I’ve seen videos online of people shooting with their camera tethered to their computer. It has often been one of those things I thought I’d try someday, but I really had no pressing desire to do so. I rarely shoot in a studio environment and when I do, I hate to be tied down with cables attached to my camera.
However, the other day I was stuck in my office waiting on an important call that I couldn’t miss and my camera and computer were just sitting here. The thought popped into my head to give it a shot.
I connected my camera to the laptop with the USB cable and fired up Lightroom. Once there, it was really a no-brainer to set this up. I work on a PC, so I opened the File menu and selected “Tethered Capture”. This opens the following window where I can name the session, set the location where the files to be saved and set my Metadata presets.
After clicking the OK button, a new toolbar opens in lightroom:
I could quickly see the camera attached and the settings currently set on it – ISO, shutter speed, aperture and white balance.
What really interested me was the ability to set the develop settings in Lightroom. These settings are applied as the file gets transferred to the computer and is then displayed in Lightroom. Being I was taking self portraits of myself (yikes!), I opted immediately for a black and white preset that I like.
Then, all I did was click the big grey button on the far right of the toolbar to trigger the shutter release. I had my camera set to autofocus and it did that first and then triggered the shutter.
In just a moment, the photo appeared on my screen. I’ll spare you the agony of looking at most of these captures – not easy taking a self portrait that I liked! However, here is one of the end results that my family and friends say best looks like me.
I really may think more on this – in particular when I am doing some product photography or working with models in a studio environment. It was worth playing with.
Hope to talk again soon!
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