Basic MAC and Nikon questions

Hello All,

I just got my Nikon D300, and only recently bought a new MAC with OSX 10.5 on it. I have some pretty basic questions about this. I hope this is the place to post these questions.

First, a couple of the programs that came with the camera appear not to be compatible with OSX 10.5 (Nikon ViewNX for instance). Is anyone using any of the Nikon software on 10.5?

When I connect the D300 via a USB cable, iPhoto sees the images (at least the JPEGs), but I cannot seem to mount the camera as a disk. That means no other program can see the camera. It also means that the photos can only be seen in iPhoto. I'd like to be able to directly access these photos and cut and paste the pictures into a directory. I'm I totally missing something here? Is there a way to mount the camera? Or do I have to have a card reader to see these as existing on a 'disk'?

I will (soon) purchase some other photo-editing software (Aperature? Photoshop? Lightroom?). I expect to have the same issue with 'seeing' the camera. How does everyone else transfer photos from their Nikon cameras to OSX 10.5?

Thank-you for any insight,

Greg

On the D200, and presumably the d300, you can change the camera's USB mode between "Mass Storage" and "PTP" mode. When the d200 is in PTP mode you can control it from the computer (IE using Nikon View to drive the camera), but the camera does not mount as a disk.

According to the d300 manual I just downloaded, PTP is the default. So maybe try changing the camera to Mass Storage mode.

Menu -> Setup Menu -> USB -> Select Mass Storage.

Alternatively, you could use a card reader.

Having said all this, I should point out I am not using 10.5, so I don't know if there is an extra wrinkle there.

Hi Craig,

Thank-you very much. This worked, I now see the camera (the card) on the desktop as a disk.

I feel like I've changed too many things all at once (Olympus to Nikon, P&S to dSLR, MAC OSX 10.2 to 10.5). I'm a bit overloaded (or feel it).

First lesson, I need to read the Nikon manual from front to back.

Thank-you,

Greg

Open up your camera disk and drag the files to a new folder on your desktop. You now will have your images on your computer.

I'm using 10.51 with the D300 and this works. I had to download an update to Adobe's digital raw converter to read the raw files from the D300'

I use a card reader and it is no problem seeing the card on my desktop.

Hi Dave,

Do you happen to use any of the Nikon software, or do you go directly to Adobe Photoshop?

Thanks,

Greg

First, a couple of the programs that came with the camera appear not to be compatible with OSX 10.5 (Nikon ViewNX for instance). Is anyone using any of the Nikon software on 10.5?

 

When I connect the D300 via a USB cable, iPhoto sees the images (at least the JPEGs), but I cannot seem to mount the camera as a disk. That means no other program can see the camera. It also means that the photos can only be seen in iPhoto. I'd like to be able to directly access these photos and cut and paste the pictures into a directory. I'm I totally missing something here? Is there a way to mount the camera? Or do I have to have a card reader to see these as existing on a 'disk'?

 

How does everyone else transfer photos from their Nikon cameras to OSX 10.5?

Hi Greg,

I don't have OSX 10.5, however, I have 10.4.11. I'm guessing that 10.4.11 is very similar to 10.5.

When I got back from my first trip using my camera and housing and I hadn't yet loaded my Nikon software on my MacBook Pro, the images automatically went to iPhoto. Then I installed Nikon View and Capture NX. I transfer my images using a card reader and they now get transferred using Nikon Transfer. They stay in a folder called Nikon Transfer and are numbered consecutively in subfolders within the Nikon Transfer folder. They can be viewed in View NX. If I want to post process the images in Capture NX, my raw image editing program, I can click on a button in View NX and the image opens in Capture NX.

I initially was concerned that I couldn't get the images out of iPhoto, since I did not want to use iPhoto to edit the images. I found I was able to change the settings in iPhoto so the images could be edited in Capture NX. The system seems to work pretty well now.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ellen

What Version of Capture NX do you have? Apparently 1.3 is not compatible with 10.5, but 1.3.1 is. You may have to download an update.

I have CaptureNX version 1.3, which states it isn't compatible with OSX 10.5. However, when I 'check for updates' it says there aren't any. The disc that came with the camera that had ViewNX and Transfer just locked up when I tried to load them. I found a note that each was not compatible with OSX 10.5, and on the Nikon USA website there is no mention of a version of either that works with OSX 10.5.

I'm currently downloading the update for CaptureNX from the Nikon website. On the website it is stated to be 8.4MB, but the download file is 105.8MB!

So far I'm unimpressed with the Nikon Software support. One more reason to purchase Photoshop earlier than later I suppose.

I sent Nikon a few questions about all the appearant compatibility problems with 10.5. I'll post what I get back.

Thanks,

Greg

From this it appears 1.3.1 works with 10.5

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/30449

I own NX, but have not used it much yet - some of the u-point technology is very nice for things like adjusting watercolor. I like to store my stuff in Aperture (Lightroom is comparable) and then work in Aperture for simple stuff and then PS or NX for more complex stuff. The nice thing is I can work on something in PS, store it back in Aperture, reopen in NX and work on it there then put it back in Aperture. I know it's overkill, but I've found both PS and NX useful.

I changed from Leopard back to Tiger because of incompatibility issues on my main desktop. I still run Leopard on my laptop with no problems; I'll probably go back to Leopard with 10.5.2 or 10.5.3

I don't use the Nikon software. I use Photoshop and Aperture. I'm still on CS2 which will not open D300 raw files so I had to download an update to Adobe raw converter. The raw converter will convert all the files in a folder as a batch process.