F30 OS X mounted volume

[MindBender]

Just got my F30 delivered ( yay! ). I was wondering if anyone else has tried setting this up on OS X ( Tiger 10.4.7 ). I want to have the camera mount as a volume when I plug it in with the USB port on the side... but it doesn't seem to want to do so. I tried installing their finepix software, but it just loaded that instead. I don't see a need for their preview application since all I want is to be able to offload the files quickly by copying the folder to my hard drive. I mounted the xD card with a card reader and it worked fine like that... but the card reader isn't always available so I was hoping to just use the USB cable.

So far I'm liking the camera. Not sure why there were complaints about undersaturated images, the color seems fine to me. If you switch to f-chrome it's even more saturated. I took some shots at night in what I would call "pitch black". Set the ISO to 800, 1600, and 3200 and different shutter settings from a second up to 15 seconds. Some of the photos I got out were pretty cool... looked like dusk, I could make out all the details of the yard and the big hill behind the house and the farm next door... stuff I couldn't see with the naked eye. Pretty good job for a P&S camera. I'm pretty impressed so far. :) I'll try to post something when I have something worth posting. The focussing noise (audio noise, not image noise) is a little higher than I've heard on other cameras, but apparently this is normal for the F10/F11/F30 ( Anyone else confirm this? ). Not horrible, just noticable in a quiet room or outdoors at night.

Anyway, first impressions are good, just wish I could connect directly as a mounted volume on OS X. Any advice would be helpful. I'm pretty technically inclined, but with a USB device, it's usually just that it works or it doesn't as far as connecting... so hopefully I'm just missing some setting I haven't noticed.

:)

[coldrain]

Most digital cameras do not mount as drive on either Mac OS X or Windows XP. For that the camera needs to pose as a drive, and most camera manufacturers do not want to do that.

So, the cameras connect via USB via a protocol that is standard. You can either put the card into a card read which WILL pose as a drive (as you noticed), you can use the Fuji supplied software, or you can use Mac OS X's Image Capture, which you can make start up automatically when you connect the camera, and then have it copy all photos to a by you designated folder.

[MindBender]

Most digital cameras do not mount as drive on either Mac OS X or Windows XP.

How weak. I've always done it this way, which is why I was looking for this feature. I wonder when camera manufaturers stopped mounting the volumes... seems like a logical way to access the device, unless you're dealing with RAW... which most P&S aren't. bleah. Oh well... if anyone knows of any kluge to make it work, I'd still love to hear about it.

Thanks for the quick reply CR.

[Zee]

I just did it with Win XP I don't know about Mac as I have never used one but it seems that it would. All I did was plug in the USB cable to the camera and my comp without installing the provided fuji software and turned the camera on. Windows pops up asking what I want to do with the camera. All I do is go to my computer and Finepix F30 shows up under scanners and cameras. By the way I use Picasa2 to download my pictures and organize them, however I wish there was a way to have it automatically open up and download my pictures when I connect the camera.

[coldrain]

Just use Mac OS X's Image Capture, you will find that its "Download all" option works really fast, well, easy and unobtrusive. And with the added bonus that your photos will show up with custom icons showing the photo itself, something you will not have when you just copy the photos of a card yourself.

[MindBender]

I just did it with Win XP I don't know about Mac as I have never used one but it seems that it would. All I did was plug in the USB cable to the camera and my comp without installing the provided fuji software and turned the camera on.

Yeah... XP seems to deal with it as a camera in the "my computer" list okay. Don't know about earlier versions though.

however I wish there was a way to have it automatically open up and download my pictures when I connect the camera.

This is the default behavior on OS X... which I wish it wouldn't do actually. I hate having to use a program with any of it's quirks just to download things off of what should, and has in the past, worked as a drive. Since I'm planning on just importing any of the shots I like into Photoshop anyway... I don't want to play application tag to get stuff and I like to organize as I go by just dragging and dropping. For you though, can't you just set the default device behavior of the camera connection to load your application and then when it's loaded have it automatically download to a set location? I believe you can, but I'd have to try it to get the exact procedure.

Just use Mac OS X's Image Capture, you will find that its "Download all" option works really fast, well, easy and unobtrusive.

Like I said, I don't like having to load anything to deal with something that, in the past, I could treat as it was... a removable media. All programs have their own quirks too... just makes things more complex. IC likes to make changes to the meta data of files also. The images aren't affected, but it's irritating.

And with the added bonus that your photos will show up with custom icons showing the photo itself, something you will not have when you just copy the photos of a card yourself.

I just keep the photo directories set to "show image previews" and limit it to "this window only" in the views... never had a problem. Usually, though, I'd rather know what app the file is assigned to by default so I don't go accidentally opening Photoshop when I double click and only want to use Preview or something.

Oh well... I think I've got a media card reader for this computer and I'll make do on others. :/

[tsawyer]

Just use Mac OS X's Image Capture, you will find that its "Download all" option works really fast, well, easy and unobtrusive. And with the added bonus that your photos will show up with custom icons showing the photo itself, something you will not have when you just copy the photos of a card yourself.

There might be a problem with OS X Image Capture and the F30. I'm getting corrupted pictures on two different cameras with two different memory cards. I'm starting to think that when image capture erases the camera images it corrupts the memory card causing subsequently recored images to get trashed.

[MindBender]

Some of the newer xD media specifically states to only use the camera to format the card... it might be that image capture is doing something like a format to clear the card. Try reformatting the card using the camera and see if that helps. I didn't have any problem downloading the pictures with image capture, but I didn't use the auto delete function ( I hate not having control over procedures ) and I don't care for auto-downloaders. I've heard that Olympus cameras get freaked out if you do file maintenence ouside of the camera (shortsighted IMO) so I wouldn't put it past Fuji to have similar issues due to using the same card format.

There has to be a way to get the stupid thing to mount as a drive... maybe there is 3rd party software somewhere.

[tsawyer]

Some of the newer xD media specifically states to only use the camera to format the card... it might be that image capture is doing something like a format to clear the card. Try reformatting the card using the camera and see if that helps. I didn't have any problem downloading the pictures with image capture, but I didn't use the auto delete function ( I hate not having control over procedures ) and I don't care for auto-downloaders. I've heard that Olympus cameras get freaked out if you do file maintenence ouside of the camera (shortsighted IMO) so I wouldn't put it past Fuji to have similar issues due to using the same card format.

Yep, that seems to be the problem. Ever since I started formating the card in the camera rather than letting image capture erase the pictures I've not had a problem.

Sorry to hijack your thread. I hope you can find a way to mount your F30.

[MindBender]

Sorry to hijack your thread. I hope you can find a way to mount your F30.

Heh. No problem. That's what forums are for... learning and discussion. Glad you got your issue resolved... or at least figured out. ;)