Downloading pictures from Canon 20D

[Bsmooth]

I am moving from an Olympus point and shoot to the Canon and heres my question.On the Olympus all I had to do was hook up a USB cable from my camera to the USB port on the computer and download my pictures. Can I do this with the Canon 20 D too?And is everything included with the camera to do it?
I know a lot of people use a card reader but I don't have one .

[jbradc]

Yes you can do it and the cables are included.

[PacAce]

Yes, you can and yes, they are.

[Mike Panic]

you can but it will take forever

buy a card reader - your best bet is an internal 3.5" 5-in-1 or the new style 11-1 card readers... you can either hook them up to your mobo if it is supported or take out a blank pci cover plate, run the cable out the back of your computer and plugin to a usb port

transfer times are MUCH faster and you wont waste battery power

[Dirty Shirt]

Yeah, get an USB 2.0 card reader. It will be much faster!

[Jon]

You can if you don't shoot in RAW mode, or use Canon's software (or equivalent). The 20D will be recognized as a camera by XP, not as a removable drive, so you won't see any files except "standard" graphics formats (jpeg, TIFF, GIF).

[Jon, The Elder]

bSmooth- all the above advice points in one direction. A main reason is to avoid the hassle of hooking up your camera every time. It is a pain. REMEMBER: format your card in camera, not from the computer !!

[Bsmooth]

I will be using RAW I'm pretty sure,even though I've never used RAW before.A slight loss in battery power isn't a big deal to me.I will be using the Lexar 1GB 80x card. It was always just so easy to get home and hook up the cable then transfer the pics then I was done.So If you shoot in RAW mode this type of transfer isn't possible?Even If you have Canon's software installed? This is all new to me so excuse the simplistic questions.

[Jon]

RAW will transfer with Canon's software. I read your post that you wanted to just plug in the camera and drag files over using Explorer. If you shoot RAW, you can't do that. If you shoot JPEG, or let the camera use Canon's software (which knows about RAW), you can transfer your files without any problems.
20D - PTP mode - Explorer and Camera Wizard - transfer JPEG files only.
20D - EOS viewer Utility - Transfer any image files, whether JPEG or RAW
20D - firmware upgrades - need a card reader, since these have to live in the root of your CF card. Fortunately, these don't happen very often.

[Mark_Cohran]

If you buy a $10 card reader and use that to transfer your files. you'll never go back to direct camera to computer transfers again. It's so much simpler and faster.

[yellow_belly]

you can but it will take foreverNo it wont :) I do this all the time and the 20D is MUCH faster than a 300D or 10D as it uses USB2 :)
Terry

[johneric8]

the card reader is the only way to go! tons faster. If you are hooking your camera up to the computer you are really put extra strain on it that isnt needed. The card reader makes a world of difference!! Best money I ever spent.

[yellow_belly]

If you are hooking your camera up to the computer you are really put extra strain on it that isnt needed. What ???

Terry

[tim]

A card reader doesn't use the cameras battery, and is probably faster. Look on dpreview.com for download speeds from the camera.

[tubs]

I'm surprised that everybody is saying you can't download RAW files direct from the 20D to the computer. I do this regularly. I just plug in the camera and it brings up the Windows XP Scanner and Camera Wizard. I select the .CR2 files from the list, then copy and paste them to the hard disk. Takes a few (maybe 3?) seconds per image.

I've recently found however, that this does not work if I shoot in 'RAW+JPG' mode. Something to do with the jpg being tied up in the raw file I guess.

Chris.

[rfreschner]

I've recently found however, that this does not work if I shoot in 'RAW+JPG' mode. Something to do with the jpg being tied up in the raw file I guess.

Hmmm, never tried it with just RAW, only RAW + Jpeg. Will give that one a try. Thanks.

[Jon]

I'm surprised that everybody is saying you can't download RAW files direct from the 20D to the computer. I do this regularly. I just plug in the camera and it brings up the Windows XP Scanner and Camera Wizard. I select the .CR2 files from the list, then copy and paste them to the hard disk. Takes a few (maybe 3?) seconds per image.

I've recently found however, that this does not work if I shoot in 'RAW+JPG' mode. Something to do with the jpg being tied up in the raw file I guess.

Chris.
The JPEGS are separate files from the CR2s. My guess at an explanation would be that in the absence of a known standard image type (JPEG), the wizard shows you whatever else there is. But when there are JPEGs it ignores non-standard extensions.