The Ideal Tethered Setup

September 9, 2008 | Tech Features

Foreword

Phase One tethering is extremely robust, and is by far the number one rented digital back in the world for tethered shooting; out of context this document may make it seem like any minor thing can cause problems. Instead we encourage you to understand the document in the context of its intended audience: 1) digital techs who are fired on the spot if something goes wrong, and 2) photographers trying to troubleshoot an unusual problem on their own.

What Do We Mean By ‘Ideal’?

Saying that the below recommendations comprise an ideal tethered setup is not to say that other setups can’t be stable. Many of our customers have great success with a variety of other setups, and following these recommendations often needlessly safeguard against rare problems that may never arise. They are extremely conservative guidelines. So use these options if your goal is to achieve the absolute highest reliability or as a way to troubleshoot any problems you experience.

IIQ-Large

updatThis file format will ensure the highest quality. IIQ-Small has slight compression, which is unnoticeable most of the time, but can cause inferior image quality when an image is very overexposed or underexposed. There was also a glitch in Capture One 3.7.7 and 3.7.8 which set the default capture file format to “compatible with 3.0″ which caused many problems which were easily solved by changing to IIQ-Large or IIQ-Small.

Back Powered From Battery

[Menu > Configuration > Power Source > Battery]

This is ESSENTIAL. Many laptops, and even some desktops, have firewire ports which do not produce consistent and sufficient firewire power. Low or variable firewire power can cause many types of hard-to-diagnosis problems. Using the computer’s firewire power will work with most of the time. However, for maximum reliability and for troubleshooting, use battery power.

Tether to a Mac Pro (rear port) or MacBookPro

The Macbook, Mac Mini, and iMac are all consumer grade computers which are not well suited for a professional tethered workflow. These computers can and will work, but for the best and most consistent results use one of these professional apple computers. On a Mac Pro use the rear port. While both Intel and PPC architectures are supported, moving forward, all optimization and the bulk of testing for Capture One will be on the current Intel based computers.

15′ Double Shielded Firewire 400 Cable

Specific 30′ and 33′ cables often work reliably (we sell one of each which we’ve tested with good success). Likewise there are many 3rd party firewire cables which work well. However, for maximum reliability, and for troubleshooting nothing beats the 15′ cables provided by Phase One.

Fresh Computer with as Few Other Programs Running as Possible

Macs aren’t known for spyware/crapware (at least compared to windows), but any computer can become burdened down with background programs and processes that can wreak havoc with the computer’s stability. Capture One can work perfectly fine while a hundred other programs are launched, but for a production environment it is best to keep your tethering machine as clean as possible. Our Backup Solutions for Before and After the shoot White Paper includes a way to backup your OS and applications. It’s a great idea to install just the OS, Capture One, and essential photo applications and utilities and then make a backup of that setup from which you can boot (plug in via firewire and hold option when booting) for times of trouble and confusion.

Capture Folder Should be on a Internal Hard Drive with Plenty of Free Space

Shooting to an external hard drive is not recommended. Some photographers shoot to an external hard drive to maintain a backup of the shoot. If this is desired see our Backup Solutions for Before and After the shoot White Paper.

The stability and speed of the entire computer (and therefore Capture One) is compromised when the hard drive is almost full. It’s a good idea to always have 10+ gigabytes of space free on your tethering machine, and avoid shooting it all the way to capacity. The computer will become unstable and slow far before Capture One finally tells you there is no space remaining.

Cleanly Installed Capture One

Phase One always tests new versions of Capture One to make sure that if you upgrade from the latest version that installing the new version over top of (and replacing) the last version won’t lead to problems. However, it is always a good idea to uninstall the previous version before installing the new one (how to unistall Capture One on a Mac). This is especially critical if you are upgrading from an installation which is several versions old.

Cleanly Installed and Up-to-Date Operating System

The Migration Assistant is a handy way of moving all of your data, documents, images, and programs from your old mac to a new mac. However, it is not perfect, and often leaves behind problems (extraneous or corrupt system files, permissions issues, missing library files etc) – it also perpetuates any crap that has been accumulated over the course of many years, system updates, program installs/uninstalls etc. We strongly recommend that when you buy a new computer you do not use the migration utility but instead go through the hassle of transferring files from the old computer to the new computer manually and installing all of your programs from the most recent download available of them.

No Other Firewire Devices Plugged in (e.g. a Firewire Hard Drive)

For maximum reliability or if you are experiencing problems be sure that no other firewire devices are plugged in to the bus. This includes different firewire ports because depending on the computer’s internal configuration these ports may well be routed through the same internal bus.

Avoid Interference

If a firewire cable passes over a major source of electromagnetic interference it can create lines in the image or other forms of image-errors. Avoid draping the firewire cable over power packs, generators, APCs, strong magnets, or cell phones, strong speakers, or microwaves.

Absolutely Fresh Batteries

Some camera bodies such as the Mamiya 645AFD will continue to function when batteries are low but not empty. However, they may occasionally misfire as the battery approaches empty and this can cause a variety of strange symptoms on the digital back. The same applies to the digital back. The back will continue to work when the back is flashing an empty battery icon, but may experience glitches or hiccups and if the back dies while writing a file this can cause the last image to be lost.

Updated Firmware

Each camera and digital back has firmware. Firmware should be kept up-to-date at the same speed as the rest of your system. So if you’re using a version of Capture One from 2010 but you’re two versions behind on the firmware version of your digital back then it would be advisable to update your firmware. Make sure after a firmware update to reboot the back and set Menu > Configuration > Restore Defaults.

Avoid Rapid Reconnection

When a digital back disconnects from a computer it takes the operating system 3-5 seconds for it to realize it is no longer connected. If the back is reconnected during this 3-5 second period the system will likely produce an error message or simply fail to connect. If/when you unplug a back or turn a back off you should wait 5 seconds before reconnecting.

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