Equipment for Shoot
Lesson 4 from: Studio Photography: Shoot and Edit While TetheredDan Brouillette
Equipment for Shoot
Lesson 4 from: Studio Photography: Shoot and Edit While TetheredDan Brouillette
Lessons
Class Introduction
02:45 2Importance of Tethering
09:20 3Introduction to CaptureOne
28:39 4Equipment for Shoot
06:48 5Shoot & Edit While Tethered
26:41 6Shoot & Edit While Tethered With High Key
16:06 7Post-Shoot RAW Processing
08:32 8File Folder Structure
07:13Lesson Info
Equipment for Shoot
Next up, let's talk about the equipment for the shoot. So for any shoot there's always different equipment involved. Today we're just gonna be using a couple different lights. We have Profoto B1s, we have a beauty dish with the grid. I wanted to do two different lighting setups, we're just gonna spend a few minutes each, we're not gonna go too too much into the details of the lighting or the settings just because we're just talking about tethering, but I do wanna tell you what we're using because it is important. So we have Profoto B1 with a beauty dish with the grid on it; that really controls the light because we wanna do one kinda more shadowy, moody type lighting setup. We have a medium deep silver umbrella, Profoto, that'll be our fill light, and then we also have seven-inch reflectors, that'll be for our second setup, I'll introduce those when we get there; that's gonna be for the more bright and white type of setup. So again we're gonna do a moody, shadow type setup, and then a ...
more bright one just so you can see how they look different on the computer screen, and what settings I would adjust while tethering two different styles of lighting. Now for the actual equipment for tethering. So, there's basically one company that a lot of people use for all their tethering needs, it's called Tether Tools, so pretty self-explanatory. This is just a basic tethering chord. You do need to know which camera you have before you buy the chord because all of the connections are different. So, you know some cameras might have a USB type connection while there's different types for every camera, so when you go to Tether Tools website or you're on a photo gear website, you wanna put in the camera or at least look through all the specifications to know that that chord is specific to your camera. And then from there the other end of this chord so one end is the end that goes into your camera, the other end is the end that goes into your computer so this is just a basic USB connection here, and the chord is bright orange which is supposed to help you from tripping over it when it's laying on the floor, and your tethered hasn't stopped me from tripping over it yet but I'm glad they thought of it so it probably helps some other people. The next thing I wanna cover is the actual connection of the camera to the tether chord. So we'll first start off by plugging in our tether connection to the USB port on the computer, so here we go. We now have a connection there and now we have the other end of the chord so let me unwind this guy, and straighten it out real quick, and this is where things get tricky. We're still... Tethering has been around for a while but I feel like there's still some things we could work on, and one of the things is coming disconnected. So you can see the connection port on my camera is on the left side here. It's a pretty shallow port and with this plug on the end of the tether chord, tether cable, it's very short; we're talking like a quarter of an inch. So there's only a quarter of an inch inserted within my camera so it can easily come out, and the more you do use your tethering cable, the looser... You can see, there's a lot of give here in my tether port. So it doesn't take much. We're talking like hardly any pressure at all to bring this out so what happens when you're shooting is you'll start of tethered, this will come out and you won't know it, and it'll be really annoying because images will stop coming into your computer, and that's one of the things that's important about putting a card in your camera. So when you're tethering, the whole idea is that all the images go straight from your camera to your computer, however if you start shooting a little too fast and it can't keep up with buffering, or most likely, your tether cable comes out of your camera, the images you want, you don't want to loose them, so they'll instantly go to card. So I always have a card in my camera when I'm tethering just in case that happens. Now there are a few tools that are supposed to help or made to help with keeping this plugged into your camera and one of them is called a JerkStopper. So what that is it's another Tether Tools product. It actually is a little clip, the whole reason that the plug comes out is because you pull on it anywhere, if you're gonna pull on it from the source or from the other end of the chord, it's always gonna come out of your camera first just because it's such a shallow connection, so this JerkStopper actually goes around your camera stop and on the other end of it connects to the tethering cable, and what that does is it makes it so that if anybody pulls on the chord, it stops the jerk from pulling this out. So unless you only pull on this little bit here, generally speaking if someone trips over your chord or anything like that, that JerkStopper keeps it, your camera connected and it's really handy. The other thing that I do is I still have a tendency to accidentally pull it out you know with my hands being on my camera changing settings, so this is not any high-tech device by any means, but I have a little piece of gaff tape that I actually rip in half, and I tape it from both sides. So what I do is I take the front side and I tape it just to, I don't use these buttons much when I'm tethering cause everything's going to the screen, so I take a little piece of gaff and I connect it from the camera directly to the chord on the front, and I'll take a second piece and I'll actually connect it on the back, and I'll make a, just a little gaff tape sandwich here that keeps the plug pulled in so that way it's much harder to pull out when I'm tethering, and it'll keep all the images going to the computer cause it is kinda frustrating when you have to wait, especially if you're in the groove shooting, and you become untethered, and you have to wait to reset your camera. I will show you how to re-tether once it does come out; it's really easy, you just have to shut the camera off, turn it back on and let the connection come back on, come back alive on your Capture One. But that's generally how I tether with the JerkStopper, a chord, tape. The other tool that you can get it's a little more expensive, a JerkStopper is about 15, $17.00, there is oh and you'll also see I have a little piece of tape here wrapped around my tether cable, that's because the JerkStopper likes to slide around the tether cable, so this piece of tape keeps it from sliding too close cause then that would totally mess up the entire point of the JerkStopper. If you wanna spend a little more money there's a thing called a Tether Block. It actually screws into the tripod mount on the bottom of your camera, and the tether chord it has a groove through this block so picture you know, a four-inch wide tripod block, it has a groove through it where the tether chord actually goes the through the groove, and keeps it from pulling, and it then runs tightly up the side to your camera into the tether port, so it's about $90.00, it's a little expensive for what it is, but at the same time it's very effective so if you get as annoyed by I do, as I do, by having your tether cable come out all the time, that Tether Block's definitely worth it; I've used it a few times and it's very effective. So, just another way to do it.
Ratings and Reviews
Anne Dougherty
Very good class, I thought. Dan is very clear about what he wants to emphasize and what he wants to tone down, in order to support the personality and interests of the subject. He is personable yet focused on topic. Just find him very watchable and a great teacher.
Student Work
Related Classes
Portrait Photography