I found this post while searching how to connect my old Canon Rebel T3 camera to a new MacBook Air which uses the Sonoma operating system. My old Windows computer died a couple of months ago and I decided to switch to Mac. I had to do some further research, but I finally got my camera to work. I'm posting here so that maybe someone else who needs help will find this information all in one place.
My camera has a USB A cable. I had already purchased a USB hub for the computer which has both USB C and USB A ports, so at first I tried connecting the camera to a USB A port on the hub. Nothing happened.
My hub plugs in flush with the computer and uses both of the original USB C ports. However, one of the USB C ports in the hub is for both data and power (the other ports are for data only). I had also purchased a USB A to USB C adapter from Apple when I bought the computer, so I tried using the adapter on the camera cable and then connected it to the powered USB C port on the hub. (Again, this port on my hub supports both data and power; some powered ports on other hubs do not support data and can only be used for charging and not data transfer.) The port worked because I got a message on my computer asking if I wanted to allow the camera to connect.
I clicked "yes" to allow the camera to connect to the computer. However, I still had issues finding my pictures to transfer. I was expecting the camera to show up in "Finder" as another drive, just the way it does in Windows if you are not using software to make the transfer. The camera did not show in finder.
After further research, I found the camera listed when I pulled up my Photos app. However, I did not want these pictures going into the Photos app and filling up my iCloud - I use iCloud only to temporarily back up pictures I take with my phone. (I have another backup program installed on the computer.) Therefore, I had to find out how to move the pictures from the camera to the other Pictures folder on the laptop which was not part of iCloud.
More research led me to the Image Capture app on the computer. It can be launched from Finder under Applications; it can also be launched from the Launchpad. If you use Launchpad, the app is hidden within the "Other" folder. You can move it outside of the folder onto the main screen for easier access later. I found my camera listed inside the Image Capture on the menu on the left. By clicking on it I could pull up all of the photos on the camera.
Transferring the pictures using Image Capture was easy. I was able to select the pictures I wanted and then was able to click a drop-down menu at the bottom which allowed me to choose an "other" folder if I didn't want to use the one it suggested. After selecting Import, I could then navigate to the folder I wanted and then click "New Folder" at the bottom to create the new subfolder for storing the selected pictures.
While in Image Capture I also found a setting to change that is supposed to cause Image Capture to automatically open whenever my camera is connected. So hopefully I won't have to remember "Image Capture" and it will automatically open in the future when I have pictures to transfer.
Now that I've found out how it works, I'm very happy! However, I was starting to panic at first when I couldn't find my pictures; I was afraid my camera was too old to work with the new Mac. Thankfully, this is not the case and I can continue using the camera!
