Studio shots to appear straight on a lap top

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Can I get the photographs I take in a studio with my 5D Mk3 to show straight up on a lap top? If so what do I need, cable wise etc?
 
Depends on your budget - you can go tethered or wireless.. Wireless is good but can be an expensive option if you take the Canon way to do it...
 
Okay thanks, what do I need for tethered because I guess you are talking lots for wireless like most things.
 
I think this can be done via Lightroom, not done it myself but I've seen it done on a few tutorials, do a search on you tube channel
 
I've only ever done wireless - I would be constantly annoyed by cables, not to mention the fact I'd probably fall over them. The Canon solution is around £500 - some people have successfully used the eye-fi card which is much cheaper - but doesn't work over great distances from what I gather. I've only ever used the Canon WFT series - and find them reliable and once set up, all good.
 
Can definately do it on Lightroom via a USB cable. Can also tether using Canon Utility.
 
I've very successfully used the USB lead supplied with the camera (5DmkIII) + a cheap 5m active extension USB cable, feeding into Lightroom.

However, my needs are simple and infrequent (hence the basic/cheap equipment used).

If it's something you're going to do regularly then consider upgrading the cables to better quality ones (TetherTools are often recommended*, and they're orange which is a good health & safety feature), and also consider CaptureOne Pro (also, often recommended* for tethering).
(* - I can't vouch for these recommendations, also they're often made by photographers with a financial interest.)

Look into wireless tethering solutions carefully as it can be a slow process when shooting RAWs.
 
Lightroom, in my experience, is pretty rubbish at this. The Canon DPP software is much better (and I don't often say that), also, Capture One is supposed to be significantly better at this as well. As others have said, USB cable from Camera to PC and then some software (Canon DPP). In the software, it's usually referred to as Tethered shooting.
 
If you want to go the tethered option visit https://www.tethertools.com/ and buy the orange 5m cable and a Jerk Stopper (no, you don't wear this around your neck as a talisman to ward off idiots on location - it's used to stop the cable being ripped out of your camera and breaking the USB port when you stand on it).. I couldn't get my D8xx bodies to work with Lightroom at all, until I tried this cable. It's much thicker than a regular USB3 cable.

For wireless, I can happily say my old EyeFi XPro summit-or-other 8GB card works reliably. Just don't expect it to stream your raw files in any reasonable time frame. I set the camera to record a basic small jpeg to the EyeFi, which appears within 2-3 seconds of the picture being taken. You use auto-import from the EyeFi folder to do it this way in Lightroom rather than tethering - which does mean you can't do the "same as previous" trick if you want to for example, see all the imported shots in mono. You can still do it, but you'd need to set the default import develop settings which is a bit cumbersome if you adjust it on the fly. When all said and done though, these jpegs are just for review on-set, and useful for the model to look at, as if you're using flash, the light will not be the same as the light you can see in the room (I always think of flash as those bits in Lord of the Rings when Frodo puts the ring on - like some sort of infrared trip). Newer EyeFi's are no doubt quicker. I've never had a problem with range - even in large studios. Just make sure your camera does not have a metal cage around the SD card slot, or it won't work. The D8xx series Nikons are certified to work with EyeFis and even have controls for them built in to the firmware.
 
Capture One seems to be the industry standard for this. However, I'm a big fan of SmartShooter in conjunction with Lightroom's auto-import. It gives far more control as well as tethered live view.
I use an active USB cable from Tethertools and some reusable cable ties in place of a jerk stopper.

qDSLR Dashboard is a free wireless tethering utility but a bit awkward to set up and not terribly stable. I don't know the 5dIII - does it have onboard wifi?

I found EyeFi cards an utterly frustrating waste of time and sent mine back.

CamRanger is very highly regarded; never tried it.
 
I shoot with Nikon tethered straight into lightroom a lot of the time for commercial jobs. never have any trouble.
Have shot tethered at events for years, where we do instant view and print sales.
The cable is a pain sometimes on events, but quicker and more reliable than any of the wireless options that I have tried.
 
I have used a USB cable in the past and found the cable to be both restrictive and annoying. I purchased an eye-fi card and find it to be a much better solution. It is a bit slow though. It really depends on how many photos you will be taking over what period of time. If you're machine gunning then the eye-fi will be no good, however, if you're only taking a few photos a minute then eye-fi will be okay. I find it helps to shoot RAW and JPG, I only send the JPG file to the laptop and I shoot using the smallest JPG size possible. then this is okay. When you've finished your shoot, import the RAW files separately.

With the eye-fi card it will import the files to a folder on your laptop, then using lightroom, select that folder as your 'watched folder' for auto import and they will import automatically. You can also have Lightroom apply presets on import, you can also apply tags etc...
 
Do *NOT* Buy tethertools "boosted" cables, if you're buying a boosted cable, buy the Ebay ones. Why? They're produced in the same factory. I've taken both apart, they have the identical QC check stickers, same parts, same PCB... in fact the solder job on the £8 ebay cable was far superior to the £50 Tethertools one!

Interestingly the PCB passes the USB2 connections straight through, and only runs a signal amp on the USB3 lines, presumably because a straight 5m cable is within USB2 specs and a split mode hub amplifier was hard work.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5m-USB-3-...862782?hash=item3a7722a6be:g:ArMAAOSwyQtVr3Vn


I bought the tethertools one when I was having issues tethering and thought the cable was at fault, thinking foolishly "Ahh, must be my cheap Ebay cable."
Nope. Same damn factory.
 
Last edited:
Denyerec said:
Do *NOT* Buy tethertools "boosted" cables, if you're buying a boosted cable, buy the Ebay ones. Why? They're produced in the same factory. I've taken both apart, they have the identical QC check stickers, same parts, same PCB... in fact the solder job on the £8 ebay cable was far superior to the £50 Tethertools one!

Interestingly the PCB passes the USB2 connections straight through, and only runs a signal amp on the USB3 lines, presumably because a straight 5m cable is within USB2 specs and a split mode hub amplifier was hard work.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5m-USB-3-...862782?hash=item3a7722a6be:g:ArMAAOSwyQtVr3Vn


I bought the tethertools one when I was having issues tethering and thought the cable was at fault, thinking foolishly "Ahh, must be my cheap Ebay cable."
Nope. Same damn factory.
Click to expand...
Interesting.. does this mean that for cameras which don't support USB3 there's no point using an active cable?
 
For distances < =5m, normal USB2 will operate just fine with no boosting, so any old cable will do. However there's a small caveat to that. The USB3 cable is , in a similar vein to CAT5 and CAT6, typically better constructed internally to higher tolerance. As a result, using a USB3 cable to push USB2 over 5 metres will probably be slightly more integral than using a ropey old USB2 cable to do it. As the EBay cable I linked is identical to the tethertools one (down to the QC sticker code) for £8 you get a cable that works admirably as a USB2 passthrough, as well as an active USB3 should you need it.
 
Denyerec said:
Do *NOT* Buy tethertools "boosted" cables, if you're buying a boosted cable, buy the Ebay ones. Why? They're produced in the same factory. I've taken both apart, they have the identical QC check stickers, same parts, same PCB... in fact the solder job on the £8 ebay cable was far superior to the £50 Tethertools one!
Click to expand...


Thanks for this, I was looking at tether cables for a few shoots I've got coming up and was about to pull the trigger on the Tethertools. Will give the £8 number a go and see how I get on with tethering!
 
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