Tethering Issues with Capture one pro

[Justcallmesando]

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This REALLY is a red flag.

I recently made the switch to the Leica SL system. I shoot tethered 90% of the time for commercial work. Yesterday I tried the SL2 for the first time on a long commercial shoot and I am sorry to say that I am worried for upcoming shootings now.

Everything worked ok at first but soon after shooting a continuous amount of images (single shot, not continuous mode) C1 just stopped recognizing the camera and it never came back. The buffer got slow before this happened. I shoot on a MacBook Air M1 and use an external Samsung T7 Shield SSD as the file destination folder on the latest version of Capture One. Tether Tools USB cables. I know that's not the fastest set up in the world but it was never a problem for me before even when using Fuj GFX medium format cameras. The thing used to get kind of slow sometimes but it delivered every time and if anything crashed I just restarted everything and things would work again reliably... but not yesterday with the SL2.

I am not a highly demanding FPS shooter but I do shoot constantly  while directing people to have lots of choices for the client to choose from.

Capture One never detected the camera again. The led light in the camera started blinking red for a few seconds everytime I turned it on and plugged in the USB cable. Of course I unplugged everything, took batteries out, restarted and even reset the camera a couple of times (probably not fully as I discovered later) and C1 just never detected it again. It happened with the SL3 as well the only time I used it on a similar scenario when I had the chance to try it after it was released. That time I went back to the Fuji X-H2 to finish the job with no problem at all but yesterday I only had the SL2 with me and man... It was really bad.

I spent the whole day trying to cope with this and having to show the agency and brand people the images on the LCD screen or via laptop just only after removing the SD card from the camera and downloading via a card reader with the people standing next to me waiting for the files to download and show up on the screen.

It wasn't only after I tried a full camera reset again at the end of the day that tethering came back but I had already shot for several hours with my tail between my legs... I am guessing I probably didn't perform a full reset properly the first or second time but I shouldn't have to do it In the first place. The thing is supposed to work. It's REALLY disappointing and kind of a red flag for me now.

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[hansvons]

2 hours ago, Justcallmesando said:

This REALLY is a red flag.

Doy ou have an SD inserted? 

[Justcallmesando]

37 minutes ago, hansvons said:

Doy ou have an SD inserted? 

Yes. Two 128GB XC II SanDisk Extreme cards. I use the Backup feature and DNG file format saving so I can have an instant backup beside the external SSD one. If Leica puts more emphasis in solving this issue it would be really good for studio and commercial work.

[hansvons]

1 hour ago, Justcallmesando said:

Yes. Two 128GB XC II SanDisk Extreme cards.

Try C1 tethered without empty card slots. For me, it's a night and day difference,

[Photoworks]

Tether works flowless with SL cameras when you follow the instructions.

SD cards only slow down the whole process and reconnecting does often not work because of the slow SD cards. The problem is not Capture One, but a time out of the Mac reading the card when connecting.

A solution to both your problems is to use NO SD CARD. It will resolve the buffering speed issues and Connection.

Another solution is to use Capture One on iPad or Windows if you find yourself using an SD card.

 

I like to alert you that I have seen an assistant shoot to a folder on an external SSD, I have seen on 2 occasions file corruption on the main folder when using an external drive. 
I would suggest using a folder on the desktop and making a backup of that folder on T7 with something like Chronosync.

The external Drive will have a slower read and write speed since it is a 10Gbs connection and you are sharing the USB with the camera.

 

[Justcallmesando]

4 hours ago, Photoworks said:

Tether works flowless with SL cameras when you follow the instructions.

SD cards only slow down the whole process and reconnecting does often not work because of the slow SD cards. The problem is not Capture One, but a time out of the Mac reading the card when connecting.

A solution to both your problems is to use NO SD CARD. It will resolve the buffering speed issues and Connection.

Another solution is to use Capture One on iPad or Windows if you find yourself using an SD card.

 

I like to alert you that I have seen an assistant shoot to a folder on an external SSD, I have seen on 2 occasions file corruption on the main folder when using an external drive. 
I would suggest using a folder on the desktop and making a backup of that folder on T7 with something like Chronosync.

The external Drive will have a slower read and write speed since it is a 10Gbs connection and you are sharing the USB with the camera.

 

Thank you, this sounds very useful. I will use the laptop's internal drive and since I am very interested in having automatic backups as I shoot I will also test on the iPad with at least 1 card on.

[Photoworks]

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Just now, Justcallmesando said:

Thank you, this sounds very useful. I will use the laptop's internal drive and since I am very interested in having automatic backups as I shoot I will also test on the iPad with at least 1 card on.

if you have the Studio version of Capture one, they have added a backup option on Capture or import

You are probably using the SL2. Just for reference, the SL3 uses CF express cards that are much faster and the Mac works better. Still, if you just shoot raw to the computer only the transfer is very fast.

[Justcallmesando]

33 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

if you have the Studio version of Capture one, they have added a backup option on Capture or import

You are probably using the SL2. Just for reference, the SL3 uses CF express cards that are much faster and the Mac works better. Still, if you just shoot raw to the computer only the transfer is very fast.

Thank you so much for sharing. I am using C1 Pro all in one bundle but will probably upgrade soon. I do have Chronosync installed so I will probably use that as well in the meantime.

 Sorry to ask the obvious but when you mentioned that following the instructions is the best way, did you find this info about tethering in the SL2 manual? Or where could I find more posible info?

Thank you, really appreciate it.

[Photoworks]

2 hours ago, Justcallmesando said:

Thank you so much for sharing. I am using C1 Pro all in one bundle but will probably upgrade soon. I do have Chronosync installed so I will probably use that as well in the meantime.

 Sorry to ask the obvious but when you mentioned that following the instructions is the best way, did you find this info about tethering in the SL2 manual? Or where could I find more posible info?

Thank you, really appreciate it.

I have been using Capture One since version 3 as lots of my work is in the studio. I got the SL2 when it came out, and if I remember correctly it took a year for a firmware update in order for SL2 to be supported. The issues with cards in the cameras are not limited to Leica, I had the same issues with Canon and Sony in the past. Back in the day there was saving to cards and computers, having the card in the camera didn't do anything if you were tethered.

Capture One has a forum where you can find solutions. I don't think Leica has anything specific.

[Justcallmesando]

1 hour ago, Photoworks said:

I have been using Capture One since version 3 as lots of my work is in the studio. I got the SL2 when it came out, and if I remember correctly it took a year for a firmware update in order for SL2 to be supported. The issues with cards in the cameras are not limited to Leica, I had the same issues with Canon and Sony in the past. Back in the day there was saving to cards and computers, having the card in the camera didn't do anything if you were tethered.

Capture One has a forum where you can find solutions. I don't think Leica has anything specific.

Thank you. And it happened indeed, the session file is corrupted now and I lost my selection made by the client... This is really a pain in the...

Hope they come up with a better flow.

Thanks !

[NMG]

On 11/2/2023 at 2:17 AM, albireo_double said:

The situation has been changing, depending on computer and version of software. There were times when tethering worked fine for me, but on a recent shoot it was a different story. The culprit seems to be underpowered USB ports on the Macbook Pro. I've had more success with the various independently powered OWC thunderbolt/USB hubs. 

This absolutely worked for me! I panicked today because I bought the SL2 recently and the first time it worked flawlessly (with SD card plugged in and USB-C cable going straight into newer M3 Max MacBook Pro). I updated Capture One and no dice. Restored to previous version and no dice. Removed SD cards and no dice. Restarted, followed the plug in procedure and no dice.

Only when I plugged the cable into my OWC Thunderbolt 4 Hub did it work flawlessly w/ and w/o the SD card installed. I do love my OWC Hub but it's a bummer that it'll have to be a necessary piece of kit any time I shoot. 

[BernardC]

6 minutes ago, NMG said:

Only when I plugged the cable into my OWC Thunderbolt 4 Hub did it work flawlessly w/ and w/o the SD card installed. I do love my OWC Hub but it's a bummer that it'll have to be a necessary piece of kit any time I shoot. 

Not much Leica or CaptureOne can do about that, it's a Mac thing. A musician friend spent months finding a hub that was compatible with all of his disks and interfaces. One time I gave him a thumb drive with files he wanted, and it wasn't readable on his system (it worked on another friend's Mac that I tried later). He had no willpower left to try moving stuff around until it worked, because of the very real risk that his other gear would stop working. Thankfully his SD card reader worked.

[NMG]

16 minutes ago, BernardC said:

Not much Leica or CaptureOne can do about that, it's a Mac thing. A musician friend spent months finding a hub that was compatible with all of his disks and interfaces. One time I gave him a thumb drive with files he wanted, and it wasn't readable on his system (it worked on another friend's Mac that I tried later). He had no willpower left to try moving stuff around until it worked, because of the very real risk that his other gear would stop working. Thankfully his SD card reader worked.

Totally, hope the experience helps someone else! (Update, I plugged the cable straight into my laptop again and it works! ...for now)

[JuliusG]

Thank you everyone for your input, I was still getting dropouts on a Razer Advanced 2020 laptop with my SL2 in studio tethering with all the options in this thread. So I purchased a Cygnett USB hub and all is fine now maxing out the buffer in the camera with no dropouts in Capture One.