System Upgrade - Canon Digital Rebel Camera Software

System Upgrade - Canon Digital Rebel Camera Software
January 18, 2007

I had the camera a few years before trying to install the software.

As usual ... there were issues and extremely poor help.

Software Installation

I tried to install all the applications on the CD ...

The PhotoStitch installation hung ... it showed not responding in task manager

Using the Windows Task Manager (Alt-Ctrl-Del), I aborted the hung installer, sent the error to Microsoft, and the other applications automatically installed with no more issues.

When running ZoomBrowser EX, the software reported that it could not find a camera. The error message was cryptic at best.

No camera was found

Camera Error.
Check the lens cover and the cable connections, then reconnect.

Attempts to find an answer in the help and online failed ... at first. Eventually, the built-in help said

Your camera is not in the correct mode (refer to your camera manual for assistance).

BTW, the Lens Cover has no effect on *connecting* to the camera ... but it will stop the camera from taking a picture.

Making it Work

This was the trick - weakly documented only in the Software Manual. On the camera, there are 2 configuration menus. Under the second menu, Communication has 2 settings

Normal - required for the software to work
PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) - the default on my camera

PTP allows Windows XP to connect to the camera without first installing any software. It is likely that this was not the factory default ... but something I set some time ago ... I just don't know for sure.

Either way, with Communication set to PTP, my Windows XP system was able to copy images from the camera using Windows Explorer before I loaded the extra software. After the software was loaded, and the option was changed to Normal, Windows XP can still be used to copy files.

To help trouble shoot the problem

If the camera is connected to the system in PTP mode, the display on the back of the camera will flash Busy.
If the camera is in Normal mode, it does NOT flash Busy.

Remote Capture

This is the main feature I wanted.

Once it was working, I was able to use the computer to take images - most of the time per image was spent downloading the images to the computer.

Mode	File Size	File Type	Time		Resolution
Large/Fine	1,600 KB	jpg	18 sec	x sec	3072x2048 (6.3 MB)
Large/Normal	715 KB	jpg	10 sec	x sec	3072x2048 (6.3 MB)
Medium/Fine	780 KB	jpg	10 sec	x sec	2048x1360 (2.8 MB)
Medium/Normal	360 KB	jpg	6 sec	x sec	2048x1360 (2.8 MB)
Small/Fine	400 KB	jpg	7 sec	x sec	1536x1024 (1.5 MB)
Small/Normal	230 KB	jpg	5 sec	x sec	1536x1024 (1.5 MB)
RAW	5,000 KB	crw/thm	43 sec	72 sec	3072x2048 (6.3 MB)

The files sizes are approximate and very depending on the compression.

Basically, except for the slow download times, this is a great piece of software.

This is also the application used to take time lapsed (repeated) images ... just be sure to allow enough time for one image to download before taking another.

About half the time, when I try to shut down ZoomBrowser EX, it complains that Remote Capture is still running ... even though there is no sign that it is. Turning off the camera seems to remove this error / warning.

There are 2 Time columns in the above table - my laptop has 2 USB 2.0 ports. That's right, the download speed depends on which port I use.

Author: Robert Clemenzi - clemenzi@cpcug.org