Monday, 8 November 2004

JDS: Linux & Sony DSC-V1/W1 Digital Camera

summary:



switch the camera in USB PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) mode and then run

"gtkam" application



1) Setup the camera to enable PTP by default



i) unplug USB cables (if any) from camera

ii) turn the dial to "setup"

iii) using arrow keys navigate to USB connect & set the mode to

"PTP" ("normal" is the default)

iv) exit the setup

Quick test:

i) plug-in the USB cable from Camera to computer

ii) turn on the camera <= it should read "USB Mode - PTP". If it shows

"USB Mode - Normal", we have to go back to step (1) and enable

PTP



2) Run "gtkam" on Linux machine



i) Install the latest versions of libgphoto2, gPhoto2, and gtkam on

your machine, if not installed already. JDS install gtkam &

the dependencies (libraries) by default, unless you choose

not to install during installation of OS



URL for gtkam, gPhoto2 & libgphoto2: http://www.gphoto.org/download/



ii) Run "gtkam" by typing gtkam& in a terminal window and go to the

Camera -> Add Camera. Select "Sony DSC-V1" or "Sony DSC-W1"

camera from the list of cameras and press OK



iii) It should quickly initialize the camera and then add it to the

camera listing on the left in the main window of gtkam. Browse

through the tree of the camera and select any folders that you

have setup on the camera



iv) You can right click on any picture or movie and select Save or select

multiple pictures and movies and goto the File menu and select

Save selected Photos or use Ctrl+S as a shortcut to save the

photos and movies to your hard drive



v) Play with options "Save photos, Save raw data, Save audio data,

Save thumbnails, & Save EXIF data" and choose the format in

which you want to save the data from Camera



3) Other recommended softwares



Probably want to add many more things to your Linux system to deal with all of

the data you will downloading from your camera. Following are some of the

recommended softwares:



* Eye of Gnome image viewer for looking at all of your photos

URL: http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/eog.shtml



* GIMP image editing software to edit and manipulate all of your photos

(e.g. remove blemishes, take out red eye, etc.,)

URL: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/



** Red Eye Removal tutorial for GIMP

URL: http://www.gimp.org/





** EXIF Browser Plug-in for GIMP so that you can view all of the

important information stored in your photos (e.g. date,

time, resolution, camera settings, etc.). This will need

the libexif library to be install as well



EXIF Browser Plug-in: http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=4153

libexif library: http://sourceforge.net/projects/libexif



* jhead is a console utility that will allow you to view all of the detailed

EXIF information saved to your photos by the camera

URL: http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/



* MPlayer to play any of the movies created with your camera. This will need

a few things to be installed first: among other things are the LAME

libraries



MPlayer: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html

LAME libraries: http://lame.sourceforge.net/download/download.html



Acknowledgements:

John Wyles

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