?? Uploading photos to a CF card?

[PICsel8]

Hi everyone,
I am sure glad I found this great forum. Thanks to all who posted re the problem of G2 focus. Many helpful suggestions in there.
I own a G2 and love the camera. I would like to be able to upload certain specific photos from my hard drive to the CF card in the camera so that I can take it with me and bore family and friends with a slide show that I would present using the G2 and video cable adapter to TV.
I cannot see this mentioned in the manual but I think it would be a good idea for many. The supplied remote allows you to zoom in and out and move zoomed area around and even though the picture is not as clear on the screen as on a computer monitor, it is still adequate for my already dozing (or is that dozey?) relatives.
This can probably be accomplished with a CF card reader (or are they only good for upload to the computer from the card and not vice versa?) and if anybody has any suggestions as to a good and reasonable one I would also appreciate that.
Many thanks for any help or suggestions.

[SkipD]

You can definitely write to a CF card with a card reader. The one I like is the Kodak unit that's sold at WalMart for $25-30. It has three slots, and works with three different popular memory card types.

The gotcha can be whether or not the camera will recognize the files and be able to display them. If the files are exactly the same format as what came from the camera - same filename structure and not edited, I suspect you probably can get away with it. Change anything and you'd have to experiment to see if it will work.

If you write to the CF card, you might also find that the camera won't want to write to it. The simple fix here is to have the camera re-format the CF card. Of course that wipes out your slide show.

My best recommendation is to get a second CF card for the slide show, avoiding possible problems taking pictures. The second card will, of course, double as extra memory for taking pictures.

[PICsel8]

Thanks Skip for your kind reply. So I take it that there is no way you can just upload the photos to the CF card while it is in the camera. That would be best since I have no other reason for purchasing a CF card reader. I am not unhappy with the speed or ease of transfer from the camera to computer. I usually want to charge the camera battery anyway and so just leave the charger and USB cable next to my computer ready to plug into the camera.

Are CF card readers that much faster than just using the camera for transfer? My computer only has USB 1.1 and the camera has USB so I assumed it would not make much difference to use a reader instead? Anyone out there tried both?

Thanks for your input.

Peter H.

[ELtech]

In my opinion the CF card reader is a lot faster than downloading from the camera. Even USB 1.1 (well worth the $30)

A couple of notes about uploading pictures back to the CF card for viewing on the camera,

- the pictures must have been taked by a compatable canon camera.

-you have to put the pictures in one of the numbered subdirectories. ie G:\DCIM\148canon\IMG_XXXX

- I have editied the pictures, ie, rotated and saved using the canon numbering and It was viewable.

Hope this helps

[oilemgolem]

The Canon Software Startup Guide that came with my G2 mentions the Upload Button on page 39. The button is a control on the Zoombowser (vers. 3) window. Although specific instructions are not given, what you do is click drag the jpg images you want to upload from your hard drive directory into the Zoombrowser Camera Window. Then select them using the mouse (and control+click) or control+A to select them all. With the G2 attached to the USB port, click the Upload Button.
With Zoombrowser 4, it works a little bit different. Attach the G2, then from the Zoombrowser Main Menu, click Camera and Memory Card, Browse and Select, select the jpg images, then click Upload.
I have successfully uploaded jpg's directly to a memory card using either an SIIG USB adaptor or ScanDisk PCMIA adaptor (both cost less than $20). Sometimes I find that the uploaded images will not show up in the G2's playback mode. If I take one more picture with the G2 (of anything), voila, all uploaded images appear.
Good luck.

[oilemgolem]

The Canon Software Startup Guide that came with my G2 mentions the Upload Button on page 39. The button is a control on the Zoombowser (vers. 3) window. Although specific instructions are not given, what you do is click drag the jpg images you want to upload from your hard drive directory into the Zoombrowser Camera Window. Then select them using the mouse (and control+click) or control+A to select them all. With the G2 attached to the USB port, click the Upload Button.
With Zoombrowser 4, it works a little bit different. Attach the G2, then from the Zoombrowser Main Menu, click Camera and Memory Card, Browse and Select, select the jpg images, then click Upload.
I have successfully uploaded jpg's directly to a memory card using either an SIIG USB adaptor or ScanDisk PCMIA adaptor (both cost less than $20). Sometimes I find that the uploaded images will not show up in the G2's playback mode. If I take one more picture with the G2 (of anything), voila, all uploaded images appear.
Good luck.

[PICsel8]

Hey thanks Oilemgolem,

I swear I read that manual over a few times looking for info re uploading.
I tried it and it worked perfectly. You can select whatever pictures you want, even crops with different (non Canon) file names and they appear in the camera exactly as they would if you viewed them on the computer screen.
It is much slower to upload to the camera than to download from the camera, but that is no big deal. Also, the image information is lost and it provides a new filename starting with "AUT" and starts at 0001. It also uses the computer system date for the Photo information date.
But at least now I can make up a quick slide show with which to bore my relatives. Finally... pay back time!
Thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions. These forums really work!

Peter H.
Ontario, Canada

[rkhndjr]

I don't believe anyone mentioned that using a card reader saves usage on your camera battery, in addition to being faster and a lot less trouble