Tethered cable

taff63

taff63

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Im looking at getting a tethered cable but i cant justify paying the amount they are asking for so i would like a cheaper alternative if anyone has any suggestions it wont be a everyday item only now and again to photograph my grandchildren ..
 
I bought an Amazon basics one for £6.99 & it does a good job. 9ft long, the cable is quite stiff which some of the reviewers didn’t like but it works fine for tethering. In a bigger area I’d look for a longer cable, but for my living room-cum-studio it works well. The Tether Tools ones are very pricey . . .
 
If your camera has a USB 2 port, pretty much anything will work - I used to use a cheap 5 metre cable on my D700 without any issues. If, however, you have a USB3 port on your camera - my advice is to just pay the man the money for the nice orange cable - none of the cheaper options would work for me on the D8xx cameras with USB3. The Tethertools 5m Tether-Pro cable has much larger cross-section wires in it, and works faultlessly. I normally tether to ControlMyNikon as it's the only software I know of that will allow saving to both card and laptop (and does live view with focus peaking). I have used Lightroom in the past though and this cable works just fine.
 
Scooter said:
If your camera has a USB 2 port, pretty much anything will work - I used to use a cheap 5 metre cable on my D700 without any issues. If, however, you have a USB3 port on your camera - my advice is to just pay the man the money for the nice orange cable - none of the cheaper options would work for me on the D8xx cameras with USB3. The Tethertools 5m Tether-Pro cable has much larger cross-section wires in it, and works faultlessly. I normally tether to ControlMyNikon as it's the only software I know of that will allow saving to both card and laptop (and does live view with focus peaking). I have used Lightroom in the past though and this cable works just fine.
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I have a d7000
 
D7000 has been supported for tethering in Lightroom since version 3.4 according to their docs. Could use a long USB cable.

Why tethering and what's it going to give you? I've used it in the studio when I was light painting products, or I've used canon software to connect my laptop to the camera for 12 hours of timelapse, a shot every 15 secs. Not sure I'd use it for children that are often very mobile (and thats sometimes the great shots).
 
I tried a tethertools cable, luckily I borrowed a cable and not wasted my money on that tether trash. Quite frankly for what is supposed to be a premium product the build quality is total rubbish. most of the extra thickness is thicker insulation rather than thicker wires. and the connectors waggle around in the socket on the camera a bit too much for my liking. I now use regular £5.99 USB cables without any issues at all.
 
mike weeks said:
most cameras already come with a USB cable, so just try an extension cable on that first

Mike
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5m maximum length, although you can extend with a USB hub, or more expensive devices such as USB to network devices.
 
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I am using 5m long TetheredTools orange cables (x3).
They just work! :D
 
taff63 said:
Im looking at getting a tethered cable but i cant justify paying the amount they are asking for so i would like a cheaper alternative if anyone has any suggestions it wont be a everyday item only now and again to photograph my grandchildren ..
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I wouldn’t bother personally if it’s just for shooting your grandkids. Tethethering is useful for many reasons. I use it for product photography and for client portraits to check focus and show the client how they look to help with posing etc. It would be another complication in the process that you could probably do without. For paid Work for me it’s essential but for family photographs not so much.
 
I just bought an Active USB extension cable from Amazon. I had a 10m cable running a webcam in a nestbox with no problems :)
 
gremlin16 said:
I bought an amazon one for my D610. It doesn’t work and makes Lightroom crash. You get what you pay for. Sometimes a gamble works, other times it doesn’t.
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Still thinking about this I did a quick googleage.

Turns out that if you plug you camera in and your sd cards etc are full, LR will look through them first. This gives the appearance of the tether not being successful. If you have blank cards or remove the cards, the tethering till connect right away.

I have just tried it, using my £6.99 amazon cable and am happy to report it does work, almost instantly.
 
So the most reliable setup that I've found, and speaking to advertising digi technicians who use this setup every day:

computer with capture one (alas I have to use lightroom because capture one are ****s and don't support my camera - still works well)
->
5m active usb 3.0 extension if needed. Tethertools make one or this one that @Denyerec linked above is fine
->
tetherboost pro, with a small usb battery pack. This keeps the usb connection 'alive'. https://www.tethertools.com/product/tetherboost-pro-core-controller/
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decent quality usb3 cable. The tethertools ones are good, and right angle helps with the tetherblock, but the lindy 3m ones are good too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-1m-USB-3-0-Cable/dp/B004V74B5I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519987421&sr=8-2&keywords=lindy+usb+3.0&th=1
->
have a tetherblock under your camera as a strain relief to protect the camera's port: https://www.robertwhite.co.uk/tethertools-tetherblock-graphite.html

sorry it's not the cheapest solution! even just the lindy cable and a bit of gaffer tape to hold it across the bottom of your camera will be a good 'rough and ready' solution for a tenner.

If you have a nikon pro camera, the small plastic port strain reliever and cable that the camera comes with, are very good too - though the cable is a bit short for my taste.
 
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I also had problems getting my camera to tether. Nikon D800. Lightroom and Capture one and even Control My Nikon kept losing the camera and I found I had to switch off the camera and restart the PC to get it to work again.

I bought an active extension lead as mentioned here and I have never had an issue since. I only paid about £15 for the active cable.

With regards to the Ebay vs Tethertools one it seems like Tethertools have rebranded one and are trying to charge you for the name!
 
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ChrisWXM said:
I also had problems getting my camera to tether. Nikon D800. Lightroom and Capture one and even Control My Nikon kept losing the camera and I found I had to switch off the camera and restart the PC to get it to work again.

I bought an active extension lead as mentioned here and I have never had an issue since. I only paid about £15 for the active cable.

With regards to the Ebay vs Tethertools one it seems like Tethertools have rebranded one and are trying to charge you for the name!
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I have a D800 and all my tethering problems went away when I started using a USB2 connection between the camera and my extension lead. The USB3 bridge chip and internal data bus in the Nikon D800 is *complete garbage* but fortunately works adequately well in USB2 mode. RAWs transmit in ~1 second at USB2 rate, which is more than adequate for tethered shooting in my experience. I ran bandwidth tests USB2 vs USB3 and in Lightroom gained 0.7-1.0 seconds between the two - not worth it for the significant drop in reliability I found.
 
It seems like a large amount of people, based on various posts both on here and other social media, have issues with the D800. I think you are right about the chip being garbage in the D800.
 
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