Is there a way to upload pictures from a digital camera without having to install any software? (via USB)

My Computer>Camera>Drag and Drop

What obi said works unless you have a fancy canon like an EOS 20d. Then I believe there's no way to get around software except for a card reader.

Yeah, most cameras work exactly like flash drives... as soon as you plug them into your computer, they show up as a new drive that you can upload and download files to and from.

It kills battery life though.

So get a power cable.

[RIGHT]I don't really see how that was relevent. :p[/RIGHT]

[RIGHT]Wow, right alligning text. Aren't you Mr. McTricky.[/RIGHT]

[CENTER]Am I special now?

[/CENTER]

Why would they take away features on high end cameras?

Because most high end cameras take photos in several different formats, and it makes it a lot easier to differentiate between each file if you use the software to import it. It has nothing to do with taking features away. Also, since the Raw format is constantly being upgraded, sometimes image programs don't understand the file type and it needs to be converted to a different file extension. Raws are also typically very large, and most people, aside from professional photographers don't want each image to be over 25mb.

It's not removing features. Also, most high end cameras aren't bloated with "user friendly" features that take away from the final image quality and battery life.

Uh, yes, it is removing features.

They can have the software just as easily with the same drag and drop functionality as they can without it.

Your entire reasoning is shot :p

Guess what, a Sony FDW-P900 (The HD camera on which episode 3 was shot) doesn't import footage via firewire.

Some people might consider this "removing a feature."

I consider it not including a feature that the target demographic will not use anyway.

It's the same reason my HDV camera doesn't take still photos or have digital zoom. Nobody pays 5000 dollars for a high def camera so they can take crappy photos and ruin footage with digital zoom.

Consider it removal of features if you like, I consider it disregarding of overly user friendly "features."

Technicly it is removal of a feature.
Why can't it have it? Im sure it wouldn't be hard for the designers to simply add a couple KBs of data and add that functionality.

Or it could be that it has the pics in some wierd native format and needs to be converted.

Bill just got clowned by Tiberium_Empire.

yes.

High-end digital cameras take images in higher bitdepth formats than PC-compatible formats. I think they're up to 10 bits per channel, maybe?

Computer screens can't accurately display colors with high chroma values. Basically it's why we need HDRR to make games look more realistic. 8-bit RGB is sufficient to display all of the colors the human eye can see but not nearly as many levels of intensity. Image formats like JPEG are optimized for 8-bit RGB which means a lot of low-intensity and high-intensity image data is lost.

By storing image data in this high-bitdepth format you can do postprocessing tasks like exposure adjustment without having to retake the photo. It's pretty :awesome:.

That said, the RAW 'format' is actually a nonformat which doesn't exist and can't be opened by any programs not written by the camera maker. All it does is dump raw CCD information into a file. It doesn't even have a header meaning any program opening it needs to know the resolution, width and height in pixels, bit depth and pixel format. If you say 'RAW format' around any programtician they will look at you like you have downs, no joke.

Photoshop CS and CS2 are capable of reading in raw camera data.

Edit: Although I'm sure Adobe acquired all of the major camera manufacturer's raw data specifications.