Tethering: Best Combo - 1Ds2/Laptop/Software?

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Mark,
Didn't polaroids take atleast 90 seconds and ruin a couple of shirts in the process.

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I knew you would say that. That is "so yesterday", as my old assistant would have said. Get with the program, Joe. Don't make me come up there.

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You of all people should show 'em a green half cooked polaroid and tell 'em to trust your vision. Is that what they're hiring you for?

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I save that line for the SECOND job; once they know me. You can't use that line on the FIRST job with an AD. Because when I walk in, looking how I look, well, that's two strikes against me right off the bat.

To be quite honest, even though I hate it while I'm doing it, I do find that some shots really end up MUCH nicer when you've got a second person viewing the monitor. (My ego hates it when I write that, though). Because, when it pops up, I'm looking at exposure, and shadow detail, and composition, but I don't see the green monster coming out of the kid's nose, like the AD does. Or the fact that the talent has on the wrong shirt. Or that it really should be a crystal goblet with Merlot in it, instead of what I put in there, which was a clear plastic cup from Seven Eleven, filled with $3.99 Ripple.

You are right. We've gone from two-minute-Fuji-Polaroid to pacing-after-two-seconds-DPP. But what are you going to do? You deal with the current reality. I don't drive a Model T (any more). The most frustrating thing about DPP is how it gives you that halfass, low-rez, first Preview, and then it takes another four seconds to show you the hi-rez. It's like the girl that says, "OK, I'll take off my shirt now", only to find that she's got on a JaneRussellTripleSnapWorldWarII bra on. We chose CaptureOne, because even though it takes five seconds to show you ANYTHING, at least when it pops in, it's full rez, and less frustrating.

I will try PhotoMechanic today and see what happens.

But you can set up DPP and EOS Capture, in this certain way, where the new images pop up, FULL SCREEN, in a large window, with no Toolbars or anything, if you click just the right combination of Preferences and Windows. It's quite impressive and very nice, if it only did it faster.

[Jonathan_Zalkin]

Mark,
I agree about DPP and I too like the full size image. I am coming from MFDB's so for me to not shoot tethered is a pain. C1 I dont like the conversions so it is out DPP is my choice for Converting my raws to tiffs but for tethered I dont like the lack of speed. I have a "PHAT" system that should fly
but it doesnt when it comes to previews. My main thing with PM is the ability to rename each image
quickly. With DPP I cant and that kills me. PM wont go full screen on new images as they are shot. It will just add them to the contact sheet. You can make them pretty large though. To see full screen you
have to double click it and BAM it is up and full rez.
It isnt perfect but for my needs it works well enough. For you I dont know. It is just another option for you to try. They also have a free demo period.
Best of luck.
Jonathan Zalkin

If you want to wow a client with speed, shoot to cards and ingest the cards to the powerbook using photomechanic.

I can shoot 30% faster this way, than shooting tethered, with ANY camera or system and never worry about connection, cables or always having the computer next to the camera.

Mainly because PM reads the cards very fast downloads quick and you can edit so easily that actual editing on set is not a hinderance.

PM has dual window editng and after a few minutes it becomes intuitive.

Shooting tethered will always be a function of the camera manufacturer's software and even if you use photo mechanic or Aperture to read a hot folder of files your still at the mercy of the camera software.

The Aptus will shoot to a powerbook very fast using LC 10. Actually too fast becasue I can stay 7 shots ahead of the software.

It still takes LC 10 using the A-22 a few seoncds to catch up.

Same with the Canon and the Phase.

JR

[Jonathan_Zalkin]

James you are correct If I dont have a client that wants to see the image the moment it was taken
then I ingest. I love PM. One of the features I love is secondary ingest. When I am on location
using a powerbook I bring along an external drive and with each ingest I have it save to both the internal and external. It is such a simple thing but it makes me feel so much better knowing the images are safe and backed up with out me needing to do anything.
Jonathan Zalkin

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If you want to wow a client with speed, shoot to cards and ingest the cards to the powerbook using photomechanic.

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In my book, that is not speed. I want to hit the shutter release, and have a full-screen image pop up, on whatever software, at full rez, within two seconds. End of story. Anything short of that is not professional.

My P25 does that, with CaptureOne, and it's great. (But there are 957 other things that make the P25 not great, but that's another conversation).

Last month I did two identical projects back to back with two seperate AD's.

One AD wants to edit on set, one doesn't.

For AD 1 I shot with the 1ds2, to cards using PM.

For AD 2 we shot with the Leaf tethered.

End of day AD 1 took one hour less time for the day with fully backed up edited files.

With PM you can go boom, fire off 10 frames, drop them in the reader and have them in dual windows editing in under a minute.

You never worry about disconnects, or twisted cables.

Don't get me wrong. 98% of the time I shoot he Leaf but not because of the tethering, but because I like the look of the leaf files and don't like the look of the Canon files.

Still, put a gun to my head and make me do it the fastest most stable way and I will go with the non tethered option and PM every time.

JR

[Alan_Goldstein]

Hi Mark,

I think a lot of the delay shooting tethered is from the camera sending the file. Just look at how long it takes after pressing the shutter release, before the hard drive light on the computer starts blinking. While having a faster computer may speed up preview rendering, I think you can only make so much progress in this department.

At least with Capture One, once the intermediate preview files have been rendered, then they stay available and let you scroll through sharp high quality images rapidly. Whereas DPP has to go back to the raw file and make a sharp preview every time. This is so painfully slow to me that I can't stand to use DPP to shoot tethered or to review images. (I only used it before Capture One 3.7.3 came out with 5D support.)

Most of my photography is architectural interiors, so speed is not a problem. When I work with ADs and other clients on lifestyle shoots, I also try to keep tethered, but if it really starts slowing me down, I just pull the plug and shoot to the card. Once the clients have seen the first few images on the monitor, they know where I am going with the shoot and are comfortable.

The alternative is to use the video output to a tv monitor. That way you can just blast away, and periodically stop and instantly review the images on a larger screen. I do this occassionally with the 4 inch screen on may Archos AV 340. (It has video input.) I can use the camera zoom function to judge expression. I've also found that the larger screen on the Canon 5D makes reviewing images much easier for everyone.

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