Image Capture Remote Control

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With iPhoto, Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop getting so much attention it’s easy to overlook Image Capture. It’s a quick way to download images from your camera, especially if you just want to drop them into a Finder folder. But that’s not we’re going to talk about here.

Image Capture knows a few other tricks too. You can share a camera connected to your Mac so users at other machines can see the images on the camera. They can also take a picture with the camera and see the image right away. You could use this to monitor a remote location.

There are other ways to see what a remote camera sees - like Skype. You can configure Skype to automatically accept incoming calls and start a video conference. Skype will work with USB web cams, certain camcorders, and your built-in iSight. In other words, cameras Image Capture doesn’t work with. You won’t have to mess with port forwarding either.

Murphy Mac reader Steven R. reminds us that different cameras will behave differently. For example, Murphy has a D70 that needs to be taken out of USB Mass Storage mode before Image Capture can remote control it. Check your camera’s USB settings before getting started.

Here are some other things to consider:

• For remote monitoring you can use a variety of iSight tools that Murphy will take a look at in future screencasts.
• You probably don’t want your expensive SLR taking 20 shots an hour for remote monitoring. The shutter won’t last as long as you might think.
• While creating the screencast Murphy’s camera was loaded with RAW images, and performance in the web browser was slow. You might want to clear your card off before playing with this feature. Plus, the remote monitor could delete photos you haven’t transferred off the card yet. Be careful!
• Features like Stealth Mode in your Sharing preferences can get in the way of the features described here, you should turn it off when getting started with Image Capture’s remote features.
• Connecting to Image Capture from across the Internet will require port forwarding on your router, if you have one. You need to forward port 5100 to the computer that has the camera connected to it. For more information on port forwarding take a look at Murphy’s post about Chicken of the VNC. That screencast shows how to configure a router to forward a port.

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