Andrew;

[Andrew @ Thu, 03 May 2007 15:54:17 +0200]

I'm thinking of moving into the 21st century and getting a bottom-end digital reflex, preferably Pentax for the sake of nostalgia. Can anyone advise me from a technical point of view as to what I need in order to be able to get pictures into GIMP for editing?

In my opinion, the only thing _really_ worth paying attention to in relation to "the computer" / Gimp is making sure your camera is supported by dcraw [1], thus enabling you to read full-sized RAW pictures right off the device and do something useful to them without having to use the proprietary tool that usually comes with the camera. Everything else should be quite easy:

* About storage, most of the DSLRs I know about run on CF cards, and you can get a decent USB card reader supporting CF and a bunch of other cards rather cheap nowadays.

* Connecting directly to your machine (USB link between computer and camera), most cameras by now fortunately seem to be capable of being usb-storage, thus being handled more or less like an ordinary SCSI drive. There you go. ;)

About Slackware, your mileage might vary as I don't know what drivers and/or features come packed with the distribution - running Ubuntu on various machines, and even my girlfriend (who does not really like computers that much, altogether) by now manages to easily transfer their digi-cam pictures to $HOME.

Overally, however, choosing a DSLR you probably should focus on other technical aspects of the camera itself, but probably that's another story... ;)

Cheers,
Kristian

[1] http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/

You will need several things at least. 1. A program to copy your images from the camera into PC, especially if the device is not seen as USB drive. Maybe gphoto will be of help. http://gphoto.org/
2. I would recommend you shooting in RAW. In order to import your photos directly in GIMP or process RAW standalone you will need UFRaw ufraw.sf.net
with graphical user interface or dcraw http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ as a command-line tool.
3. Also camera profiling tool will be be helpful if you do not find ready profiles for your camera model. http://lprof.sourceforge.net/

Andrew wrote:

I'm thinking of moving into the 21st century and getting a bottom-end digital reflex, preferably Pentax for the sake of nostalgia. Can anyone advise me from a technical point of view as to what I need in order to be able to get pictures into GIMP for editing? I use Slackware 11.

TIA,

Andrew ha scritto:

I'm thinking of moving into the 21st century and getting a bottom-end digital reflex, preferably Pentax for the sake of nostalgia. Can anyone advise me from a technical point of view as to what I need in order to be able to get pictures into GIMP for editing? I use Slackware 11.

I think in general you should check that your camera produces files that GIMP can open. If are considering something more than a point-and-shoot camera, for example a reflex, and you want the best quality and flexibility, sooner or later you will hear about RAW files. These are not standard files, every manufacturer produces its own format. You should check that a GIMP plugin like UFRaw can open RAW files created by your camera in order to convert to tiff or jpeg. I am using my Nikon D80 without problems with GIMP and UFRaw on Linux.

Fabrizio

On Thursday 03 May 2007 10:03, Kristian Rink wrote:

Andrew;

[Andrew @ Thu, 03 May 2007 15:54:17 +0200]

I'm thinking of moving into the 21st century and getting a bottom-end digital reflex, preferably Pentax for the sake of nostalgia. Can anyone advise me from a technical point of view as to what I need in order to be able to get pictures into GIMP for editing?

In my opinion, the only thing _really_ worth paying attention to in relation to "the computer" / Gimp is making sure your camera is supported by dcraw [1], thus enabling you to read full-sized RAW pictures right off the device and do something useful to them without having to use the proprietary tool that usually comes with the camera. Everything else should be quite easy:

* About storage, most of the DSLRs I know about run on CF cards, and you can get a decent USB card reader supporting CF and a bunch of other cards rather cheap nowadays.

* Connecting directly to your machine (USB link between computer and camera), most cameras by now fortunately seem to be capable of being usb-storage, thus being handled more or less like an ordinary SCSI drive. There you go. ;)

About Slackware, your mileage might vary as I don't know what drivers and/or features come packed with the distribution - running Ubuntu on various machines, and even my girlfriend (who does not really like computers that much, altogether) by now manages to easily transfer their digi-cam pictures to $HOME.

Overally, however, choosing a DSLR you probably should focus on other technical aspects of the camera itself, but probably that's another story... ;)

Cheers,
Kristian

[1] http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/

I connected my FujiFilm 900 to an USB port and rebooted. I mounted /dev/sda1 to /mnt/tmp and my pictures were accessible.

/dev/sda0 was already occupied.

BTW this high end point and shoot offers 9.1 megapixel (tops) and also dcraw. The only major drawback is the lack of a flash port.

I use Slackware 11.

On Thursday 03 May 2007 16:08, Fabrizio Lippolis wrote:

Andrew ha scritto:

I'm thinking of moving into the 21st century and getting a bottom-end digital reflex, preferably Pentax for the sake of nostalgia. Can anyone advise me from a technical point of view as to what I need in order to be able to get pictures into GIMP for editing? I use Slackware 11.

I think in general you should check that your camera produces files that GIMP can open. If are considering something more than a point-and-shoot camera, for example a reflex, and you want the best quality and flexibility, sooner or later you will hear about RAW files. These are not standard files, every manufacturer produces its own format. You should check that a GIMP plugin like UFRaw can open RAW files created by your camera in order to convert to tiff or jpeg. I am using my Nikon D80 without problems with GIMP and UFRaw on Linux.

Fabrizio

_______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list
Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user --
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

I run a Pentax *istDS SLR with Gimp. The .pef (raw format) files open perfectly with the tools available. And ofcourse .jpeg's are of no concern as its supported as a "standard". The SD-cards mount without problems via a small USB reader. (I have not tried downloading directly from the camera into my computer.)