gthumb question

Can someone explain what "Import" in gthumb is supposed to do?  When I
plug in my digital camera I get a dialog with this option but it just
launches gthumb pointed at the camera's mount point - it does not copy
the pictures anywhere AFAICT.  Then when I click "Import" manually from
within gthumb it says "No camera detected" and just sits and spins
"Loading camera drivers" and has to be killed from a terminal.

Shouldn't "Import" copy the pictures from the camera to my hard drive?

Lee