Photos, they have become a vastly more important and shareable thing since the advent of digital photography, smartphones and even the internet. Google redefined how we can store, find and share our digital memories when they launched Google Photos.
For those of us who still use a separate physical camera, be that a DSLR or a point and shoot it’s a huge frustration to get your photos off your device. There’s cables, memory cards, copying, uploading, even for technologically literate people it’s a hassle.
Today that frustration ends for some Canon owners with the launch of Canon’s integration with the new Works with Google Photos program via their image.canon app. If you have a compatible camera you will be able to connect your camera to Google Photos for automatic backup.
For which Canon cameras are compatible you can check the Canon website, or we have grabbed screenshots below of the DSLR and point and shoot models.
If you have a compatible camera and want to use the backup feature, there is a little catch, you need to be a Google One subscriber to use the service — which is a strange decision by Google. Additionally, all photos will be backed up in original quality which will count towards your total Google data cap.
Canon is offering a free one month trial to the base 100GB tier of Google One. One month isn’t very long and if you’re an avid photographer 100GB may not last that long either.
It’s unclear if the decision to back up in original quality was made by Canon to preserve the quality of the images or if it is a requirement by Google. Either way, we’re not fans of not being given a choice as consumers.
If storage space becomes an issue, you can always upload in original quality and periodically convert them back to high quality using Google Photos on the web to change the stored quality.
We are also not sure why a Google One account is necessary, it would be a shame to see Google launch partner integrations like this, only to hide usability behind a monthly subscription. While a 100GB Google One subscription isn’t that costly, it’s a bit of an ‘Apple move’ to put basic functionality behind a paywall — don’t be evil Google (or “do the right thing”).
If you have a compatible Canon camera and want to start backing up your device to Google Photos, head on over to the Play Store and grab the app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=image.canon
