Options for Shooting Tethered into Lightroom
First off, a BIG thanks to everyone who posted "good lucks" on the Philly half marathon I ran this past weekend. I ran with my brother and sister and we ran the whole race together (and had a great time doing it). Weather was cold but I felt absolutely great once we got going. Anyway, thanks again!
Now onto the topic of the day. A few things have changed lately when it comes to shooting tethered into Lightroom. So I figured I'd cover them all in one post. Also, I'm not doing a full tutorial on shooting tethered mainly because that's been done a few times already. Here's a link to Scott Kelby's blog where he's got a tutorial on shooting tethered into Lightroom. Sound good? OK, here's your options:
1) If you shoot Canon then you can use Canon's free EOS Utility. This is probably your best option if you're a Canon shooter.
2) If you're a Nikon shooter the waters are a bit murky here. First, you can use Nikon's (NOT FREE) Camera Control Pro (which is what I've used).
3) If you're a Nikon shooter then you also have a free option but it's only for Windows users only. It's called DiyPhotoBits.com Camera Control and they've got a video on their site on how to use it.
4) Finally, Tom Hogarty (Lightroom's Product Manager) let me in on a plug-in for Lightroom 2 (for Mac only though). It's called MountainStorm Lightroom Tether and you can grab it here. Of course if you find it useful, it's nice to leave a donation considering your other alternatives are not free. I've tested it out and I have to say it works pretty darn good. I've used Camera Control Pro for so long so it's a little weird to change, but I think I'm now switching over to the free plug-in.
(edit: Sorry everyone. I forgot to mention one small thing that I was reminded of in the comments. Some one had told me not to use the "Enhanced" setting so make sure you leave it unchecked. Seems pretty unstable in this mode)
So as you can see here, the world of shooting tethered is still a bit confusing, with a few different options. The best solution would be for Adobe to build tethered shooting support directly into Lightroom (like Aperture does). That's not a groundbreaking request though, and I think the Adobe folks hear it loud and clear so let's keep our fingers crossed for the future. One more thing. If you've got experience with any of the tethered shooting options above be sure to let us know which works best for you (or not) in the comments area. Thanks!
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December 13th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I use a Workflow made with Automator.
It’s not a complete tethering solution because it’s not possible to control the camera adjustments from the computer but it works fine with my Nikon D80, Mac with Leopard and Lightroom.
Open Automator, just double click “Take Picture” in the actions pane. By default this action will save the picture in the “Pictures” folder, so we need another action to move the picture to another folder, for that double click “Move Finder Items” in the actions pane and create a folder called for example “Tethered Pictures”. That’s it, save this as a Workflow called for example Tethering.workflow.
Open Lightroom, go to File/Auto Import/Auto Import Settings, in Watched Folder choose the “Tethered Pictures” folder, in Destination create a new folder called for example “Imported Pictures” and set Initial Previews to Standart, click OK. Go back to File/Auto Import/Enable Auto Import.
The “Tethered Pictures” folder must be an empty folder because it will be watched by the Lightroom and every file in that will be imported.
Now, every shooting time, open Tethering.workflow and Lightroom. I use Spaces to separate each one and Develop Window in the Lightroom.
Run the workflow.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Anyone else experience serious difficulties in finding the EOS Viewer Utility available for download? Canon site seems to only have the updater files. I hope I didn’t throw out that ancient CD that came w/ my camera…
January 27th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I made a quick video tutorial on MountainTether with Lightroom. I hope it helps http://www.michaelwarf.com/blog/adobe-lightroom-tethering-tutorial .
January 29th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Newton,
After having no luck using MountainTether with a D700, I used your Automator and had some success. However, there are a few things I can’t figure out:
1) Is there a way to stop the “Take Picture” action from actually taking the picture?
2) Is there a way to keep the action running until I tell it to stop? All is does for me is play once and then stop.
Thanks in advance for your help,
John
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:51 am
I’ve just finished a new version of Lightroom and Studio Tether. It should solve most the issues people have had i.e. issues with progress bars, name plates, crashes etc.
The plugin now automatically starts/stops and configures my StudioTether program which is used to provide feedback. The standard mode (the default) should work for most cameras except the modern Canons (I’m still trying to figure them out). The enhanced mode only currently works for Nikons but tells you your current shutter speed, iso, fstop and photo destination (memory card or PC). You can even click on these and change them.
I’ve also added LiveView support - although it appears to stall after a minute or so … Im working on fixing that at the moment.
Please have a go and report back to me
Rich
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Thank you Matt.
And Rich, for Mountainstorm.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
how much does the cpu influence load times? just loaded CCP2 and LR2.3 on my old powerbook 1.3ghz with 1.25g ram . raw image from d300 takes 17 seconds to load. how much improvement would a 2.0g macbook get me? thank you. jim/atlanta