iPhoto supports (some) unsupported devices

Jan 13, '02 09:44:57AM

Contributed by: robg

Yesterday, after nearly four years of great service, I retired my Olympus D-500L. Although it worked well for us, it was starting to feel its age, with a maximum resolution of just 1024x768. In addition, it was quite bulky and as a result, sat at home instead of going with us on many trips.

So as I started looking for replacements a couple months ago, portability and higher resolution were two key elements. After a bunch of reading and testing, I thought I had my mind made up. Then iPhoto came out last week. On the iPhoto compatability page is a list of supported cameras, card readers, and printers. When I looked at that page, the camera I was interested in was not listed. Others by the same manufacturer were, but not this model nor even one in the same family.

The camera was supposed to work with Image Capture, though, at least according to the manufacturer's website. So I decided to go ahead and make the purchase, since the camera offered all the features I wanted. If I had to go camera -> Image Capture -> iPhoto, it still wouldn't be too bad. When I took the first test picture and connected the camera, I was very happily surprised when iPhoto launched and correctly identified the camera!

Oh yea ... which camera did I purchase? I picked the Canon S30 PowerShot, a 3-megapixel camera in a very portable body with some nice features and a good price point that has gotten some good reviews. If you're in the market for a digital, I highly recommend a visit to dcresource.com, which features a very thorough collection of reviews and an interactive buyer's guide that's quite good.

In addition, my Epson 890C printer also works just fine through the simplified print dialog in iPhoto, despite it also not being mentioned on the iPhoto page.

Anyone have any other cameras, printers, or card readers not on the list that are also known to work in iPhoto? The PowerShot S30 (and S40, too, I would guess) and the Epson890C are the first two that I can add to the list...

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