digital SLRs and linux

karag · 2007-10-08 08:29:05

Hi all-
I'm about to get a canon eos 400d (rebel xti in us) and want to ask some questions....
I read that this camera does not operate as mass storage device, so am I right to think that only way to transfer files is to use gphoto?
second, I want to ask about shooting in RAW. does anyone have experience of using open source tools like dcraw? what about the ufraw plugin for gimp?
I would appreciate feedback and experience of using these programmes, and also general thoughts on the advantages of shooting in RAW.
thankyou!

freigeist · 2007-10-08 09:49:05

karag wrote:

Hi all-
I'm about to get a canon eos 400d (rebel xti in us) and want to ask some questions....
I read that this camera does not operate as mass storage device, so am I right to think that only way to transfer files is to use gphoto?
second, I want to ask about shooting in RAW. does anyone have experience of using open source tools like dcraw? what about the ufraw plugin for gimp?
I would appreciate feedback and experience of using these programmes, and also general thoughts on the advantages of shooting in RAW.
thankyou!

Hi,
I have the eos 400d too and it's working with gthumb and f-spot out of the box (using PTP). I also take raw pictures quite often and use gimp-ufraw, rawstudio and rawtherapee (which I prefer, although all three work very good). I wrote a short article about rawtherapee on my blog. Please make sure you do a

chmod 555 /opt/RawTherapee/profiles/

after you installed the aur version.

Last edited by freigeist (2007-10-08 09:52:27)

Damnshock · 2007-10-09 00:15:11

I have the earlier verision of that camera (rebel XT/eos 350d) and it works pretty well under konqueror and digikam

ise · 2007-10-09 05:41:28

As already said from freigeist, my eos 400D runs perfectly under f-spot in PTP mode. For importing RAW pictures, I use gimp-ufraw. It runs without problems.

The general thoughts about the advantage of shooting RAW pictures should be better posted in a photo community forum

Maybe one point from me. The big advantage is that you have more possibilities to change colors and brightness and a lot more without loosing photo quality.

karag · 2007-10-09 19:06:27

thanks a lot for your replies
at least I know I can use this camera with linux, even to do raw image processing.
As far as the value of raw goes, yes it is more a specific DSLR topic....
but if you have the choice, then shooting in jpeg is more like ripping a cd into mp3 then throwing the disc away! of course, it is easy to get the cd again if you want to rip in another format/higher bitrate but you can't go back and shoot those precious memories again.
well maybe it's not such a good metaphor, but you get the idea...

philefou · 2008-05-23 15:17:51

I made a little bash program to transform RAW pictures to jpeg using dcraw and cjpeg (libjpeg)... Feel free to modify what you want. Works pretty fine but could be change depending what options from dcraw you want to use...

-------------------------------------------------

tempsi=$(date +%s)
photos=(`ls *.NEF | cut -d. -f1`)
echo "Conversion of ${#photos[@]} pictures."
COUNTER=1
for file in "${photos[@]}"
do
echo "Now converting: ${file}.NEF ($COUNTER/${#photos[@]})"
dcraw -cwa ${file}.NEF | cjpeg -quality 90 > ${file}.jpg
let COUNTER+=1
done
tempsf=$(date +%s)
echo "Execution time of: $((tempsf - tempsi)) seconds."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Just have to run it from a folder with RAW files. I use a Nikon camera so it's NEF files. For those who use a Canon camera just change the extension name.

ornitorrincos · 2008-05-23 18:31:52

just for curiosity, why do you convert the photos with a script?, I mean, I shoot in raw because in that way I have more control over the resulting image, what's the benefit of shooting in raw if you're going to do some bulk processing at the end?, unless your camera generates really bad JPEGs, in that case, I understand you.

philefou · 2008-05-24 14:49:53

I shoot only in raw and when I get back home generates theses Jpegs. When I want to modify a couple of ones I still have thoses RAW files from my camera. I don't like to shoot in RAW+Jpegs because it's a little bit slow and take more memory..

11010010110 · 2008-05-24 16:42:20

I prefer cameras that are just mass storage

Why ? imo its important to be able to stick it into any box without config and be able to download the pics or (best) use it as mass storage

If you bought a camera and cant make it work get a cheap card reader and you'll be ok

Arch Linux

#1 2007-10-08 08:29:05

digital SLRs and linux

#2 2007-10-08 09:49:05

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#3 2007-10-09 00:15:11

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#4 2007-10-09 05:41:28

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#5 2007-10-09 19:06:27

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#6 2008-05-23 15:17:51

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#7 2008-05-23 18:31:52

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#8 2008-05-24 14:49:53

Re: digital SLRs and linux

#9 2008-05-24 16:42:20

Re: digital SLRs and linux

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