Remotely controlling digital cameras with gPhoto
In Charge
© hypermania2, 123RF
Commercial software that lets users remotely control their camera usually is not available for Linux. gPhoto gives users a free alternative.
Some vendors offer commercial add-ons to help users remotely control their cameras – for example, to take a series of photos at set intervals. Time exposures of the night sky and time-lapse photos of a growing plant are excellent choices of subject as well. However, vendors such as Canon and Nikon only offer their software for Windows and the Mac OS, and Nikon even charges for the program [1]. To make things worse, the software is closed source and not suitable for scripting, which tends to restrict its usefulness.
gPhoto
The gPhoto [2] project mainly comprises the libgphoto2 library, the gphoto2 command-line interface, and the gtkam front end (see also the "Gtkam Graphical Front End" box). The software lets users read and change the status of their digital cameras, copy files in both directions, and remotely control digital cameras.
As of this writing, gPhoto supports more than 1,100 digital camera models. A lack of cooperation on the part of camera manufacturers has forced developers to reverse engineer most of the protocol information and explains why the software does not support all of the features that are available on every single digital camera.
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