Tethered Shooting Capture One

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Some of you may already know how big a fan I am of Capture One. Making the change to Capture One as the primary tool for my workflow has sent my productivity into hyperdrive, the photographic equivalent of adding NOS to my tank (or whatever it is they use to make cars fly in 'The Fast and The Furious').

03:25 - Establishing a secure connection07:28 - Setting up a Session for tethered capture11:20 - Setting up capture naming13:40 - Controlling your ca. Capture One Pro PhaseOne Capture One Pro is a professional RAW converter and image editing software which also includes robust tethering features. It contains all the essential tools and high-end performance in one package to enable you to capture, organize, edit, share and print images in a fast, flexible and efficient workflow. I have spent 2 hours trying to get either my 5D or 5D Mark II to perform tethered shooting with the trial version of C1 Pro. I can see my cameras in the utilities attached to the USB and now I can get the C1 to perform Activities Attaching Camera - Estimating time remaining but it never connects. I'm not sure what else to try. Tethered shooting / White balance / Library / Lens Correction Shoot directly into Capture One; the world’s most advanced tethered capture solution. Employ the world's most advanced tethered capture solution to shoot directly into the application and operate your camera remotely. Shooting tethered allows you to share images with the model, stylists, assistants for quicker teamwork, and better collaboration. Star, label, categorize, group, rename, or even export images as you are shooting tethered. Capture One has many advanced options for this type of workflow. Back up to a hard drive while shooting. This means that a.

In this tutorial from Capture One's YouTube channel, moderator David Grover takes you through the basics of setting up a session in Capture One, and even shares a handful of advanced tips.

If you are new to Capture One, or tethering in general, it is a software program that essentially rolls many of the features of Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge into one, but it has made its name primarily as the industry standard for tethered shooting. I personally use it for around 90% of my workflow, only exporting images into Photoshop when I need to do fine tuning or plan on making major adjustments like composites. Once retouching is complete, I bring the images back into Capture One for exporting, final touches, and even cataloging (although Capture One's session workflow makes maintaining a master catalog less useful to me personally than in the days when I used Lightroom to manage my archive).

If you've ever been on a professional set and seen one of those bright orange Tether Tools cables hanging connecting a roving photographer to a workstation or a laptop surrounded by demanding clients, the odds are that Capture One is the program that they are all looking at. But how does it work? In the above video, David Grover takes you through step-by-step to creating and managing your own session workflow.

A few topics covered in the tutorial include setting up a session, naming files, and setting up personalized capture folders. That last bit is particularly useful if, for example, you are shooting a lookbook with multiple outfits, or a portrait session with multiple subjects, and you need to automate your file management to create an organized workflow. He takes you through the various ways to operate your camera from your laptop in live view. Let's say you have your camera in a position that is great for the final image, but not so easy to reach. In Capture One you can adjust your camera settings, refocus, or even check battery power without ever leaving the comfort of your chair.


Perhaps the biggest time saver for Capture One over other platforms is the ability to export multiple file formats into multiple customized folders simultaneously. This may sound small, but has already saved me hours of productivity. And speaking of productivity, one of the lessons David covers in the tutorial is how to work with overlays. If any of your are shooting for magazine covers, packaging, or any other predetermined format, the overlay feature allows you to pre-load an image of the clients cover art into the system prior to shooting. So, if, for example, you need to leave enough room for the Vogue title at the top and the article titles to the bottom sides, the overlay feature allows you compose your shot accordingly and see the result instantaneously as soon as you press the shutter.

For anyone new to the program or existing users just looking to improve your workflow, this tutorial is well worth the watch.

Shooting tethered to a laptop enables the photographer to see what they are shooting in the full resolution of the laptop screen as they are shooting it.

If you have to get it right, there and then, tethered shooting provides the best opportunity for checking that the images are at the standard required.

Context of this Post

Just over a year ago (April 2019) I published “Second Revision: Workflow at 2,000 Hours” which touched upon Shooting tethered but said little more than Capture One is great at this and is the perfect partner for Sony cameras.

In the last year, particularly the last few months, I have been shooting tethered more regularly. This post aims to flesh out the details of how I work in practice, including some of the tips I’ve picked up along the way.

Equipment Used

The only additional bit of equipment actually required is a tether cable. Although it’s just a wire, quality does seem to be important. The wire that came with my camera just didn’t work, and the more expensive bit of wire from TetherTools has worked faultlessly.

Creating a New Session

New Session

A session is Capture One’s way of grouping together a set of images for a particular project.

Physically on the computer’s disk, a session manifests as a new folder containing, by default, the following sub-folders:

  • Capture – where the images are initially stored following transfer from the camera’s memory card. However, when shooting tethered they are moved here as soon as they are shot; usually directly from the buffer, without ever being stored on the memory card.
  • Selects – place for holding the “Keepers”
  • Output – destination folder of derivative files such as JPEGs, TIFFs, etc.
  • Trash – deleted files.

Template

I have defined a template called “Two shots” (when/ if I ever need it I’ll also create, three, four, five shots) which automatically sets up the sessions characteristics as defined in this section.

Capture Sub-folders and Favourites

The first of the session characteristics is sub-folders within the standard Capture folder created as:

Tethered
  • Lighting Test
  • Shot 1
  • Shot 2

and sets the initial capture as the Lighting Test. I can use the Mac’s Finder to change the name of “Shot 1” and “Shot 2” to something more appropriate, and this is immediately reflected in Capture One.

Within Capture One the template also creates Session Favourites which map directly to the sub-folders within the Capture folder.

Fujifilm Tethered Shooting Capture One

The camera icon on the right shows the folder into which the next shot will be stored. (Set initially to Lighting Test).

Next Capture Name

To ensure that images are forever associated with this project, I use the Next Capture Name tab to assign file names of the format:

<Session Name>_<Sub-Folder Name>_Increment.ARW

(File extensions just match the camera: “ARW” is the extension for a Sony RAW file, “iiq”, as shown below, is for a PhaseOne RAW file, and it’s different again for Canon, Nikon, etc.).

Again this is set up automatically by my “Two Shot” template. Templates really are super useful and easy to use.

Test Shots

Using my Two Shot template above, capture one starts by putting all images captured into the “Lighting Test” sub-folder. This enables me to keep test images separate from the main shoot.

Composition and Shooting (featuring CapturePilot)

The following assumes that the connected camera is mounted on a tripod.

Tethered Shooting With Capture One

The live view feature of Capture One Pro transmits the camera’s live view to the laptop. It is easier to consider the merits of a composition when looking at a full size display, and seeing the image as a the end viewer will.

The live view continues to work when the camera is zooming with a view to checking focus on a 1:1 basis. This is often easier to see on a full laptop display.

Capture Pilot is an ap running on a smartphone (or over the web) that enables various functions of Capture One to be operated remotely including Live View and firing shots. The laptop and phone need to be connected to the same wireless network.

Main use I have found for CapturePilot is flexibility in watching live view from any angle/location when moving elements in the shot.

Although I haven’t tried it, the functionality exists for a remote client to rank shots as the shoot is taking place.

Initial Review

Live view displays the image without strobe or flash lighting. Google chrome for. When we take the shot, firing artificial light, we get the image immediately transmitted to the laptop for review. We can check:

  • Lighting, including overall exposure level and areas of concentration – in theory this should be fine because of the earlier test shots. However, in practice, it rarely is.
  • Depth of focus
  • Overall feel of the shot.

The goal of tethered capture is to ensure that one has the required shots to the required standard, i.e., a “winning” 3-star image for every shot required. As I’m shooting I assign a star rating to the image as follows:

  • 0 – unranked
  • 1 – Delete (probably)
  • 2 – Worthy of further consideration
  • 3 – Definite keeper.

When I think I may have finished with a particular shot, I review the unranked (zero star) images moving to one or two stars; then all the two star images, moving to one or three star, to ensure that I have at least one “Keeper”.

The Two Shot template automatically sets up the above Albums.

Transfer to Main Computer

Tethered

This is exactly as stated in the ” “:

Tethered Shooting Capture One Software

  • Copy the session folder from the Laptop’s “Pictures” directory to a portable external disk
  • Copy this session folder from the external drive to the Pictures directory of the main computer
  • From Capture One on main, desktop computer:
    • Menu: File -> Open
    • navigate to the newly created folder under Pictures on the C: drive
    • select the session file as below.

Then the session is just as though it had been shot on the main computer. Clean and easy – job done.

Notes:

Capture One Tethering Live View

  • Capture One 20 Live: “Improve Your Tethered Workflow” – one of the best out of an excellent series; with chapter marks so that you can go directly to the section required.