Studio photographers and even the mug shot artists at the DMV shoot tethered to a computer, so why can’t you with your fancy DSLR? Here’s a rundown of some options for Mac users and their performance:
Canon’s included software does allow for remote control of a tethered camera; control the settings, click the shutter, and the file immediately downloads to the computer. Or at least as immediately as USB 2.0 allows: roughly 8 seconds for RAW and 3 seconds for a large, high-quality JPG. The complimentary Canon image viewer will watch the incoming directory and display a thumbnail; clicking that gives you a medium-size preview, which can then be maximized to fit the screen with more clicks.
My workaround to this was to write Tetherball , a bash script that catches the incoming photos and opens them up full screen in Preview. While this gives you an automatic full-screen view, it still has the transfer lag and only works with JPGs. Transferring both the RAW and the JPG in this case extends the preview lag to a dismal 11 seconds.
Apple’s Aperture software includes a tether option, though it excludes the XTi, XSi, and 40D, which is surprising for software marketed at professionals and advanced amateurs. It doesn’t have an option for watching directories and importing new files, either, though there is an Automator script that will do the job. This will bring up the last RAW image taken in an almost full-screen, single-image view, albeit after the transfer and import lags.
The only proper solution I’ve come across is Capture One, which natively handles the XTi and other cameras in tethered mode with full-screen views. At $129, it’s reasonable for pro photo software, but a bit much if you’re not doing a lot of studio work.
Overall, it’s disappointing that for all the advances in digital photography, there are still gaps like this that should be simple to close. Are there other innovative solutions to this problem?
