[Thorzdad]

My daughter just bought a Nikon Coolpix S220. It's a cute little camera, chock full o' features. However, one "feature" that is very different from her previous camera (also a Nikon) is that this little thing will only work with Nikon's own Nikon Transfer software. iPhoto doesn't see it and the camera itself does not even mount to the desktop.

But, that's not the end to the frustration. We have multiple user accounts on our G5. Only the Admin account (me) has permission to install software, of course. After installing the Nikon Transfer software and making sure my daughter had permission to use it in the Accounts CP, we hooked the camera up in her user account and...nothing. The Nikon software doesn't auto-launch. After manually launching it, though, it does not see the attached camera. Thus, there is no way to transfer photos from her camera to her account.

The Nikon software, of course, works perfectly only under my Admin account.

Does anyone have any experience with this Nikon Transfer software? And, if so, can you provide some clues as to how I might get it working in a non-Admin account? This thing is a useless brick if it won't work in her user account.

We'll hold on the rant about why Nikon decided to re-invent the wheel and write their own proprietary transfer software in the first place.

Thanks.

[ibook_steve]

Wouldn't it just be easier to remove the memory card (SD presumably, or maybe CF) and use a card reader? Then you don't have to deal with this obviously crappy software.

Steve

[Thorzdad]

I suppose. But, that would be one more thing to have to buy and have lying around here just to work-around bad engineering. In any case, overnight, I discovered that by giving my daughter's account full privileges, the camera will now magically work with iPhoto. It still doesn't mount to the desktop, though.

[ibook_steve]

Bonus to using a card reader: you won't drain the batteries of the camera while importing photos.

Gosh, I thought everybody had a card reader hanging around (not requiring an extra purchase). They usually come with the flash cards you buy! I must have at least 5.

Steve

[Thorzdad]

Nope. Never had a card reader. Never needed one. This is our third digital camera and, until this one, they've worked as they were supposed to. Plug 'em in and iPhoto sucks the pics off the SD cards.

One aspect that a card reader wouldn't help with is if she ever happened to shoot any pics using the built-in memory. There would be no way to get those pics off the camera if it couldn't work with the computer.

Still, it's pretty lazy (unaware?) engineering to require an account to have full privileges to get the camera to work properly. I can't think of a single piece of software or hardware I have that requires this. As long as permissions are set correctly, everything works. Except for this new Nikon. Weird. Anyhoo...It works now, I guess.

[OreoCookie]

Can't you return the camera?
I didn't know Nikon would leave out such a basic feature (which costs exactly nothing to make); plus, I've always been on Canon's back why it can't add a mass storage mode to its dslrs at least.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Can't you return the camera?
I didn't know Nikon would leave out such a basic feature (which costs exactly nothing to make); plus, I've always been on Canon's back why it can't add a mass storage mode to its dslrs at least.

I suppose we could, but, as far as I can tell from the documentation, the camera is working correctly...well, it's working as it was designed to work, anyway. Anyway, my daughter did quite a bit of comparison before she picked this camera. And, she needs it for her National Honor Society trip this week.

I hear you about the mass-storage thing. It just seems like a no-brainer.
I've worked in product, software, and end-user design, and I would love to interrogate the engineers, product planners and marketing droids as to why they deemed it necessary to make it so this camera does not mount to the desktop (the way my daughter's previous Nikon did.) And why they leave-out any mention of compatibility with any other software (like iPhoto) from their manual, in favor of their own software, even though iPhoto now works perfectly fine with the camera.