how to: download photos from canon 400d

hi,

my parents has lend me their canon 400d and i would like to download the photos to my macbook.

I don't have the original canon software disc and do not have access to it as it is with my parents abroad.

i thought it would automatically pick up the camera / photos when connecting the camera to the mac? tried to see if iphoto would be able to find them but that doesn't seem to work, neither can i see it appearing when looking in the finder.

can you advise?

only recently got my mac so might be something simple that i'm yet to try... (i hope)

thanks,
oppers