What is the point of the software that comes with cameras?

In a phrase – “added value”.

It’s another feature to put on the back of the box and charge you for that costs very little to actually include.

Many CD’s that also contain the software will also come with drivers for the camera. I think it’s just kinda a “Well, we need to use some more space on this CD” type of thing.

And some people actually use the software that comes with it. I know my grandma does…

But mostly what lightlyseared said.

Dunno. I used it once. Then erased it. I’m an adobe man myself. Lightroom 2 and Photoshop ftw.

There was a question just like this not too long ago.

It’s generally for people who don’t really know what they’re doing. It’s a lot simpler to just press “upload” on a piece of software that automatically pops up than it is to find the appropriate folder and drag-n-drop. Also, a lot of those programs allow you to name your photos and perform light editing on them.

When I got my first Nikon digital camera 4 years, I HAD to load the disc in order to get it to work with my programs in my computer. But the one I just bought a couple weeks ago, I didn’t. It just said “new devise found” & that was it. Maybe the new ones youdon’t have to have the disc loaded.

With my Nikon DSLR I capture NX pro, which is a photo management suite, worth a couple of hundred dollars. But I ditched it and now just use Aperture. If i was to use ‘Drag and Drop’ i’d have hundreds of folders to organize, by using software it does it for me, handy when you have almost 30GB of photos

I agree that there’s a lot of unnecessary software bundled with cameras, however the import/browser that comes with Sony cameras does import and file okay.

If you have a somewhat higher-end camera that will store your pictures in RAW format there is usually a utility that will allow you to manipulate the RAW data to produce TIFF or JPG files.
– That’s if you chose RAW mode, you can usually chose to store the shots in regular jpg mode instead of RAW or also.