Tom Diaz
Well-known
Transferring Panasonic GX-7 Pictures Directly to a Mac
After a long struggle I was able to make this work, and I am sharing the procedure with other suffering GX-7 and Mac users. I was not content to let my experience with this great camera be compromised by the difficult Wi-Fi procedure. I am taking my camera on trips with me before long, for what I hope is a lot of street shooting, and I was hoping to be able to make transfer of images easier. I keep my camera in a half case most of the time, and—I know this is not a huge deal—I would rather not have to take it out of the case, find the SD card reader, remove the card, etc., every time I want to unload some pictures.
The Wi-Fi procedure is difficult to set up. Follow the directions here exactly. However, once set up, I am hoping it will be faster and more convenient than other methods.
I use the latest Mac OS: version 10.10.1, or, in Apple’s nomenclature, “Yosemite.” I upgraded the GX-7 firmware to its latest, version 1.3.
Note: This procedure allows me to transfer my pictures to a GX-7 when I am not on my home Wi-Fi network, such as when I am out in the field. It uses a little private network set up directly between the camera (which acts as a file server) and the Mac. There would be a different procedure, which is not of interest to me, if you wanted to transfer pictures using your home Wi-Fi network.
Checklist
The following checklist is important, to avoid complications of Wi-Fi networking, Mac file security, and Panasonic’s implementation.
• Create a folder on your Mac. I called mine “GX-7 Pictures" and put it on my desktop. Right click on the folder, do Get Info, and be sure that “Shared Folder” is checked.
• Turn on Windows-type (SMB) file sharing: System Preferences>Sharing>File Sharing>Options… and check “Share files and folders using SMB.”
• Know your Mac “short name.” You’re used to logging in on a screen that shows your full name, e.g., John Smith, above a password prompt. However, the GX-7 does not have a way to enter the space between John and Smith. You have to use the alternative “short name” (officially called the “Account Name” by Apple); it was created for you initially, and in this example would be something like johnsmith. To see what yours is, right-click on a folder you own, do Get Info, and see what the permissions box at the bottom contains representing “me” (you!).
• Know how to create a network on your Mac. In this procedure, when you select the Panasonic option the Panasonic will display the IDs for itself, and you will type them into the Mac. The ID is called an SSID.
• Set your Work Group to “WORKGROUP.” Wait—what? This is some magic Windows networking stuff, not even known to that many Windows users these days. System Preferences>Network>Advanced… tab>Click on the WINS button to see the WINS settings. Take note of the name of your computer (“NetBIOS Name”), which you will have to enter manually on the GX-7. Equally important: Be sure the Workgroup field contains the exact word WORKGROUP.
• In this example:
o Shared Folder “GX-7 Pictures”
o Short name “johnsmith”
o John’s (who must be an administrator of the Mac) password: gx7geek
o Computer name (NetBIOS Name): johnsmac
o Workgroup WORKGROUP
Procedure
This procedure creates a Wi-Fi connection between the Mac and the camera, for a designated purpose, such as sending pictures to the Mac as you take them or—this is considered different!—sending them later, as a group. For those two cases you would need two different connections.
Fortunately, once you have a successful, working connection, you can save it (“register” it) as a favorite, so you can use the connection next time.
1. Push the Wi-Fi button on the back of the GX-7.
2. Select New Connection.
3. Select function: I am choosing “Send Images While Recording.”
4. Select the destination: PC (I know—it’s a Mac, but just deal with it).
5. Select connection method: Choose “Direct”
6. A second panel comes up asking you to choose the “Wi-Fi Direct device.” Choose Manual Connection.
7. The camera displays an SSID like “GX7-027332” and a password (network key) like a1c994c027332. You’re camera is now like a little network router + server, and this provides the IDs—you are going to log into this camera-network.
a. On the Mac, click on the Wi-Fi icon.
b. Click “Join Other Network” and type in the SSID and password information. To type the “password” (key), choose the WEP security type, and type in the key value. (Check the “Show Password” box to make it easier on yourself.)
8. You will now look at the hour-glass search thing… for a long time! Be patient. You’ll have time for a quick bathroom break. After some minutes it will time out and ask you for the name of the computer (johnsmac, in our example):
a. When it times out it will give you the choice Manual Input. Select that.
b. Enter the name johnsmac. (I do not believe this name is case-sensitive.)
9. You should fairly quickly get a dialog asking for your username and password for the Mac! In our example, they are "johnsmith" and "gx7geek." Enter these in the correct case.
10. You should now see a dialog showing the shared folder on your Mac, in my example, “GX-7 Pictures.” Select that folder.
11. Try it out! The blue LED will blink when the camera is transmitting.
12. When you are satisfied that things are working save this connection for later use!
a. Push the Wi-Fi button again to bring up the dialog (it probably is titled “Send Images While Recording”).
b. Scroll down and select “Register the Current Destination to Favorite.”
The procedure is similar when you set up a connection for sending a batch of pictures after you take them. (That’s probably the more common use case, at least for me.) Notes about sending pictures as a batch:
• I don’t think there’s a way to say “send all the pictures on this card.” You can either select one or do a “multi-select,” which requires you to select them all one-by-one. It’s rather laborious, but it works.
• My GX-7, after I select multiple images, gives me a scary-looking message saying it is going to take 20 minutes or something to do the transfer. This is just some Panasonic bug. In reality it may take a minute or so.
• My camera always seems to revert to JPG as the format for sending images. If you want to send RAW or both, you can change that before you do the transfer:
o Push the Wi-Fi button on the camera to bring up a dialog titled “Send Images Stored in the Camera,” the first item of which is “Terminate the Connection.” (That’s what you do to break the connection with the computer, when you’re all done for the time being.)
o On this dialog, scroll down and select “Change Settings Stored in the Camera.” Choose your poison there.
Good luck. I'm sure people will post questions or clarifications here.
Tom
After a long struggle I was able to make this work, and I am sharing the procedure with other suffering GX-7 and Mac users. I was not content to let my experience with this great camera be compromised by the difficult Wi-Fi procedure. I am taking my camera on trips with me before long, for what I hope is a lot of street shooting, and I was hoping to be able to make transfer of images easier. I keep my camera in a half case most of the time, and—I know this is not a huge deal—I would rather not have to take it out of the case, find the SD card reader, remove the card, etc., every time I want to unload some pictures.
The Wi-Fi procedure is difficult to set up. Follow the directions here exactly. However, once set up, I am hoping it will be faster and more convenient than other methods.
I use the latest Mac OS: version 10.10.1, or, in Apple’s nomenclature, “Yosemite.” I upgraded the GX-7 firmware to its latest, version 1.3.
Note: This procedure allows me to transfer my pictures to a GX-7 when I am not on my home Wi-Fi network, such as when I am out in the field. It uses a little private network set up directly between the camera (which acts as a file server) and the Mac. There would be a different procedure, which is not of interest to me, if you wanted to transfer pictures using your home Wi-Fi network.
Checklist
The following checklist is important, to avoid complications of Wi-Fi networking, Mac file security, and Panasonic’s implementation.
• Create a folder on your Mac. I called mine “GX-7 Pictures" and put it on my desktop. Right click on the folder, do Get Info, and be sure that “Shared Folder” is checked.
• Turn on Windows-type (SMB) file sharing: System Preferences>Sharing>File Sharing>Options… and check “Share files and folders using SMB.”
• Know your Mac “short name.” You’re used to logging in on a screen that shows your full name, e.g., John Smith, above a password prompt. However, the GX-7 does not have a way to enter the space between John and Smith. You have to use the alternative “short name” (officially called the “Account Name” by Apple); it was created for you initially, and in this example would be something like johnsmith. To see what yours is, right-click on a folder you own, do Get Info, and see what the permissions box at the bottom contains representing “me” (you!).
• Know how to create a network on your Mac. In this procedure, when you select the Panasonic option the Panasonic will display the IDs for itself, and you will type them into the Mac. The ID is called an SSID.
• Set your Work Group to “WORKGROUP.” Wait—what? This is some magic Windows networking stuff, not even known to that many Windows users these days. System Preferences>Network>Advanced… tab>Click on the WINS button to see the WINS settings. Take note of the name of your computer (“NetBIOS Name”), which you will have to enter manually on the GX-7. Equally important: Be sure the Workgroup field contains the exact word WORKGROUP.
• In this example:
o Shared Folder “GX-7 Pictures”
o Short name “johnsmith”
o John’s (who must be an administrator of the Mac) password: gx7geek
o Computer name (NetBIOS Name): johnsmac
o Workgroup WORKGROUP
Procedure
This procedure creates a Wi-Fi connection between the Mac and the camera, for a designated purpose, such as sending pictures to the Mac as you take them or—this is considered different!—sending them later, as a group. For those two cases you would need two different connections.
Fortunately, once you have a successful, working connection, you can save it (“register” it) as a favorite, so you can use the connection next time.
1. Push the Wi-Fi button on the back of the GX-7.
2. Select New Connection.
3. Select function: I am choosing “Send Images While Recording.”
4. Select the destination: PC (I know—it’s a Mac, but just deal with it).
5. Select connection method: Choose “Direct”
6. A second panel comes up asking you to choose the “Wi-Fi Direct device.” Choose Manual Connection.
7. The camera displays an SSID like “GX7-027332” and a password (network key) like a1c994c027332. You’re camera is now like a little network router + server, and this provides the IDs—you are going to log into this camera-network.
a. On the Mac, click on the Wi-Fi icon.
b. Click “Join Other Network” and type in the SSID and password information. To type the “password” (key), choose the WEP security type, and type in the key value. (Check the “Show Password” box to make it easier on yourself.)
8. You will now look at the hour-glass search thing… for a long time! Be patient. You’ll have time for a quick bathroom break. After some minutes it will time out and ask you for the name of the computer (johnsmac, in our example):
a. When it times out it will give you the choice Manual Input. Select that.
b. Enter the name johnsmac. (I do not believe this name is case-sensitive.)
9. You should fairly quickly get a dialog asking for your username and password for the Mac! In our example, they are "johnsmith" and "gx7geek." Enter these in the correct case.
10. You should now see a dialog showing the shared folder on your Mac, in my example, “GX-7 Pictures.” Select that folder.
11. Try it out! The blue LED will blink when the camera is transmitting.
12. When you are satisfied that things are working save this connection for later use!
a. Push the Wi-Fi button again to bring up the dialog (it probably is titled “Send Images While Recording”).
b. Scroll down and select “Register the Current Destination to Favorite.”
The procedure is similar when you set up a connection for sending a batch of pictures after you take them. (That’s probably the more common use case, at least for me.) Notes about sending pictures as a batch:
• I don’t think there’s a way to say “send all the pictures on this card.” You can either select one or do a “multi-select,” which requires you to select them all one-by-one. It’s rather laborious, but it works.
• My GX-7, after I select multiple images, gives me a scary-looking message saying it is going to take 20 minutes or something to do the transfer. This is just some Panasonic bug. In reality it may take a minute or so.
• My camera always seems to revert to JPG as the format for sending images. If you want to send RAW or both, you can change that before you do the transfer:
o Push the Wi-Fi button on the camera to bring up a dialog titled “Send Images Stored in the Camera,” the first item of which is “Terminate the Connection.” (That’s what you do to break the connection with the computer, when you’re all done for the time being.)
o On this dialog, scroll down and select “Change Settings Stored in the Camera.” Choose your poison there.
Good luck. I'm sure people will post questions or clarifications here.
Tom
