Why won't my Macbook recognize my Canon S3 IS as a device?

July 15, 2008 2:22 PM

Trying and failing to transfer photos from camera to laptop - why won't my Macbook recognize my Canon S3 IS as a device?

Sorry to ask such a newb question.

I made the switch to Mac only a week ago (refurb Macbook Pro 15", OSX 10.5.4) then immediately went on a week's vacation. So here I am with a camera full of pics, but when I connect the camera to the laptop via USB, nothing happens. No prompt, no recognition of a new device. I've tried adjusting the camera between shoot and playback modes, nothing happens.

Being new to Macs, I'm not 100% sure what's even supposed to happen.

The camera is, however, displaying a blinking yellow light that I've never seen before. Also, I'm using my girlfriend's camera/USB cable which dates back to 2004. Could the cable be the problem?

I'm pretty hardware clueless, unfortunately. Any ideas?

posted by deern the headlice to technology (6 comments total)

Generally what happens when you plug a camera into a Mac is that it opens iPhoto and asks you if you want to import the images.

You may want to try running it and see if it recognizes that your camera is attached.

My Canon SLR won't mount on any PC even if it's on unless I actually hit the auto-focus or something to take the camera out of standby, but it sounds like you have already tried something like that.

Are you shooting in RAW? When I first got my camera and attached it to an older version of OSX, iPhoto didn't recognize the RAW files and I had to install the software that came with the camera (Digital Photo Professional) which was a good thing, because it works, in my opinion, much better than iPhoto.

It's unlikely to be an issue with the USB cable if it works properly with any other devices.
posted by quin at 2:36 PM on July 15

You should open the Image Capture utility, which is in the Applications folder. Once it's open, it should detect your camera. If it says "No Image Capture device connected," then it's not picking up the fact that there is a camera on the other end.

In the Image Capture preferences, you can set the default behavior when a camera is connected. If you want it to open iPhoto, go to the Image Capture menu, choose Preferences..., and then, in the popup menu, choose iPhoto.

If Image Capture has iPhoto set up to open when you connect a camera, and it does not indicate a camera is connected, you can open the System Profiler application (Apple Menu > About This Mac, then press the "More info..." button) and see what is listed in the USB tab. If your camera is not there, there's a problem with the USB connection--either the camera, the Macbook, or the cable.
posted by brianogilvie at 2:55 PM on July 15

You might try a different cable. Hey it never hurts to make sure.
Try a different USB port.
Does your girlfriend's camera do anything when it's plugged in?
Try using a memory card reader, and see if the problem is with your card and not your camera. Most pro photogs won't connect their camera directly to their computer, just in case anything should happen. Again, it never hurts to make sure....
Make sure your software is up to date: Go up to the Apple logo menu in the top left corner of the screen and click on "Software Update". Let it do its thing, and it will tell you whether it's up to date or not.
Honestly, without seeing the problem myself, that's all I can recommend
Good luck
posted by photomusic86 at 3:05 PM on July 15

Ditto what folks have said about double-checking the cable, checking to make sure something is getting read in the System Profiler, checking about shooting in RAW (I don't know too much about it but I think Canon uses a type of RAW that Apple seems to support in a rather shoddy fashion...at least in my experience). As quin said, you should have some sort of application (iPhoto by default unless you've changed the default application and/or the behavior, which it sounds like you wouldn't have) start up automatically when you plug in the camera if your system recognizes it (although I can't imagine shooting in RAW would prevent this from happening...most likely it would start up and THEN complain about it if it couldn't read the files).

Just why your machine isn't picking up on the thing, I don't know--it's possible that iPhoto is not compatible with the S3, although I'd be surprised. Here is the Apple document that purportedly should get you going if all is well. The dPreview review says it should work, by implication (search for 'iPhoto' within the text to see what I mean).

So you know, to the best of my knowledge Canons are not mountable as drives. I believe this is something they do in the firmware, or perhaps the OS manufacturers are complicit (I couldn't figure it out with a few easy Google searches and I'm too lazy to figure out how to give you the authoritative answer right now). BUT, I do know that every Canon I've ever used has NOT allowed me to mount it as a drive.

So, here's what I would try if I were you:

1) Buy an external card reader as photomusic86 suggested. Multi-card readers are cheap as hell, can read tons of card formats, and will let you mount as a drive. In my experience Canon never has any sort of bizarre filesystem so it's not hard to drag and drop the images onto your desktop or other folder, if that works for you. Then you can bypass the whole issue.

2) Get the official, lame-o Canon software. This stuff is truly abysmal, in my opinion, and must have been (semi-) designed by a dopey teenager to earn extra Manga-money, coded by a hundred retarded macaques in Visual Basic and then ported to Objective C by slave labor in India (where it was also translated to Engrish).

Uh...yeah. Point being, you can probably get the Canon software you need for your camera here:

Canon S3 IS

Click on the "downloads" tab.

According to some people (who I can obviously not vouch for), if your camera works with the Canon software it should work with the iPhoto software. Hmm.

3) If you are willing to throw a little money down (or, not that I am advocating this, but you could get it some OTHER way wink wink nudge nudge) get Lightroom, or maybe Aperture (I've had some bad experiences with Aperture and Canon compatibility so I'd recommend Lightroom first). Those should work too, and are actually pleasant to work with compared to iPhoto and the Canon garbage, IMHO. But there's not much point in this until you can verify that your camera is read by your computer in the first place, I guess...

Good luck!
posted by dubitable at 6:37 PM on July 15

Your camera should definitely work with iPhoto. It won't be picked up as a hard drive, just because Canons never are. But iPhoto should be able to pull the images off it, no problem.

Have you done all your software updates? Click the Apple in the top left, then Software Update. Always a good thing to do, just in case. Also, was this Macbook Pro factory reset? The previous owners could've changed some settings. Open Image Capture (in Applications) and in the Preferences menu, change the "When a camera is connected..." bit to whichever application you want.

Also, I really wouldn't install the Canon software except for as a last resort. You've got no need for it, and I wouldn't go filling your new system with junk unless you can help it.
posted by Magnakai at 12:58 AM on July 16

Thanks so much guys - I was not familiar with the Image Capture Utility, but sure enough I opened it and it found the camera! It has not been easy in a foreign country by myself, attempting to figure out Mac stuff on the fly for the first time. I appreciate all the input.
posted by deern the headlice at 2:48 PM on July 16