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LeicaS and unsupported tethering in Lightroom running under ElCapitan


arminw

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I have been eagerly waiting for a fix and thought the new Lightroom2015-3 update would allow me to tether again . No luck so it seems and according to some adobe forums it is in the hands of leica to update their SDK (software developer kit) which is not working under ElCapitan. I just can't understand why the 007 works and there is no support for the S2 - 006 ? Has leica given up supporting the ones who originally bought into the system now ? I know I shouldn't have upgraded to ElCappitan , but I also bought a new computer and it's running ElCappitan so it makes sense to have all my systems on the same platform . 

What are other people doing who are required to tether ? Wasn't the camera sold to Studio photographers according to leica ? 

 

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Gear that you use for work should never be upgraded unless necessary... just common sense in the digital age.

 

I'm not saying the big companies shouldn't fix this, but for our personal efficiency level... just don't upgrade if you don't NEED to. 

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Lets say it was necessary , and thank you for your lecture ! They've had enough time with beta testing to get this working again . After all they seem to concentrate on the 007  , which is rather unfair to all of us who still use the S2 and 006 . Common sense or not i expect some support and communication from a company like Leica. It doesn't necessarily strengthen my trust to part with my coins for an upgrade system . 

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Gear that you use for work should never be upgraded unless necessary... just common sense in the digital age.

 

I'm not saying the big companies shouldn't fix this, but for our personal efficiency level... just don't upgrade if you don't NEED to. 

 

If I had your mindset, my workflow would be less than a tenth of what it is now.... in the digital age. It's ALWAYS an issue of risk vs. benefit. Your blanket statement is rather short-sighted.

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Lets say it was necessary , and thank you for your lecture ! They've had enough time with beta testing to get this working again . After all they seem to concentrate on the 007  , which is rather unfair to all of us who still use the S2 and 006 . Common sense or not i expect some support and communication from a company like Leica. It doesn't necessarily strengthen my trust to part with my coins for an upgrade system .

While I agree with you, SDK's  rarely seem to evolve at the pace at which we like. Do you have a Time Machine backup that you can roll back to Yosemite/Mavericks/etc.? Not sure if this will help, but when a new major OS is released. I load it fresh to a new drive, boot to that drive, and treat it like a new machine with applications, drivers, etc. That way if I come across a conflict or workflow impediment that I am not able to tolerate, I boot to my previous drive with a known workable OS/workflow while I work through (or wait for software updates) to address said conflict. HTH.

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If I had your mindset, my workflow would be less than a tenth of what it is now.... in the digital age. It's ALWAYS an issue of risk vs. benefit. Your blanket statement is rather short-sighted.

Short sighted? I've been working in IT for about 40 years. One of the things I've learned is never to upgrade important systems until I'm perfectly certain that all I need will work as needed in the newer system. It's your responsibility, not Apple's or Leica's or the Telecom's or whatever. It's your workflow that's at stake.

 

No use blaming other people's mindsets.

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Short sighted? I've been working in IT for about 40 years. One of the things I've learned is never to upgrade important systems until I'm perfectly certain that all I need will work as needed in the newer system. It's your responsibility, not Apple's or Leica's or the Telecom's or whatever. It's your workflow that's at stake.

 

No use blaming other people's mindsets.

Sorry Philipp, I stand by what I say. If you only upgrade tech when you NEED to, you may be (and likely are) missing out on workflow enhancements. Again, risk vs. benefits.

 

While I don't have as many years in IT as you do, I'm not too far behind. I'm also responsible for ISO9001:2008 of a semiconductor equipment manufacturer where downtime/failure is not an option. Yes, important/mission critical systems don't get upgraded until newer systems are proven and redundancy is in place. Perhaps I'm lucky to have the luxury of testing a new workstation to make certain that there are few to no compatibility issues before releasing it to an enduser. For my personal systems, however, the option I suggested above has yet to fail me and gives me the option to upgrade with a failsafe.

 

But we aren't talking about an IT department, are we? The OP has a simple case of LR not working as well as it should be for him under the latest OSX release. And I'm assuming he is working with a single system, not a network. "... just common sense in the digital age" is no different a commentary on someone's mindset, no? I only admin about 30 systems on various platforms, but from my limited experience, not everyone has this digital age common sense, and there is nothing wrong with that IMO.

 

- Alvin

Edited by DucatiTerminator
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Let me rephrase, I just never be the first to try the new software, and be the one who falls for the 'not working anymore software'...

 

I don't update, because I know it's broken... I just upgrade 6 months after, everyone else... so over my life span, I lag behind 6 months on all the features you can use now, or... actually... can't use at all because support is broken. 

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But we aren't talking about an IT department, are we? The OP has a simple case of LR not working as well as it should be for him under the latest OSX release. And I'm assuming he is working with a single system, not a network. "... just common sense in the digital age" is no different a commentary on someone's mindset, no?

Yes, fine. Then let the OP tell his customers that he has lost the capability to process his photographs because he had guessed there had been enough time for Leica to fix Adobe's software.

 

It's his workflow. Then it's his responsibility to ascertain that the upgraded workstation still will be able to do his workflow. This is the case whether it's an IT shop, a chemist, an MD or a photographer.

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Yes, fine. Then let the OP tell his customers that he has lost the capability to process his photographs because he had guessed there had been enough time for Leica to fix Adobe's software.

 

It's his workflow. Then it's his responsibility to ascertain that the upgraded workstation still will be able to do his workflow. This is the case whether it's an IT shop, a chemist, an MD or a photographer.

 

I appreciate your extensive knowledge of 40 years working in IT, and I believe you’re keeping up2date with what's happening in the software world. Apple has changed its graphic engine in the new ElCapitan release and Adobe is still working on adapting their software to make use of the new and more efficient way of using graphic depended apps. Leica, which entirely relies on a 3rd party application to allow photographers to tether leaves its customers exposed to such flaws . I also use Hasselblad with its own “Phocus” program and it works just fine; and so does CaptureOne . A company which makes big noise about their fabulous tech advanced products should know better.

 

I just had a Leica rep in my studio trying things and testing my own system including the new S007 which Leica is keen to sell to me. It all works fine using Yosemite, but running ElCapitan even the 007 is unstable and not fit for professional tethering us . Leica is writing the plug in and should do so properly. Don't tell me Leica has to sort out adobes problem, because  it's entirely up to Leica to get this SDK undated and make things work. You can't advertise a camera to studio pros or other photographers who depend on tethering when it doesn't work .  I was shooting the other day and needed another computer to work even the hire company struggled to give me a Yosemite lap top ... Tech is moving on and so am I ... If you wanna keep stuck behind its up to you, but please don’t  hold us back in the progress moving forward. 

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These are two quite different things.

 

We can endlessly argue whether Leica should or should not have fixed the new problems introduced by Apple with the Capitan release by now. We can take into account that Adobe is still working on it while others seem to have sorted it.

 

However, if it's your business that depends on your laptop working with your camera, it's all moot. It's your workflow and your business and changing the software release without a fallback solution is kind of reckless.

 

You speak of "being stuck behind". How long ago has El Capitan introduced into the market? What reasons are there at this point of time that make El Capitan mandatory and the precursor inoperable?

 

I agree that the IT business often is kind of silly in that it keeps on introducing "improvements" that do not improve anything and on breaking perfectly working solutions. 

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Just a few observations. 

 

Yes, I'm another location shooting pro who in the past used Hasselblad, but switched a few years back to Leica partly because they can also tether (more reliably, in fact) - it's how I work 90% of the time, tethered. Yes, from past experience, I waited to see what El Capitan might have in store for us, so I still use Yosemite. But despite this, I too am quite disappointed. It's time.

 

Now, assuming that Leica had the SDK for El Capitan ahead of general release, could they have known about this issue beforehand, might they have warned us of the incompatibility? Instead, a few of us became conscripted beta testers. In any case, Leica has certainly responded quickly to cries concerning other software issues - lately the Leica T 1.41 firmware issue (new firmware appeared today), so why not address the issues of those of us who make their living with Leica equipment with a bit of urgency?  Makes me wonder....

 

To add insult to injury, I just took delivery of an SL too. But of course, there's no LIS for the SL ready (given the cable was included with the camera I had hope). Nope, nowhere in sight, and the response from Germany to my query as to when it might arrive,  "....in the future, we don't know when...."  This for a camera that they touted as a camera ready for the pros.... except I guess, if you're a pro who shoots tethered. ;)

 

Cheers!

 

Richard

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That a working professional photographer is supposed to monitor Adobe and Leica's business is bit assumptive. The Photography business is tough enough as it is, and not everyone is that IT savvy or has an IT person on staff these days. Keep in mind that previous OS upgrades worked fine, so it may have lulled many of us into trusting that all would be well.

 

Leica choose to NOT develop a proprietary software like Hasselblad or Phase One ... so one would hope that a lot of attention would be paid to their functionality with Adobe LR in tandem with emerging new operating systems. Reaction speed being the key.

 

IMHO, Leica should have immediately warned all S users of the issue, and recommended that IF tethered operation was important to the user, to avoid upgrading until they sorted it out with Adobe.

 

Unfortunately, I did upgrade my OS and lost tethered ability on my desktop studio Mac :-( ... fortunately, I did NOT update my new MacBookPro, so the last few jobs were okay (would have preferred the 27" screen so the production team could see the progress better). My mistake was one of professional trust while up to my eye-balls in other business and personal issues.

 

- Marc 

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I have recently moved to the Typ 007 and hope to try tethered shooting using my MacBook, yes with latest OS and I have LR CC newest on the MacBook.. I have no tethering experience at all so any advice or correction to my limited knowledge would be very welcome. So the camera comes with the LEMO USB 3.0 cable in place of a standard connection. If I want to use a longer cable from Tether Tools then I need an adapter to connect to the USB end of the supplied LEMO cable?

There is a downloadable program from members area that uses LR?

And that solves the current issue still existing with El Capitan and LR6?

So I don't need to use the Shuttle program?

very basic questions I guess but I would like to move to the tethering and currently locally there are some packages from Tether Tools a bit cheaper that have all of the components I would like.... I think. That is if I can understand about the interface with cables via that LEMO only USB3 on camera.

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I can only address my own idiosyncratic tethered work flow with the 006. I use Phocus tethered for some years with great success - loved it, but the camera crashes (which happened on every shoot) did me in.

 

I urge you to use LIS. It's great. I found that LIS gave me all the same remote camera control I had with Phocus. It's clean and simple. And it works with LR pretty much flawlessly. Much more reliable than the H system, and almost near as fast, though I suspect with USB3 it's now you've got a bit of an advantage now. I envy that. LIS creates a folder (I designate this to appear on my desktop), which immediately (through hot folder connection) sends the files over to a Lightroom folder you've created (also on my desktop), and the image is displayed in Lightroom. You'll find this surprisingly fast with USB3.

 

The Lemo connecto/cable is worth it's weight in gold. Utterly reliable, unlike the FW880 cable I endlessly replaced and swapped. It's been rock solid in construction and connection. Can't address longer alternatives - I've never needed that.

 

Not sure about compatibility with El Cap with the 007, but I think you're good to go with that as opposed to me with the 006.

 

I think you'll love the tethering once you get used to it.

 

Best,

 

Richard

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Thanks Richard. I haven't made any attempt to try this at all as yet. Comment on practical experience is invaluable. I have access to the programs of course and will experiment. I have seen the tethering by a Pro here  in Phocus to Hasselblad in action several times and the crashes. Seeing the superiority of the previews on the laptop screen is what inspired me.

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I was writing rapidly in the last post and sent before proofing - in a rush. Of course, I meant FW800!  The LEMO cable length is really well thought out. I rarely find myself having to be that far from the camera. Never had a connection issue - not once in four years. What a relief after H.

 

One thing I should add. I have found one way to create a damaged capture with the S2 and S - simply capture too fast with LIS. This happens randomly, and only when I try to capture multiple shots very rapidly through LIS - not through the shutter release on the camera itself when tethered. This can generate a warning onscreen and a damaged file which appears as such in the preview thumbnails in LR. This is a product of me asking too much of either the camera, the software or the rMBP that I use. Not sure which.  In any case, a minor annoyance at most, and one that may not appear with your 007.

Edited by rsmphoto
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Since Using Mac OS X there hasn't be one single major release that did not break something on my daily machine.

I learned slow and only after spending way too much time of trouble shooting and finally rolling back and recovering from backups did I learn the hard way NOT TO UPGRADE OS X major releases and important software ESPECIALLY Adobe software until all negative internet chatter about initial major issues has died.

 

Unfortunately it is now reality that these issues do happen and they usually bite on the user level.

 

I don't employ an IT specialist for the business, hence Microsoft OS based computers are banned in this business which has reduced downtime and IT related cost several fold.

Upgrade related issues though are a reality (and have been for some time).

 

El Camino is not on my horizon for now and never had been an option since it's release for that very reason.

From the Macs that run her I usually testbed any major updates on one unimportant machine and test run all important software on that machine for several weeks before committing to the next machine.

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