What is the PTP protocol?
How can I access my camera using PTP drivers with Visere Captura on a Mac?
What about on a Windows machine?
The PTP Protocol
PTP, or Picture Transfer Protocol, is a standardized protocol used for transferring images from digital cameras to other devices such as computers, printers, and storage devices. Developed by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), PTP is widely supported by many camera manufacturers and is designed to facilitate the seamless transfer of images and related metadata. (See the Wikipedia Page.)
Key features of PTP include:
1. Device Communication: PTP allows digital cameras to communicate with computers and other devices without requiring special drivers or software.
2. Image Transfer: It supports the transfer of images in various formats, including JPEG, TIFF, and RAW, along with associated metadata such as date, time, and camera settings.
3. Control Functions: PTP enables remote control of camera functions, allowing users to capture images, adjust settings, and manage files directly from their computer or other connected devices.
4. Interoperability: As a standardized protocol, PTP ensures compatibility between different brands and models of digital cameras and various operating systems.
PTP has been extended and incorporated into other protocols such as Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), which provides additional functionality for managing multimedia files beyond just images.
Mac Support Only
As of Version 1.0.35960, Visere Captura can utilize libgphoto2 to access a variety of cameras, via PTP, on Mac systems. Currently, there is no official port of libgphoto2 for Windows, but we are actively working on finding a solution. If you are interested in PTP support for Windows, please email us at support@pictomic.com to express your interest, and we will add you to the list of potential beta testers.
Mac's Preview Conflict
If Mac's Preview program is running, then Visere Captura's PTP drivers cannot access the camera.
Step-by-step guide
To enable the PTP drivers on Mac, for a wide range of cameras, follow these steps:
- Click on the gearbox icon and go to About
- From the About dialog click on the Enable/Disable Plug-ins
- Select the libPTPCamera.so and make sure the Canon, Sony, and Nikon camera plug-ins are unchecked.
Enable only PTP
Visere Captura searches for cameras using the manufacturer's SDKs first. To enforce the use of the PTP library, disable the other camera libraries.
- Ensure the the Mac Preview program is not running.
Mac Preview Conflict
If Mac's Preview program is running, then Visere Captura's PTP drivers cannot access the camera.
- Click OK and restart Visere Captura.
- If your camera is supported, Visere Captura will connect to it and show the type of controls available when you click the Control Camera button. For example, the Control Camera shows the following dialog for Canon's R100 camera:
The Canon R100 is not fully supported by the Visere Captura PTP plugin at the time of writing. Among the three types of PTP controls, the PTP plugin can only manage Live View and Configuration for the Canon R100. Visere Captura has no PTP support for “Image Capture” with the R100, but it does support the R100 via the Canon SDK drivers. This lack of PTP support is due to the libgphoto2 library not supporting the Canon R100 as of now. Once the Canon R100 is added to libgphoto2, we will update our PTP plugin, and Visere Captura will support the Canon R100 via PTP, too.
