Canons to computers, no clue

I've got a Canon Rebel XTi and a PowerShot SD850 (both acquired in 2007). It seems there should be some way to hook them up to my computers (one XP, one Vista), and shoot with them, but I can't make it work.

I can get the Vista machine to see the cameras, and download their pictures. The XP machine won't show me the pictures on either camera, even though it tells me the name of each camera when they're hooked up.

I use EOS Utility, and "Set-up camera/Remote shooting" is greyed out. I use Zoombrowser, click "Acquire & camera settings", and "Connect to camera" and nothing happens. If I click "Acquire & camera settings", and "Connect to EOS camera" it sends me to EOS Utility, which is no help.

Can anyone give me a clue of what program I'm supposed to be using, or how to set my settings? Or something?

Thanks.

It is none of my business but can you tell us why you need this? Being tethered to a computer would be a major pain to me. Sorry not to answer your question, but it seems to add an unnecessary degree of difficulty
IainD

Mainly, I wanted to shoot from the lens side of the camera, so wanted to feed video to my laptop screen, so I could see what was in the viewfinder. Also, I was curious as to what other remote shooting features might be available.

floating_stump said:

I've got a Canon Rebel XTi and a PowerShot SD850 (both acquired in 2007). It seems there should be some way to hook them up to my computers (one XP, one Vista), and shoot with them, but I can't make it work.

I can get the Vista machine to see the cameras, and download their pictures. The XP machine won't show me the pictures on either camera, even though it tells me the name of each camera when they're hooked up.

I use EOS Utility, and "Set-up camera/Remote shooting" is greyed out. I use Zoombrowser, click "Acquire & camera settings", and "Connect to camera" and nothing happens. If I click "Acquire & camera settings", and "Connect to EOS camera" it sends me to EOS Utility, which is no help.

Can anyone give me a clue of what program I'm supposed to be using, or how to set my settings? Or something?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I never use the EOS utility because of just this kind of problem.

Might help to be sure the camera is hooked up and recognized before starting the software but this never works for me.

I instead use third party utilities for both my EOS and my Powershot and prefer them because I prefer the control methods and the interface but that is, of course, just a pretty individual thing.

I'm sure there are others out there but the website for breeze systems has downloadable demos that you can at least test your link with even if you don't buy the apps.
The one for the PowerShot is here,
http://www.breezesys.com/PSRemote/features.htm
and the one for the EOS is here,
http://www.breezesys.com/DSLRRemotePro/

Also, I don't know about the Vista OS but one problem you will have with XP is that it has a bug which makes it fail to properly automate the downoad of images (or start the STI app) if you set it to start a specific application to do so. You have to have it set to prompt you for the application each time at the connection of the camera. Otherwise it will detect the camera and do nothing with it. This ridiculously common problem (every XP computer I have ever set up for anyone) has never had a bugfix to my knowledge and I am not sure but somewhere along the line I've heard complaints from people using later OS's about the same issue.
If anyone knows of a fix for this I would be pretty greatfull.

You will have to go to the Scanners and Cameras icon in the Control panel and right click on each camera when it is connected and choose the "Prompt for" action on connection (or however it is worded).

--

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it. -Aristotle

...oh, and I see by the lack of responses that I am right yet again.

Because sometimes it is a major convenience.

It is useful for studio work or in my case because it makes tripod setups, in my case at night a lot of the time, much easier when seen through a laptop.

It also gives you more control over the camera for things like time lapse and the like.

It can speed up work flow for some setups because you shoot, it goes strait into the computer and you can see what a bit of basic editing will effect. It can save so much time in some situations.

--

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it. -Aristotle

...oh, and I see by the lack of responses that I am right yet again.

On XP, go into Windows Explorer and copy and paste, from the camera to the folder of your choice.

Okay, I got the XP to recognize the XTi. I went into the control panel, and I'm not sure if I did anything, but after that, it worked fine. It does, however, take forever to start anything up, like it takes a while to recognize the camera, or something. The little red light on the camera was always blinking furiously, so once I realized the icon over the light was for the CF card, I removed the card, and everything seems to be working much more smoothly.

I was able to use the EOS Utility. It has no onscreen real-time viewing window, so that kinda defeats the purpose. I'll be checking out the Breeze Systems offerings.

The Vista machine still doesn't allow any useful interface. It still tells me there's a Rebel XTi hooked up, and I can view photos, but that's it. Even the control panel window doesn't give me a useful dialog box, like XP did. This, of course, is the laptop, which is what I most want to tether to.

I didn't get very far with the PowerShot before its battery quit.

Thanks!

Thanks Skipper, but I'm trying to shoot tethered, not download photos.

Did you hook up your camera to the computer the first time before you had installed the software?

I had a problem for quite a while, Windows XP SP3, whereby when I connected the camera I had to then cancel the EOS Utility then relaunch it and that worked fine.

Some time later for other reasons I had to reset all my USB connections by going into device manager and deleting the USB hubs. On reboot they were re-created and the next time I connected my 450D/XSi it surprisingly worked exactly as it should. I've had no problem in the past 6 months.

I have shot teathered from 350/xt, 40d, and XTi to WinXP for several years...
and am now setting up a Win7 laptop.

Be sure you download and install the latest OS patches... (general good habit)
Be sure to download and install the latest Canon EOS drivers and utilities.

Initially I had some challange getting both the 40d and the 350/XT software to play nice ... since they have different drivers, but, it works now. I can plug either camera into laptop and it gets recognized, the EOS software pops up, and, I have IrFanView configured for viewing. Also have hotkeys setup on IrFanView to toss current image into Photoshop... and macros to create event-specific borders and queue file(s) to attached printers.

Once you get it all working, it can be a NICE setup.

floating_stump said:

The following Canon PowerShot cameras do not support remote capture operation:

A series: A410, A420, A430, A450, A460, A470, A480, A490, A495, A530, A540, A550, A560, A570 IS, A580, A590 IS, A610, A630, A650 IS, A700, A710 IS, A720 IS, A1000 IS, A1100 IS, A2000 IS, A2100 IS, A3000 IS, A3100 IS

Digital ELPH/IXUS: SD30, SD40, SD400 (Digital IXUS 50), SD430, SD450 (Digital IXUS 55), SD500 (Digital IXUS 700), SD550 (Digital IXUS 750), SD600, SD630, SD700 IS, SD750, SD770 IS, SD780 IS, SD790 IS, SD800 IS, SD850 IS , SD870 IS, SD880 IS, SD890 IS, SD900, SD940 IS, SD950 IS, SD960 IS, SD970 IS, SD980 IS, SD990 IS, SD1000, SD1100 IS, SD1200 IS, SD1300 IS, SD1400 IS, SD3500 IS, SD4000 IS, SD4500 IS

SX series: SX210 IS, SX200 IS, SX130 IS, SX120 IS, SX30 IS, SX20 IS, SX10 IS, SX1 IS,
G Series: G11, G12
S Series: S90, S95
Other: TX1, E1, D10

Click to expand...

Okay, so that explains why I can't get the P&S to work. The SLR will work on the XP machine, but not the Vista laptop. Three down, one to go.

Pentax has a program called digital assistant. I don't know if Canon has a similar thing, but they probably do. Lots of people use Canon gear through telescopes for astro photography, and the remote operation is the way to do that. It would be worth googling how to connect your model to computer for astro photography. it might just have the answer.
IainD

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I checked out the Breeze Systems software. Their DSLR Pro does not give me a live view. The XTi is not supported. I will have to assume it's because my camera doesn't support any sort of live view, rather than a shortcoming of Breeze Systems. So I'm stuck, there.

I'm still frustrated by my Canon utility not recognizing the camera on the Vista laptop. I was able to shoot using the Breeze program (on a 15-day free trial).

I uninstalled all the Canon programs from the Vista machine, so I could start over, and see what was missing. I went back to the Canon website and read more carefully. I discovered that I was, in fact, missing some software - I had earlier misunderstood that there was no update for Vista. Now the EOS Utility works just fine on my laptop.

As for the missing live view, I'll just have to shoot a test shot. Checking it out on my monitor, will help me line up the next shot for real. More shutter clicks than I'd prefer, but it will have to do.

Thanks to all for your suggestions!