[Techtalk] Recommendations for digital cameras

[Mary]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2005, Dan wrote:
> If you own a digital camera and you use it with Linux, I'm interested in
> knowing what brand/model it is and how easy it is to plug into your
> system. I'm also interested in what you think about the camera in
> general.

I have an earlier model of Sony DSC. It works great with Linux, and
stores files in JPG format.

> Is it true that many cameras today use USB memory sticks, and thus are
> compatible with Linux?

It's more true to say that most cameras, in addition to having a
removable memory card that Linux usually can't read, have a USB dongle
that connects the camera (with the memory card still in the camera)
directly to a computer. Generally, the camera presents what I gather is
a pretty standard USB filesystem (usually VFAT format, which Linux can
read and write) to the computer. To the computer it looks much like a
USB memory stick would, but it is not actually literally a memory stick,
it's an entire camera mimicing a memory stick.

This has been the case for some years now. The big thing to watch out
for is the odd manufacturer who use a custom file format. Almost all use
JPG or TIFF, which is fine. Manufacturer's custom file formats are often
heavily locked down and Linux programs may not be able to read them. But
it seems the bulk of digital cameras work as well with Linux as they do
with any other operating system.

-Mary