this is the video I should have made a
long time ago but I kind of put it off
it has the potential to be seriously
dull but I've got a plan that's going to
make this actually really exciting hello
I'm Gavin hoey and you're watching
adoramatv brought to you by Adorama the
camera store that's got everything for
us photographers and today I'm going to
talk about tethered capture and to make
it really interesting I'm actually going
to do a full photo shoot with tethering
and I'll talk about all the pros and
cons as we go along but first let's talk
about some of the absolute Essentials of
tethering for example I'm using a USB 2
tether tools cable which is really long
and it gives me a reliable experience
with tethering so no Wi-fi no HDMI
tethering here that runs either into my
Dyna book if I need to interact with the
images and that sits on this super
strong very sturdy manfrotto tether
table or my Lenovo mix which you can't
buy anymore which is a shame I guess the
nearest thing would be a Microsoft
Surface which basically it's a laptop
with a removable keyboard running
Windows 10 and Olympus om system
software the advantage of the tablet it
takes up a lot less space but also I can
rotate it around and I now end up with a
vertical version good if you're doing a
lot of vertical images which is actually
what I've got planned for this session
both of them are nice and secure I've
got a sandbag at the bottom of here
because the most essential thing with
tethering is don't trip over the cable
not that I've ever done that on purpose
right so there's links to the kit in the
video description below whilst you're
there click on the Bell icon and the
Subscribe button whilst you're doing
that I'll get a light set let's get a
model in let's get tethered shooting
foreign
[Music]
I've got the amazing Chloe Chloe's going
to be the model for this photo session
and as you can see my first lighting
setup is a two light setup and I want to
shoot this with a shallow depth of field
I've got an F 1.4 aperture to play with
which means I'm going to have to use
high speed sync Flash in my small home
studio and that means I can't meter it
so this is going to be a trial and error
session so tethering the first way I'm
going to use it is to help me get the
correct exposure in here I'm going to do
one light at a time let's start with the
key light I don't know what the right
power is I'm using high speed sync so
let's try half power and take a test
shot and see where we go from there okay
Chloe here we go
[Music]
and at half power well it's a little bit
too bright I think we can safely say so
I'm going to turn that down let's go
down maybe to 1 8 power let's try that
here we go
and that looks
a lot better I'm happy with that that
looks like really good Lighting on Chloe
and of course I can always go and double
check it by zooming in and having a good
close look at the lighting I can see
Catch lights in Chloe's eyes and I can
see that there is just the smallest
little highlight in the glasses but
nothing to worry about yeah I think
we've got the lighting right on Chloe
but what about the background that's
where the second light comes in it's on
its own setting it's on Group B so I'm
going to turn that on and well we're at
1 8 power makes sense to start at the
same place for the background light
let's see what they both look like at 1
8 power here we go
right okay couple of things I want to
change first one is that's way too
bright and it's slightly off to the side
so I'm just going to slightly adjust the
angle of the lights just so it points
straight behind Chloe and then I'm going
to turn that down I reckon that's a good
two stops too bright so if it's two
stops too bright 1 8 1 16 is one stop
one sixteenth one Thirty second is two
stops less light
okay Chloe here we go
and that looks a lot less bright but
maybe just a little bit more let's go
down one more stop to 1 64th power and
this is where the tethering really comes
in handy because I get a really big view
of this I get a real feel for how this
picture actually looks large on a screen
and that's just better than having that
small view on the back of the camera it
gives you a more real feel for your
final photo
that is everything set up for this
particular lighting scenario so I think
what we should do is take a few photos
Chloe are you ready okay here we go
[Music]
tethering is really important but once
the photo session is started I'll
actually only refer back to it
occasionally because I don't want the
monitor to become the thing that
controls the speed and flow of a photo
session
foreign
[Music]
so as you can see we've changed things
around we've got a different look to
this and different lighting and now I'm
going to be at F 5.6 I don't need high
speed sync anymore so I can use my flash
meter to make sure that the exposure is
correct
however you'll notice I've moved my
tethered screen because Chloe is not
going to be looking at me for this
particular setup Chloe is going to be
looking straight ahead it's more of a
profile picture so it's handy for your
model to have a reference monitor so
they can see what's going on for each
shot because models aren't mind readers
so let's just take a test photo like
this Chloe if you'd like to look to the
side that's great here we go
so I've asked Chloe just to look to the
side and that's exactly what she's done
but as you can see and now as Chloe can
see that's not working she needs to look
a little bit over to the right hand side
now you'd probably catch that as a
photographer but it's super useful for a
model particularly if they're less
experienced to have an idea of what
you're actually asking them to do how
much of them are you actually
photographing but an important tip if
your model isn't really experienced then
once they've established what's going on
it might be an idea to turn the screen
away so it's not a distraction luckily
Chloe's a professional so I can leave it
right there okay let's just try that
again Chloe if you look over to the side
this time great perfect
and that's all it took much better that
works so well
so that's really everything for this
setup ready so Chloe if you're good to
go let's take a few photos like this
[Music]
I'm not covering software in this video
but it does affect your tethering
experience for example you can use the
software to add effects to your images
when they appear on screen or do the
opposite remove in-camera effects from
raw images foreign
ly there are two other reasons you might
want to use tethering the first one is
if you have a dynamic shoot something
that's changing rapidly and you need to
know whether you've nailed the shot
I've got an idea bear with me and then
also if you've got assistance or a
client that needs to see what's going on
as you're doing the shoot remember
you've always got your camera LCD they
might need a bigger screen which is
exactly what is happening in this case
so I've got Sam and Freya around the
back with some pieces of paper in their
hands and they're going to drop paper on
top of Chloe but they need to see how
it's going whether the paper is going in
the right place so I'm going to spin my
tethered screen round for them
okay so everything is still the same I
haven't changed the lighting at all okay
on three ready one two three
so that works really well I know I'm
getting a good shot and then everybody
else can see whether the paper is
landing in the right place and
understand the process that's happening
so if we all got an idea what's going on
now will make sense
Smash in okay let's take a few photos
like this
okay are you ready again
okay one two three
okay let's keep going
[Music]
and tethered capture just keeps giving
because it also automatically backs up
my images I've got one copy saved on my
memory card in camera and another copy
saved to my laptop and with that laptop
I can actually do some quick editing on
those images straight away in the studio
in this case I got the images together
as separate layers then I put some layer
masks on those and then I just cut
little holes in the layer masks to
reveal lots of different pages falling
down I wanted to show everybody in the
room that we didn't need to get this
absolutely right in one single picture
in fact the plan all along was to
combine them together in post-processing
and of course I could do the whole thing
again on my main computer later to get a
much better final result
[Music]
foreign
I should also address the downsides of
tethering because there are a few I mean
I don't actually have to tether so you
could say all of this kit is unnecessary
and then there's the constant problem of
well tripping over the cable or at least
tying myself up in knots and then there
is a risk I could even damage my USB
port on the camera and that's important
because well I need it for USB things
that's why I have a tether block at the
bottom but all of those things fade away
because tethering is just so useful I
find in my small home studio but what
about you do you tether let me know in
the comments I'd love to find out now if
you've enjoyed this video or you've got
any questions leave me a comment down
below click on the Bell icon and you'll
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button I'm Gavin hoey thanks for
watching