Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I plug in my camera and then there is no way for me to access its functionality. These udev rules don't seem to help me a bit. Does this mean I have to change something in my camera to allow it to work? I'm searching some more.
Does the camera screen go black when you plug the camera in? If so, the udev rules are almost certainly the problem. Unfortunately, this udev stuff isn't well documented and not every distro does everything the same way, so it's hard to give specific instructions.
Be sure to pay attention to the parts about copying the files to override them, and the hwdb file in this post:
https://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=10664.msg115782#msg115782 (that information was for ubuntu, but I'd guess raspbian is pretty similar)
Note that if you set up your pi without a desktop, these rules probably will not be a set up (I didn't have a problem with them on the pi I use for building). The chdkptp GUI may be nice to for initial development, but for automation you probably want to use the cli anyway.
Edit:
EDIT: Basically what I want to know is: can I change this? Is there a way for me to connect my camera to the Pi and have it be able to take pictures/zoom via PTP?
Absolutely. You just need to ensure that no software other than chdkptp accesses the camera when you plug it in. The "right" way to this is using the udev rules and hwdb, but killing some gphoto / gvfs processes before connecting the camera might work too.