Shooting tethered in Lightroom 5 - what do you do?

spraynpray

I have just completed a frantically busy job using Lightroom 5 to collect images before going off to Photoshop and I have to say the shortcomings of using a Nikon for the job are twofold and serious. Firstly, you don't get a preview on the back of the camera, second you don't get a back-up image on the SD cards. What really caps it all is, (and is Adobes fault AFAIK), if you are working in Lightroom and trying to select an image or images when the tethered shooter takes another shot, the ruddy selected image jumps to the latest image even if you are mid click and drag of a different image. When it is a Canon, at least the first two problems don't occur, but the third makes shooting tethered in Lightroom a complete joke unless you are just shooting tethered to look at the pretty pictures on a screen!

Does anybody have any ideas on if you can get round that Lightroom problem, or if not, any suggestions of another program to collect the images before taking them into PS which does not have the selection priority problem that Lightroom has?

Rx4Photo

@spraynpray I don't have an answer for you but to say that I do watch a lot of CreativeLive and those guys and gals have the same issue when doing tutorials and shooting tethered with Nikons - can't see the image on the back of camera so they resort to waiting for the photo to render on the large screen TV. I'm kinda thinking that if they had a workaround then I might have heard it by now, but I haven't.
Good to know this, just a couple of days ago I was thinking about tethered shooting if I got more into shooting head shots in my garage studio.

gnoshme

I was at a conference on Wednesday in Atlanta and got a demo of http://iconasys.com/ product and was very impressed. Are you shooting product or what? This seems really ideal for that, and sounds like it could be a fit for what you want. What I liked about it is you can shoot a bunch of images in a set, then apply a kind of "saving template" to output those images in specific ways all at once.. even multiples at a time, e.g. one might be for general storage, and the other a scaled down set, and hose methods can pre-pend a word.. e.g. "eBay-"

I'm trying to get it to work on Linux but haven't had the time to focus on it yet, but it would be perfect fort he eBay stuff I do. What isn't yet supported (but coming soon) is RAW.

Maybe worth a look if you are doing product photography.

K

spraynpray

@RX4Photo: Working at low speed and not needing to edit and turn out perfect finished images very 2-3 minutes creates very different pressures that only experience can fully appreciate so you will be fine tethered in your home studio. What I did yesterday was like 4 hours at the Gym.

@gnoshme: I am shooting people not products unfortunately.

Looks like I'll be buying a small canon for the company to get round the first two problems and I'll have to look at specialised software for the last so if any of you guys have any personal experience based recommendations, I'd appreciate your opinions.

I wish Nikon would sort out their really basic problems with the above and also live view use. Although the live view problem is mainly for the recreational side of things I'm sure plenty of pro's use it too. I'm also sure it isn't hard to fix, but it is important enough that event photographers just about have to get a Canon. >:P

sevencrossing

Have you tried camera control pro 2?
have used it in the past, for product photography with some success
I have tried using LR tethered but did not like it

spraynpray

I haven't tried that program @sevencrossing - does it get around my problem of having the image selection updated forcibly when a new image arrives from camera?

Again, I stress that event photography is a completely different animal to product or studio shots where you are gathering data for later manipulation. In event photography you are working like a dervish on cocaine for hours on end.

sevencrossing

Sorry S&P
I think I am missing somthing
how do photograph an event, when your camera is tethered to a computer?

spraynpray

Think people buying images like at weddings etc seven.

Talking of which, I'm off to do one now.

Laters.

Ironheart

@spraynpray, before you go stomping off to the land of the canonites in a huff, do you mind if we try to troubleshoot this a bit? What camera? d800? Is this a Mac or windows? It sounds to me like you don't really want to tether, but what you want is the photos to copy to the hard drive for later processing. When you "tether" you want the computer stop whatever it is doing and show the photo you just took on the screen.

Hey, I just found this:
By default, Lightroom selects and displays the most recently captured photo in the preview area. Choose File > Tethered Capture and deselect Auto Advance Selection if you do not want Lightroom to automatically select the most recently captured photo.

From: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/import-photos-tethered-camera.html

FlowtographyBerlin

It sounds to me like you don't really want to tether, but what you want is the photos to copy to the hard drive for later processing.

No, I guess he wants to tether for instant output. Think of a photo booth or something the like.

spraynpray

Hi Guys, back from the gigs now.

@Ironheart: No huffing here, but those short comings are unfortunately there even on the D810/D750 (the newest offerings) so a simple upgrade will not cure the issue. I will not be forsaking my Nikons, just buying a cheap Canon for tethered shooting jobs. Work is more important than brand loyalty and if brand A can't cut it, you must move on - made especially easy when brand A does not listen to it's customers about problems.

@FlowtographyBerlin: Yup.

Nobody any input on the selection issue in Lightroom?

sevencrossing

I am trying to understand the issue
is the customer looking at one image, which disappears, when the next shot is taken ?

FlowtographyBerlin

Nobody any input on the selection issue in Lightroom?

Did you try this by @ironheart?

Hey, I just found this:
By default, Lightroom selects and displays the most recently captured photo in the preview area. Choose File > Tethered Capture and deselect Auto Advance Selection if you do not want Lightroom to automatically select the most recently captured photo.

From: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/import-photos-tethered-camera.html

Ironheart

@sprayandpray, I have solutions to your issues, but we have to work them here a bit. You seem awfully set on buying a canon, when there are some simple solutions. Are you feeling okay?

BTW, did you see my suggestion for fixing your selection issue? This should solve your #3 issue.

Now on to numbers 1&2. They are somewhat related, in that since the tethering is intercepting your photos before they get written to the card, there is nothing to preview. You need to use something other than Adobe LR tethering if you want this behavior to change.

I need to know what camera and what OS you are running to make sure I suggest the correct combo for you. For example if you are running windows, this software will do what you want for $29.95:

http://www.controlmynikon.com/index.html

CaptureOne is good too, but costs $299

There are literally hundreds of remote control and tethering packages out there, I very given you two ends of the spectrum and I can personally vouch for these two. However, depending on your needs, there are many others I can suggest.

What you will need to do, and you can do this with any camera control or capture software, is dump all of the pictures from the third party software to a watch folder and have LR set to "auto import". If you can't get this going, LMK and I will step you through it.

Simple answer? LR 5's tethering capabilities are not "best in class" anyone who runs a photo booth operation knows this you will quickly outgrow LR5 tethering, even with a crappy canon.

P.S. Wasn't this you just a month ago referring to canon?

I laid out those facts to Canon 'customer dis-service' and got blanked. I'll never buy from them again. Anything. - See more at: http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/632/do-you-print-i-do-#Item_50

FlowtographyBerlin

CaptureOne is good too, but costs $299

Not really: You can usually get it at a discount, they have many 50% off thingies running, pretty much all the time minus some weeks. Subscribe to their newsletter to get the alert. Also, you need an international tax ID (dunno what that's called in the UK), so you don't have to pay the Danish 25% VAT.

spraynpray

OK. Guys, thanks for your replies! I am working my way through images after my busiest weekend ever so have just come back to this thread to see if there were any replies. I did not see @Ironhearts solution due to it being an edit of a response I had already see and I don't get notifications on edits. Thanks for the prompt @FlowtographyBerlin.

I like the look of that answer Ironheart, I'll try it out when I have time. Interestingly, my business partner posted on the Adobe form and they didn't offer your (seemingly better) solution! They said use survey view which actually (if it works) looks like a really good solution as I like the option to display a number of images on the main work space because we do group shots too. Both will get checked out. Great answer, thanks.

The camera I used for the photobooth was my D7k (don't need many pixels and have good light) and the PC is an i7 running Windows 7.

I would love to lose the cable tether, but I need a decent, reliable, fast wireless system for the D7000 that will work over 8 metres or more and I don't know of one. I'm looking forward to hearing of a solution to that problem.

Buying a Canon? ) Yeah, desperate times call for desperate measures! No, my business partner has an old 40D as a backup for his backup and it seems to do a great job in those easy conditions. Another big advantage (and I never thought I would say this) is that the fantastic Nikon controls are a PITA when shooting like this as it so easy to nudge the wheels round and send a lousy shot up the wire. The Canon's controls are not so well placed and so are very difficult to nudge by accident when picking up and putting down the camera (tethered by wire). When you are working fast and making sure the talent doesn't lose the pose, you don't always remember to check your settings every time. I know a dab of gaffer tape does a similar job, but a/ we don't seem to have decent gaffer tape that does't leave evil sticky crap all over the camera, and b/ that solution doesn't get me around the other problems.

CaptureOne is good too, but costs $299

Not really: You can usually get it at a discount, they have many 50% off thingies running, pretty much all the time minus some weeks. Subscribe to their newsletter to get the alert. Also, you need an international tax ID (dunno what that's called in the UK), so you don't have to pay the Danish 25% VAT.

Sounds too expensive for the moment, but I'll look into it - don't know about any international tax ID?

FlowtographyBerlin

Sounds too expensive for the moment, but I'll look into it - don't know about any international tax ID?

Just looked it up, it's called VATIN (VAT identification number) in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT_identification_number

Maybe in the UK it's the same nationally and internationally, here it's a separate thing, hence why I mentioned it. Hope that helps anyways.

spraynpray

Oh sure, the VAT number. Thanks.

Ironheart

A) buy some decent gaffers tape, it won't leave any residue. the other tethering programs have the ability to disable the camera controlls so they are only adjustable from within the program

The controlmynikon program solves all of your issues, and also solves problems you don't even know you have (yet)

spraynpray

OK, thanks. I'll download the trial version when the dust settles and give it a go. Sounds like it could be the answer to some other issues I have too (non-work related, recreational issues).

Cheers, guys.