Like Shooting Tethered? Check Out Some Of These Awesome Products From Tether Tools

If you haven’t heard of TetherTools.com yet, well… you have now. Tethered Tools makes a wide range of fantastic products to make your tethered shooting go more smoothly. They are THE one stop shop for all of your tethered shooting gear needs including software. They have seemingly infinite customizable tethering configurations that you should definitely check out.

Sure, they have all sorts of amazing custom configurable tables for your laptop/computer on set, but they go much further than that. Afraid of unplugging your cable from your computer or camera? They created this cool series of products called Jerkstoppers, which keeps you from causing inadvertent disconnectionsWant to have easy access to your tablet device as well? They have solutions for that.

I’ve been enjoying playing with my Tether Tools setup and plan on adding custom options to my setup! You should definitely check out their site.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what software I use for my tethered shooting with my Phase One 645 DF+ IQ140 and my Canons, it’s Capture One Pro 7. You can download a fully-functional demo for free here.

09235e927c7311e2a07e22000a1f9a28_7 My Phase One IQ140, powerbook, and Tether Tools setup

Here are some of the Tether Tools products that I have been using:

Douglas Sonders's picture

Commercial Photographer (mainly Phase One medium format digital) and filmmaker based out of NYC. Started a site called Notabully.org to spread stories about well-behaved and positive pitbulls. Love cars, 80s movies, dogs, and adventure. Free time is spent traveling, sleeping, adventuring, or working on my baby, a 1969 Mustang Mach 1.

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28 Comments

Looks like you got something like a dead Pixel on your face most of the time.

yup, looks like one of my 7D's has a dead pixel. time to melt it down and make a nice bobblehead of Pat or Lee for my desk

 :D I think you can just map it out using the manual sensor cleaning function.

i prefer the bobblehead idea now, though. YOU CANT CHANGE MY MIND. STOP TRYING TO CHANGE ME ANTON. haha

 It's up to you :D But please post a tutorial when you're finished!

What a waste! Ill take it from you!

Capture One is the bomb, even if you are not shooting Phase One, I'm shooting Nikon and using Capture One. Perfect!

yup, wait until you see my post about Capture One 7 Express, which just debuted

Nice camera strap, what brand is it?

Its a Vulture Equipment strap. you can check it here: http://fstoppers.com/vulture-equipment-straps-functional-warplane-inspir...

While I'm typically shooting from a static position when tethered, the
JerkStopper product makes me wonder...  Does it include any kind of fuse
effect(an intermediate breakaway with some cable slack, etc.), or is it
solidly attached to whatever strap or stand is in use?

While I can appreciate a high visibility cable, I can't shake the image of a
camera or computer crashing to the ground after a trip or tug on a
cable.

i am a happy capture one (pro) user, build my own jerk-stoppers and use this gear for all my thethered shoots all the time. would be nice to shoot wifi-thethered but have not found a way for capture one to support this :-(
(shooting 5DII)

Now on to a, somewhat, different topic: Does anyone know of any weird solution that enables me to shoot tethered on Lion with my 5D1? I've tried LR4, Photo import (or whatever the English name is), CaptureOne, and properly a few more. Any suggestions? :)

You can't shoot tethered with the original 5D

I don't know if I see this correctly, but it looks to me like instead of pulling out the orange cable when "tripping over it", you take down your entire camera because the cable doesn't come off? Same for the laptop side of the cable?

the clip on the aero table does give way. basic tugging and it stay connected. a pull hard enough to pull down the table and it disconnects. thats how i have it setup anyway. also, I hand hold most of my shoots so I dont worry about a cable knocking my camera down or off a tripod. in this case, jerkstopper works perfectly for me

I've never understood the jerkstopper.  If you trip over your cable without the jerkstopper you basically unplug the cables from the equipment, no "real" damage done.  If you trip over your cable with the jerkstopper you jerk your tripods down with your 30k camera and 3k macbook pro smashing to the ground? Is there a trip safety device like the xbox 360 controller cable that prevents this from happening?

reasonable statement. see my comment above

Awesome, thanks.  Sorry for the repetition, when I replied I didn't see any of the duplicate statements above.  The other thing I worry abut when handholding is picking up my camera (also a phase 1 wooot!) and something pulling on it if I go too far and it slipping out of my hands...  I'm thinking of getting some of those wide receiver football gloves while I shoot.  =)

I agree 100% I shoot tethered with an extension USB that has saved me many times

I think it's a seriously tricky thing. When I'm tethered, but holding the camera, I don't mind something keeping the usb from coming out. More likely then not, I've tripped over it, but I probably won't let the camera out of my grip just because someone is tripping on the wire. On a tripod though? Yeah, let that usb cable pop out.

Is this a sponsored post? 

as I mentioned in the facebook post, it is not a sponsored post Michael. I like to review gear I actually enjoy and use.

Does it work with any camera? Like my D3100?

which? Capture One Pro?

Does Capture One 7 allow non-Phase One cameras to record to the card and the computer at the same time?  

I wanted to use it while shooting a relatively big shoot, so the lack of redundancy is an issue, but the bigger issue is that I need to see the photos, as well as the client.  I was shooting with Canon.Instead I used an old school Lightroom tethering technique, where I used Canon's Camera Utility to download to a folder that Lightroom automatically imported.  I know that Lightroom can tether, but it is just awful at that.  Like, unusably bad.  If you bump the cord at all, it will disconnect from Lightroom, and then you have to shut down the program, and open it again, which makes you look stupid in front of a client.

With this technique, you could effectively shoot tethered with an older camera such as the 5D Classic. 

Has anyone had this issue when shooting Canon or Nikon and tethering with Capture One?

I'd rather have a cable detach than a computer and/or camera hit the floor in high velocity.

I always secure my cables to the bottom of the tripod or light stand with velcro straps so that they all run to the floor. This way, if you snag one, you dont pull your equipment down. This is like the gaffer trick of always running the power cord through the legs of a lightstand.