Getting the FujiFilm F20SE Camera to Use iPhoto on Mac OS X

I just bought a Fuji FinePix F20SE digital camera for my wife. She already had a nice little Nikon Coolpix 2500, but it didn't have the resolution she needed, plus the Fuji had image stabilization and a huge LCD panel on the back.

Anyway, I set it up on her computer (a Mac Mini running OS X Tiger) and was dismayed to find out the installation CD wanted me to install a bunch of crap software, including a viewer program called FinePixViewer. What a disaster! The installer looks like a Mac OS 9 program, and then when the viewer comes up it looks like a clunky version of iPhoto.

And the integration between FinePixViewer and iPhoto??? None.

Oh, I was mad.

So, I set about figuring out how to get FinePixViewer off the machine and get the camera talking to iPhoto. I checked the Apple Website for cameras that it supported - alas, the FinePix F20SE was not on the list.

I decided to take the two FinePixViewer packages sitting in my application folder and drag them to the trash to see what happened.

Then I tried loading the photos from the camera. iPhoto popped open! Yes! But then, it wouldn't load the photos in. It recognized the camera model perfectly, but no photos.

My solution was to close iPhoto, disconnect the camera, and reboot the machine. After that, I connected the camera again, with great apprehension. Guess what?? It worked.

iPhoto immediately loaded all the pictures in from the camera, and everything recognized everything else.

I don't know whether I could have avoided the installation disks altogether. I'm guessing I couldn't, because it's pretty clear that Apple's iPhoto does NOT carry the drivers for the FujiFilm FinePix F20 SE, so the drivers would have to be loaded somehow. And the installation CD from the camera would NOT allow me to load drivers only.

So, that was my story for getting the Fuji F20 SE to work with iPhoto:

1. Load the drivers and crappy viewer software (Fine Pix Viewer) from the camera installation CD.


2. Load the photos from the camera into FinePixViewer.


3. Close FinePixViewer and delete it and the other application in the Applications folder.


4. Disconnect the camera, reboot the Mac.


5. Load the photos in from the camera into iPhoto.

It should work. Hopefully, Apple will have the drivers for this camera as standard within iPhoto. I think this is going to be a popular model, it has excellent features. My wife loves it.