likely resent having spent time and money investing on lies.
I think is it irresponsible, stupid and childlish to ask other people to request support for x or y just because one uses Linux. C'mon, guys. By doing so you are playing with someone else's money and property. That's not the right thing to do. If there is to be support for applications and devices on Linux, it should come out of genuine customer need. That's the only way to obtain healthy and lasting support for Linux.
So says the leader:)
Luis Espinal
http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~lespin03
I've got a CoolPix 900; it's a nice camera (it works relatively well in low-light). The thing already works with my Linux box - there's a program called 'photopc' that grabs images from it over the serial line. It dosen't work with my Windows box; I installed their driver but it crashes whenever it tries to talk to the camera. Strange that it works better on a system for which there is no official support than on a system for which there is official support.
If only I could get one! I ordered one from buy.com in February (!) and still haven't received it. My next purchase probably won't be a Nikon, who seems to chronically screw production up. I had a similar problem trying to order a 900S.
Well, I'm sure that's part of it, but from what I've read, very few cameras have been shipped to any of the big web discount sites. I think Nikon has just had big problems meeting demand.
Posted by Mojoski:
We should just ask them to contribute to the Nikon module for GPhoto. It's a great app and writing simple camera specific driver modules for new camera support is the way it was designed. Then they could have automatic support built into the eventual GNOME desktop.
So mention www.GPhoto.org in your email.
Not that SANE is perfect, but it is a better standard then our other options.
From my recolection of the SANE mailing list, Nikon will give your the information you need to write SANE drivers that you can disktribute. (You can't distribute the information they give you however, only the source you write from that)
>what is the best digital camera out there anyway
It really depends on your needs. There's megapixel cameras for ~$300 that are pretty nice, some of which were reviewed in PC Magazine. But then what they find best might not be best for you, depending how important things like storage medium type, time between shots, transfer mechanism, etc. matter to you. A two megapixel camera may be great, but if you're taking pictures for a web site, it's overkill.
My recommendation? Figure out what's important to you, and then look for magazine and on-line reviews. The reviews will help judge image quality as well as describing the feature sets of the individual cameras.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Actually, I've been thinking about getting a
digital camera, and have been worried about
Linux compatibility... ideally, I'd hook it
up to my Alpha over serial, parallel, or
via something that hooks in via SCSI (although
I doubt such things exist)... less ideally,
I'd hook it into my PPro200 (also lacks USB) via
the same means... Anyone know of the
equiv of
http://www.guug.de:8080/cgi-bin/winni/lsc.pl
for digital cameras on Linux? Is anyone working
on a Digital Camera HOWTO?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
This particular camera doesn't do video anyway, unless directly plugged into the PC already. It's not very handy, though still photo quality is great. (A good friend has one... I'm just a little bit jealous :)
-luge
IAAL,BIANLY
... someone makes a linux based digital camera than has 10baseT/DHCP that you can just ftp your pictures from?
support gun control: take guns from cops
I agree - I'm very pleased with my Coolpix900, provided you have enough light and regular access to a battery charger!
Treat it like a 64-100 ASA film camera and the images are superb.
Photopc works slowly but without a hitch, and I especially like the -f 3 option to name all the JPEG files based on the time and date of the shot. Then if I crop or rotate them, I still have the timestamp even though the file time may have changed.
Well, I love my 950. It was an early bday present from my gf. I was a little put off at first that I had to use the included software with it and boot into Win95. Then I did some digging and came across links to gphoto, photopc, and phototk. It was then that I learned of the 900 and 900S support. I figured that the 950 can't be too different and that the serial reading software for linux/bsd/whatever would work for the 950. Out of the gate it didn't work. ./configure; make; make install; etc... I had to look at what was going on and see if I was messing something up in the process. Well, it turned out that I could get the images but only in a certain manner. I know this now and if I get the right cable made I am going to try to contribute to the serial sniffing operation to reverse engineer the protocol used by the 950. I am really happy with the camera. A friend of mine has the Olympus equivalent of the 950 and has had great success with photopc. He is a command line kinda guy anyways :) Also, I think the best way to show Nikon that you feel Linux should be supported is to register with that in the comments section when you buy the camera. There is a web site for registration for ALL Nikon products. Put your money where your mouth is if you really want it. Nikon is a company and will support its customers if it can make more sales. Just let them know you would like to use Linux products vs. Win95 products since dual booting can be a pain. ;)
"You cannot uncook Mushoo pork once is has been cooked" -- wiseman
http://fudge.org
I posted under the Nikon 950 forum, since they only let you post under an exisitng forum, and there weren't any Misc forums that I could see.
/. 'em!
==============================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
Actually the parallel port card reader I have from Lexar Media is fast enough for any of my applications on Windows - it takes about 1 or 2 minutes to download a whole 64 MB card. It'd be nice to be able to read that in through Linux, though.
I think SmartMedia is actually a better design than CompactFlash. CompactFlash has pin-based connectors and carries a lot of electronics. SmartMedia cards have flat gold connectors (like smart cards) that don't get bent and don't trap dirt and are very easy to insert/remove. Te cards contain essentially just the storage and no extra electronics. SmartMedia cards are very thin and somewhat flexible. While individual SmartMedia cards are always a little behind CompactFlash in terms of capacity, their storage density seems higher, and it's easy to carry a whole bunch of them.
While both SmartMedia and CompactFlash are usable, I actually prefer cameras that use SmartMedia.
I have been using a D-600L (and lately a C-2000Z) from Olympus with my Linux machine for a year and a half. I go directly from SmartMedia to the GIMP, no drivers or anything required, and the SmartMedia cards are easier to remove/insert than a floppy.
Hopefully Nikon makes a Video for Linux driver for their camera. It's nice to have all the devices under a single device. This is the way Windows does it and (I'm sorry I have to admit this ;)), I think that was one of the best aspects of Windows.
As well, it lets me run my QuickCam as a TV input device rather than requiring specific software to run the capture program.
æeee!
Look at the Nikon page. "High speed continuous shooting of up to 2 frames per second." "Aperture and Shutter Priority exposure modes for creative control." There's also a link on the page for more detailed specifications.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I ordered one from buy.com
I think this is the true reason you haven't gotten it yet.
The Nikon CoolPix 950 was the highest rated camera by both Consumer Reports and PC Week, in their consumer clsses of camera. There are better cameras... but they are professional and costs thousands of dollars. The CoolPix 950 is around $900. It is a megapixel camera that has a maximum resolution of 1600x1200x24bits.
--
--
"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
That's my laptop recognizing the 48 MB flash card that I pulled out of the camera. The camera formats it with vfat, so a simple "mount -t vfat /dev/hde1 /flash" gives me access to all the photos from the camera,
On the other hand, if you don't have a laptop, you are screwed. The raw TIFFs that it takes are 5.5 MB... the highest quality JPEGs around 800K. The flash cards can be hooked up to a flash card reader, either USB (no dice, under linux) or Parrallel (slooooooooooowwww, if it's supported at all). Or, of course, you can hook a serial line into the camera... but I don't think that is supported under linux... not to mention how slow it is.
So if Nikon wants to give us drivers to use the serial line, I say: no thanks... serial lines suck anyway. Help finish USB support!
--
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"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
I have a D600-L and it's a great camera, but Nikon is supposed to be releasing an interchangeable-lens digital SLR based on the very nice F100 (which I also own), and priced at something reasonable for a serious amateur. See http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng /news/dsc99-e_99.htm. Imagine this will Linux support (though I agree with those who say that if you have no intention of buying one, don't ask for it).
Mark Scheuern
SANE support would be kludgy. www.gphoto.org is a better place for the driver (if not both) since it was designed for digital cameras in the first place.
Phill
I have spoken to Nikon as part of gPhoto and have
a few leads on developing a driver for them. Please mention gPhoto if you mail then.
I have been sent a form to fill in to get the full details of the Nikon cameras by their European technical office manager. It claims that it'll take 4-6 week for Nikon Japan to review it and release details so we at gPhoto can write the driver fully (Apparently gPhoto will already do some of the stuff needed).
On a related note Konica are already writing a GPL driver for Linux based on some of the work included in gPhoto for the Q-MX00 series. They are currently the most Linux friendly company (at present only my gPhoto code is available, theirs will replace it in due course).
Phill
phill@gnu.org
For use under Linux, photopc works. It uses the serial port, which is kind of painful, but it works. You can take the pictures at standard resolution, which produces ~260k jpeg images. You can do the math how long you'll be waiting around.
For serious use, though, a CompactFlash Memory reader is crucial. I have one for my Mac, but it would be great to have it on one of the Linux boxes. That would put everything in one place!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Hmm, I've always had really good luck with buy.com - when they say an item is in-stock, it always is and ships the next day. UPS has a distrubution center at O'Hare and as I live in the Chicago 'burbs, and buy.com has a warehouse in streamwood, I usually get next-day delivery (at regular ground rates!).
Sometimes they ship an item out of a warehouse in California and then it takes about a week, but that is ok.
The only time I've ever had a 'problem' was when I ordered RH6 the day it was released and it didn't ship for 5 days and then UPS 'lost' it for another week. Other than that, I've ordered all kinds of stuff from monitors to ethernet cards and have always been pleased with the quick turn-around.
Now, if you order an item that is out-of-stock...
I think I'll stick with my Sony Mavica....
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
In response to all of the Linux email, they have created a new forum for unsupported operating systems. You have to click on "options" to get to it.
yep. buy an Olympus -- they make much better digital cameras. They're the only SLR digital cameras I know that don't cost $15K+. I have a 620L and it kicks ass. 3x Zoom, 1280x1024 resolution, and a five frame memory buffer means you can take 3.3 shots/sec! sure beats waiting for those Mavicas to write to floppy! certainly my choice ok hardware for putting images on the web.
sure, it's great to get as much hardware support for Linux as possible but if it came down to lobbying for a particular camera -- why not "a sk olympus" for a little linux support?
--
Rare Window - free your photos
I personally think that the lack of an infrastructure like /dev makes windows seem a lot like a giant bag of features.
It shouldn't be too hard for them to adapt to that
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Thats great for Linux, but what is the best digital camera out there anyway (price, Hi res, good color..)? I would love to see some of them get Linux support too.
But this is a step in the right direction.
With just three weeks to go to my purchase of two digital cameras, this is another big plus in their column if they do announce linux drivers. I do too much work in linux, so not having to switch to micros~1 just to import pics then transfer them to ext2fs for processing would be nice.
/.ers, which is the best of the recent crop of mega-pixel cameras for the following two features:
A question for
time between two pictures (I would like to snap 8 to 10 shots rapidly like a high-end 35mm with autodrive)
manual override of all features (I need to do some specific things like long exposures or a specific focus waiting for an event)
If I have to go out and buy some professional quality camera it will put a big dent in my savings for the summer, so I'm looking at some off the shelf things like this, especially if I can control it from linux.
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Yeah just came in a couple days ago, it works with gphoto. I mean official support would kick ass, but they have stuck to the 'photo-PC' transfer method so it works with ghpoto.
I have a 950. no mac. no doze. got linux. got gphoto. Just call it a 900s and it works great (although download over a serial port does take a while ;P)
(P.S.- I 'verified' that it worked with www.gphoto.org, but they put me up as verifying a 900s, don't worry the 950 WORKS!!!)