11 Replies Latest reply: Apr 11, 2010 12:37 PM by jakobox99 RSS

    Lightroom 3 and tethered support...

    carson.jones Community Member

      I work with many professionals on a daily basis and more and more find they like Lightroom.  The workflow is smooth and intuitive and the features are useful and effective.   The most common complaint however, is the lack of direct tethered support.  Reading John Nack's forums some time ago it was noted that the 'Import' feature was an effective workflow.  I couldn't disagree more and many many pro shooters fault Adobe for not being able to use the app in a studio environment.  Are we finally going to see direct tethered support in Adobe Lightroom 3?  Workarounds and plugins are less than ideal.

        • 1. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
          Jeff Schewe Community Member

          carson.jones wrote:

           

          Workarounds and plugins are less than ideal.

           

           

          Well, what exactly would you be willing to pay for this functionality? Now, take it for granted that simply clicking a mouse button to fire the camera and make a capture ain;t enough...I shoot with a Phase One 6x4.5 camera and a Phase One P65+ back. Just clicking the shutter doesn't interest me all that much. I want to be able to set the F stop and shutter speed as well as ISO on the camera. It would also be nice to be able to adjust the user preferences for custom functions and be able to set up and fire a whole series of either HDR brackets or a series of focus brackets...

           

          Is this the sort of functionality your pro would expect/want?

           

          Then you are in for a world of hurt...

           

          The system level support for thee functions are a big investment of engineering support per camera. Exactly which cameras would you expect this sort of support for? Pro level cameras? Mid-level cameras? ALL cameras? Camera Raw/Lightroom support over 230 cameras at this stage (more cameras added each version).

           

          Do you expect this professional level support to be free? What would you pay for this? What would the pros you work with it be willing to pay? Did I mention this would be a massive engineering effort? What features in Lightroom 3 would you be willing to give up to get this sort of hardware support in Lightroom?

           

          Just asking cause what you are asking for has some pretty massive ramifications...

          • 2. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
            carson.jones Community Member

            I understand that it's a great deal of work to put into play.  I also understand that the good people at Adobe are not shy of hard and complex work.

             

            I, along with many professional photog's and production artists, would be willing to pay a fair amount for this increased functionality.  Perhaps offering a Pro version (Lightroom Extended) for $499 - $599 (CDN) would make everyone happy?  The current Lightroom program is fantastic except when it comes to supporting the capture process.  Fix / resolve this and you've got an app that would take center stage in the pro production cycle.

            • 3. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
              volkerkunkel Community Member

              While tethering in Lightroom does work fine (for SOME cameras on ONE platform using Mountainstorms plugin) I also guess a native support would be ideal. But I agree, not all photographers need it so they don't want to pay for it. I for myself would pay extra money for it, so maybe let's consider not Lightroom and LightroomPro (normal one is professional too) but maybe a Tether or Studio module (Live view, highlight clipping, basic camera control, etc.) which can be purchased as an add-on.

              • 4. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                mountainstorm Community Member

                Well I've just produced a new version which should work on Windows as well as OS X ... no liveview, just basic tether/download/import.  I've only actually tested it against Lightroom v2, so if someone can try it in v3 I'd be grateful.  If people find it works I'll get working on Canon support.

                 

                Please, please download and give it a go and report back here any problems.  I've not heard anything from anyone about the OSX version so I'm assuming that it works ok.

                 

                To use it just download and install the plugin into Lightroom.  Then select "Begin Camera Tether" from the File menu; you should get a  progress bar labeled "Tether".  Turn your camera on (if its off) and it will stick the camera name in the label as well.  Take a photo and it should be downloaded and imported into Lightrooms main catalog (check you've got that selected).  Once its imported the first photo, select it and subsequent imports should get selected automatically - although that can be a bit flaky as I'm using a hack.

                 

                 

                good luck

                 

                Rich

                • 5. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                  Leeland32 Community Member

                  I just downloaded the plugin and tried it and the plugin manager said it failed. Tried reloading to no avail. Using LR 3beta 64 bit in windows 7 (any of which could be the problem.

                  • 6. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                    Stoqq.com

                    Jeff is correct in demanding more from tethering and in realizing just how complex it really is. Phase One have done it with their version 5.x Pro version but it only works with their digital backs and cameras. At a minimum I'd like to see the ability to fire the shutter from Lighroom.

                     

                    But what if Adobe wrote a spec for a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL from here on out) for cameras that manufacturers could adopt (as an alternative / secondary method of communicating with PC's) which would allow all camera controls to be accessible to software developers? Adobe have already given us DNG (Thank You), why not tackle the problem this way? Instead of trying to code support for each camera and having to continually update software, it would have to be up to the manufacturers to make sure that their devices will support this HAL (openHAL?)  standard which will make software development easier for all. Although nikon and canon do offer some type of tethering it's seen as rather crappy and incomplete and is only used as there is no choice. Eventually (for people on this forum) RAW files will end up in Lightroom anyway, what I think tethered shooters want is for RAWs to originate there as well, not via another software app / hop that slows things down. Keep it simple is what we're after.

                     

                    Am I way off base with this suggestion as a solution? I'm no software developer.

                     

                    -Nik

                    • 7. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                      taylorphoto

                      So I'm wondering...

                       

                      perhaps people are thinking about different things when they say 'tethered' support.

                       

                      For me, it's enough to have Lr capture my images while I use the camera controls to actually make the exposure.  This is a sort of minimalist view of such a feature and I think it would be worth considering for Lr.

                       

                      Full on camera control is another matter, and I would expect this to be a different application which would then "forward" the captured images to Lr, Photoshop, or whatever else you're using.  I'd expect a full featured control program to do just about anything, including pre-programmed mulitple exposures with custom bracketing settings for things like HDR work.

                       

                      So I think it's a good idea if we could have automated image capture in Lr.  The other fancy stuff like setting aperture or triggering the shutter is probably best left to a separate app.

                       

                      Pt

                      • 8. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                        josephdominguez

                        I think everybody is correct on the points they are trying to bring across. I feel that if Adobe is claiming to be the best choice for photographers they need to be the best product for photographers. Sure it's "hard" for the engineers to manage the task, (poor little Adobe engineers. Such hard work and such little pay) Give me a break. Quit whining and get to work. You know what we are asking for - make it happen. You're Adobe.

                         

                        Capture One works really well for a studio work flow.  ~ JD

                        • 9. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                          Stoqq.com Community Member

                          Thanks for the added tether feature in LR3 B2! I've not done much testing with it but I'm happy with what I see so far on OSX/D700. Hopefully camera shutter, aperture and ISO controls will make it into the final release. Live View would be the dogs bollocks if it made it in too.

                           

                          Thanks for the hard work.

                           

                          -N

                          • 10. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                            josephdominguez Community Member

                            OMG! You guys rock! I am just getting into the testing stage but so far the tethering is flawless. It's the only feature that was critical in my opinion. It works with my 5DmkII. That's huge and I can't believe I get to test it. Now you're talkin'. Thank you for not giving up. ~ JD

                            • 11. Re: Lightroom 3 and tethered support...
                              jakobox99

                              SOOO glad to see that this is in the beta.

                               

                              I've long been frustrated by having to use workaround to shoot tethered. But I like shooting to LR way more than Capture One (which is the only viable alternative, in my opinion).

                               

                              This is HUGE. Can't wait for it to get out of beta.