So exactly what should happen if you are in the middle of a tethered – via usb cable – shoot and someone trips over the wire?
First, it shouldn’t rip the cable out of the camera and damage the usb connector on either camera or computer.
To that end it helps to put some sort of knot or fastening at both ends so the strain will not be taken by the USB connectors. For the camera end it probably makes sense to attach to the camera strap or perhaps a tripod head plate, while on the PC end it may be as simple as clamping to the table.
But what if a really big pull is made on the cable? In that case it is better the cable comes unplugged — so that’s a good reason to use a two part cable — USB extender plus cable — so that it can basically just come unplugged in the centre.
Ok so that’s the physical part, but what about the software. How should the software respond?
I recently learned that Nikon CameraControl Pro 2 — which I have never tried — causes images taken during a tethered session to only be saved to the PC, not to the camera as well. I’m quite amazed by that actually — when designing DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control I deliberately made the decision that the images would be in BOTH locations — it seems like an obvious backup. In fact I’m a little concerned that it is saved in only a single location on the PC and I’ll be adding features (eventually!) that allow the images to be instantly backed up to another location such as an external drive, file server, or maybe even an internet service — imagine tethering directly to Flickr!
Anyway, the point is what happens when you realize the cable is unplugged and plug it in again?
1. Nothing happens — you have to restart the software
This is typical it seems, that’s what my script does
2. The software notices the camera is gone and waits for it
And when it is plugged in it downloads any new images that were taken while it was unplugged
I think #2 makes a lot more sense don’t you? It doesn’t sound that hard. Ok when you plug in the camera again the annoying choice thing pops up but you can (I think) ignore that. Or maybe I can look for it and send a Cancle to it. Then the script can see the camera is back — look for any new images, download them, then go back to what it was doing before.
Ok sounds like a plan — or can you suggest an alternative, or maybe some options that would make sense? I’m all ears.
10 responses so far ↓
1 haru // Dec 13, 2008 at 4:01 am
sir, i am a fine arts major who is having a hard time compiling and installing the open source gPhoto. instead, your DIYphotobits camera control is like rain on a hot day and i thank you so much!
am tethered now, d70 to XP service pack2 of Obee laptop
2 Daniel // Dec 13, 2008 at 7:20 am
Just ordered my 15ft usb 2.0 extender for about 12 dollars – should be able to use the tethering properly now…thanks for remind me to do knots on the tripod!
Interesting question – if there’s no SD card in the camera will CC still work?
And any word on the other “non-greens” features?
3 raymond // Dec 17, 2008 at 6:42 am
No, won’t work without a memory card. I think that’s reasonable as a safety measure.
Non-greens features, not yet. Maybe over the Christmas holidays when things are less busy? Hopefully.
4 Tony Mah // Dec 20, 2008 at 9:58 am
I can’t seem to get it to work if I manually press the camera shutter on my D50. Is there a way to get this to work?
5 zald // Dec 22, 2008 at 1:00 pm
@ Tony Mah …..Same here.
6 raymond // Dec 23, 2008 at 6:52 am
Tony, zald — it should work. Did you press the Start Tether button to go into tethering mode first?
7 Tony Mah // Dec 23, 2008 at 7:43 am
I pressed “Start Tether” and it worked!
I am using another program “Capture One” to display the raws but it doesn’t seem to pickup the new files. It works with Nikon Capture Control, but with your Capture Control, it doesn’t detect that a new file has been copied into the folder.
Test 1:
1. Start Capture One
2. setup capture folder
3. setup capture one to display newest file
4. copy raw file from desktop to capture folder
5. Raw image appears on the screen
This also works with Nikon Capture Control Pro
Test 2
1. load Capture one
2. Load your capture control
3. setup your output folder to the same as capture one capture folder
4. Take picture with you capture control
5. file appears on the explorer window
6. Capture Once doesn’t see it
7. Need to refresh Capture One to see any new pictures
8 raymond // Dec 28, 2008 at 8:05 am
Tony, strange indeed. All my program does is save the file in the specified folder — as I presume any tethering software would do. The only “odd” thing my script does is that it saves the file first under a temp name, then *renames* it to .jpg or .nef as appropriate. This is necessary to avoid Adobe Bridge choking. But perhaps Capture One is looking for an image file to be open/created and that never happens, instead a rename happens.
Maybe try manually moving, copying, renaming, creating dummy files into a folder while Capture one is watching to folder to work out what is the “trigger” that it is looking for.
9 Ken Elliott // Jan 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm
A nice feature would be to add a way to execute a script after image capture. In this case, the script (or command) would be to copy the file from a temp folder to a folder Capture One is watching.
Great product, BTW. I’ currently tethered with a pair of 15 foot USB extension cables, using LightRoom 2.2 to automatically import from a watched folder. I’m quite impressed with your program – much simpler than Nikon’s Control. Thanks!
10 raymond // Jan 4, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Ken, yes I have planned for that — obviously pretty easy to do it basically but I wonder if I can do it multi-threaded or at least allow choice of prioritizing either downloading or processing what is already downloaded.
My main thought was that calling an arbitrary command line would allow for things like executing a PS droplet so you can do a basic standard post process routine before the customer sees anything!
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