What tethered shooting experience do you have to share?

I have realized that in my endeavor to get more predictable images of my stage shots, (poor high contrast and specular light) and my studio, (diffuse, soft, shaped and planned light for portraits of musicians), I am considering shooting tethered. Like this, so I can see the grain in the details of the image and the quality of highlights. Breeze Systems has a program for both PC and Macs.


I'm not sure if this gets to be 100% or not in the zoom. I've no experience as yet with the Breeze utility or any other remote shooting software. Still, Breeze seems to be well thought out and comprehensive. What does it offer more than the Eos Utility itself? My needs are to see the image as fast as possible to be able to judge the highlight colors and detail. I want to make corrections in my shooting settings, especially ISO and -EV, to get the lowest noise and still recover the highlights. (I have read that using Eos Utility run on Windows XP is the fastest way to get images to the Mac Intel computer via USB-2.)

So is Eos Utility, (which knows all the inner Canon secrets) (combined with Bridge or Lightroom) the best for my purposes, something else, or would one better use Breeze Pro?

Thanks for your input,

Asher

Nik

Asher,

Nikolai shoots wireless tethered most of the time, I think. Not sure about softward/hardware. You might check with him. Of course, our own Will would also be technologically knowledgable.

I thought it would be useful to add this reference on using the nikon or Eos utility software that comes with the camera to make a folder which Lightroom is set up to constantly pull pictures from to view.

I also discovered that one can use the Epson P-6000 and P-7000 to use to make camera setting, shoot, view images and store the files. The download is free from the U.K., here.

Asher

I used to shoot 100% tethered when documenting art work in New York, either for 2D art or installation shots.

The camera back feeds from the FireWire, so you don't need to have a fresh battery --just on the AFD Mamiya body-- but you need the to have at least 50% battery charge on the laptop otherwise the digital back will fail. (this is the only time I saw my back refusing to work besides when the AA's of the camera ran out)

The program is -of course-, Capture One that works in a very robust and trouble free zinc with the camera/back. You can shoot the camera from the computer and adjust the digital back (ISO etc) and the file will be stored in the session folder dedicated to "capture".

I used to process all final images and "deliver" the final product to the client on a FireWire external disk for them to copy to their server..

What I liked the most was that I could just un plug the tether from the computer or the camera any time without having to "eject" anything. I closed the MacBook and moved to another take where I would just plug in the back and shoot in seconds.

You can review focus, flash and composition on the portable display. The client can approve the shot and the RAW file was sitting there on my computer.

I had even developed a cart/mini-desk for my Mac to be placed -Velcro- and do my capturing/editing/lunch...

Asher, I don't know how my experience apply/or if it does to your needs, but shooting tethered is a time sever way of working for many applications. Definitively studio work....

Thanks, Leonardo for this detailed report of your extensive real experience. It's very helpful and does make me consider Capture One.

My cameras have USB-2. So speed is a consideration. How long does it take for the file to appear? were you looking at the RAWS, the built in jpg in the RAW or a jpg separate form the RAW?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Thanks, Leonardo for this detailed report of your extensive real experience. It's very helpful and does make me consider Capture One.

My cameras have USB-2. So speed is a consideration. How long does it take for the file to appear? were you looking at the RAWS, the built in jpg in the RAW or a jpg separate form the RAW?

Asher

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You are welcome...

You can get Capture One for other cameras, so it could be something to look in to. I don't know how it works with my Nikon since I only have Capture One DB that that is free for life for owners of backs, but only works with C1 files.

I think that the speed of the file appearing depends on the computer, since it has been taking its time on my 2.8GHz Mac Pro Quad-core, probably because I only have 2Gigas of RAM

I will do a test on my newer MacBook Pro 13" and will tell you.

PhaseOne camera backs have FireWire, so if you get one you are probably going to need it.

CaptureOne is one of the best raw converters out there according to what I have read -of course this is debatable, and it has-- but is a good program to capture and edit raw files. You can see 100% details, and adjust the raws usin a large toolbox before producing the final 16bits TIFFS, and now you can even correct lens aberration and distortions before going to Photoshop. I think that what you see is the RAW file the way you would see as TIFF with the settings at the time... in other words, the program pre-converts the raw.

CaptureOne 5 has a feature where you can see the depth of field masked in bright green in the viewer or all the thumbnails. This could be time saving for a portrait photographer to see from far away all the images that have the eyes of the model inside the focus zone.

leonardobarreto.com said:

CaptureOne is one of the best raw converters out there according to what I have read -of course this is debatable, and it has-- but is a good program to capture and edit raw files. You can see 100% details, and adjust the raws usin a large toolbox before producing the final 16bits TIFFS, and now you can even correct lens aberration and distortions before going to Photoshop. I think that what you see is the RAW file the way you would see as TIFF with the settings at the time... in other words, the program pre-converts the raw.

Click to expand...

I realize that one could work on getting one picture right and then apply all those corrections to the rest of the batch. If I set it up right, one could end up with most of the pictures processed at the end of an event. If one needs to disconnect to shoot away from the computer, will the subsequent pictures taken with the camera not connected then be transferred automatically when one reconnects the camera to the computer, or does on have to reset Capture One?

leonardobarreto.com said:

CaptureOne 5 has a feature where you can see the depth of field masked in bright green in the viewer or all the thumbnails. This could be time saving for a portrait photographer to see from far away all the images that have the eyes of the model inside the focus zone.

Click to expand...

This is such a clever function! I like the idea that one can see what's going on at a glance! Can one set the RAW translation to give a full size PSD 16 BIT aRGB file as well as a small sRGB jpg in a separate folder?

Thanks,

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

This is such a clever function! I like the idea that one can see what's going on at a glance! Can one set the RAW translation to give a full size PSD 16 BIT aRGB file as well as a small sRGB jpg in a separate folder?

Thanks,

Asher

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Hi Asher
I can confirm that CaptureOne Pro (as opposed to DB which is done for that as Leonardo has already written about) is a very good to shoot tethered, I use that function from time to time with the 1Ds2 & 3.
You can save as many different format (Tif or Jpegs, not PSD's) at any size and within several different color spaces, you create different export recipies in advance and then process your file with any of these recipies dispatched in pre selected folders.

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi Asher
I can confirm that CaptureOne Pro (as opposed to DB which is done for that as Leonardo has already written about) is a very good to shoot tethered, I use that function from time to time with the 1Ds2 & 3.
You can save as many different format (Tif or Jpegs, not PSD's) at any size and within several different color spaces, you create different export recipies in advance and then process your file with any of these recipies dispatched in pre selected folders.

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Great to have your input too, Nicolas!

What's the delay from shutter release to the image appearing? Do you use RAW plus JPG? Also have you tried Breeze Systems solution too? Does Capture One have any capability for handling several cameras at the same time?

Thanks so much,

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

What's the delay from shutter release to the image appearing?

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Almost instantly

Asher Kelman said:

Do you use RAW plus JPG?

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Jwhat?

Asher Kelman said:

Also have you tried Breeze Systems solution too?

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No, Iw asn't aware of its existence, but I don't shoot tethered that much…

Asher Kelman said:

Does Capture One have any capability for handling several cameras at the same time?

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I don't think so… but I never tried!

Thank you Nicolas for your input, I never paid attention to the time it takes to show the image on the display since I seldom shoot portraits, and I also need to get my computer up to speed...

Working on studio table top, or interior lighting is so much easier this way since you just change something and release the shutter from the camera and wait for the image to show.

A Phase One back only shoots raw, but yes, as Nicolas said, you can develop multiple formats and color spaces, sizes etc

First Phase One models of backs used to shoot tethered only, and I think that an H-25 can be found for a very good price. I think that they don't even use battery, LCD or memory card, so they are compact and solid piece of capturing equipment --no fan also--.

I use Breeze Systems DSLR Capture Pro exclusively for my studio shooting, after experiencing stability issues with EOS Utility under Vista.

I shoot RAW only with a Canon 50D and it takes 4.5 seconds for the image to appear on my laptop screen, with file sizes in the 15-17MB range over a wired connection.

I use LiveView for critical focussing and Capture Pro opens a new window with a zoom box and focus controls. LiveView and remote focus make a huge difference in my results because of the ability to zoom in to focus using a large image. My shots are consistantly sharper because of this feature.

My only complaint about DSLR Capture Pro is that it does not preserve the original camera file name, so if you save to both CF card and HD, the file names don't match.

I tried Capture One early on, but found that it was overkill for my purposes.

I like DSLR Capture Pro's full screen window, as opposed to EOS Utility, which requires that you run it and Lightroom to get instant full screen views.

I've been using this workflow for over a year now and am very happy with the results.