Tethering with Lightroom

[presbyopia]

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Although I am new to tethering, I am not new to digital Leica.  I have a project that would benefit from tethering and figured now is the time to learn.  Current camera is SL2 and new MacBookPro - M1/Max.  Leica is currently recommending CaptureOne Pro as the preferred workflow for tethering and image processing in general. I am certain C1Pro is a superb tool however, I've a large amount of time and resources invested in Lightroom and hoped to avoid investing and learning a new system.  A bit ironic as I started with Lightroom after purchasing my Leica M9 - Lightroom was the 'preferred' workflow at the time - water under the bridge 🙂

I has not been easy pulling together how-to information for Leica tether to Lightroom.  The purpose of this post is to summarize my findings so that others in my shoes could get a quicker start.

Leica has recently changed it's support website.  It is NOT going well.  The Leica Lightroom plug-in is no where to be found.  If you e-mail support, they will sent you the software.

The single best manual for tethering can be found here: https://tethertools.com/ultimate-tethering-guide/  .  I would highly recommend this document.  Reading and following it's directions worked very well for me.

The quality of the USB cable is VERY important.  This can not be over emphasized!  Not all UBC - type C cables are the same.  I would stick with quality suppliers.  I used TetherTools - no affiliation.  The Apple Thunderbolt-3 cable also worked very well although this is limited to 2 meters.

Within the Leica implementation of tethering, DNG are written to the computer and NOT the SD card.   Nikon is similar.  When one attaches camera to Lightroom, the software will first buffer all the DNG on the SD card - this could take time.  It is recommended to use an empty SD card so tethering is more quickly established.  Even better, remove the SD card(s).

Lightroom tethering is not supported in native M1 version.  The program will switch to Rosetta mode.  Fortunately, this mode works acceptably well.   It's anyone guess when Lightroom will M1 natively support tethering.

Hope this is helpful to those getting started with tethering in Lightroom.

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[Photoworks]

Just to add to it since I do this many days of the week.

Many cables work  USBC shorter then 15feet, when you go longer is when you need a better cable like IQwire, they are thick and a little stiff

Nekteck Thunderbolt 3 Cable, 100W 20Gpbs Thunderbolt 3 Certified USB C Cable 

and

IQwire USB-C to USB-C 33' 10m Intelligent Photography Tether Cable

are the ones I use. but I had tethertoolc cable in the past.

Just as a tip, I find Lightroom real slow to import refresh and preview . If you have time and like how adobe works more choose for you. If I remember correct Lightroom plugin looks for changes on the SD card to import. So basically it is a card reader.

I think Leica Image Shuttle will probably be forgotten since it will not get M1 updates and is was before Capture one came out. It was very buggy.

I would only relay on Capture one Pro. It is the fasted on the market to preview photos. they came in quick and apply name and correction from previous shot. ICC profiles are better then Adobe IMO. I use it in the studio to do Portrait shoots with a 2nd window on a large monitor for the client to see.

When I do stills and interior Capture one fully supports Live View, helps with precise composition, Overlay layout and other great options. Shoot DNG or Multishot DNG

Many people are put off that you can not have an SD card in the camera with capture one on the Mac. The Mac will time out and not connect. One solution would be to format the card before connecting the camera and as long the camera is awake the connection will stay and save to card and computer at the same time. The SL2 has to be set to PC connection.

Happy shooting

[brembeck43]

Go with C1 everything else is a waste of time

[presbyopia]

Photoworks:

 

Thank you for your insights - very helpful.  On my set-up the time from shutter press until image imported and previewed in Lightroom is 5 seconds.   From viewing some you-tube videos C1 appears about 1 second.  Interesting is that if I take multiple (i.e. 3) rapid shots, they seem to arrive simultaneous i.e. total time still only about 5 seconds.  For now speed is not my constraint but this could change.  In a different post you spoke of creating a 'tethering' profile - this is brilliant. There where two setting I am not familiar with a) power safe off and b) true power USB. If I might ask, what do they do and where are they found in menu system?

 

Thank you

[Photoworks]

1 hour ago, presbyopia said:

Photoworks:

 

Thank you for your insights - very helpful.  On my set-up the time from shutter press until image imported and previewed in Lightroom is 5 seconds.   From viewing some you-tube videos C1 appears about 1 second.  Interesting is that if I take multiple (i.e. 3) rapid shots, they seem to arrive simultaneous i.e. total time still only about 5 seconds.  For now speed is not my constraint but this could change.  In a different post you spoke of creating a 'tethering' profile - this is brilliant. There where two setting I am not familiar with a) power safe off and b) true power USB. If I might ask, what do they do and where are they found in menu system?

 

Thank you

the speed of Capture one varies on the computer you have, I use the M1 16" now and it is much faster in both, but Lightroom still not well optimized for speed. Why?!?

If you take a session of photos of 300-400 images per hour Capture one is the only one that has keeping up with me running and external monitor at the same time. Lightroom is still in rosetta on M1

I would turn on charge true USB, this way when you are using the camera a little power goes back to the camera to charge battery. not sure where it is..

[presbyopia]

Thank you for the follow-up.  Looks like I'll be trialling the new C1 version in January when I have more time to dive in :-).

Meanwhile, I'll explore the limits of Lightroom tethering; fortunately nothing I do is mission critical.

Tried a few things this evening. Before connecting SL2 to tethering session, I reformatted SD card and left in camera. Tether connection established just fine. Plus, captured images were written to SD card in addition to Lightroom.  This is good news.  Placed shutter in high speed continuous mode - a series of 10 rapid shots imported without a hitch - another pleasant event.  Allowed the SL2 display and power to 'auto-off'.  After re-waking the camera, the tether connection still okay.  Sadly, Lightroom has no option for live view with Leica.  These 'tests' were done with a 1 meter thunderbolt 3 cable. Will repeat with 5 meter USB-C in next few days.  BTW USB Charging, USB mode, and Power Saving settings are submenus under heading 'Camera Settings' in main menu.  My 'tests' were done with factory default USB settings (i.e. USB charging ON, USB mode PTP) and auto off 2 minutes.

Tests are fine but not same as real world sessions. I appreciate the input of those that do this for a living - thank you.