Tethered display question

[chauncey]

I'm gonna buy one of theses gizmos for their tethered shooting wireless ability http://camranger.com/

Now here's the question...I want a new laptop specifically to use with this CamRanger set-up...would I see any benefit in going for a higher resolution laptop/monitor rather than the more normal 1080 p types?

FYI, Still using an aged Canon 1Ds3, any PS CC stuff would still be done on my desktop system.

[Shadowman]

I'm gonna buy one of theses gizmos for their tethered shooting wireless ability http://camranger.com/

Now here's the question...I want a new laptop specifically to use with this CamRanger set-up...would I see any benefit in going for a higher resolution laptop/monitor rather than the more normal 1080 p types?

FYI, Still using an aged Canon 1Ds3, any PS CC stuff would still be done on my desktop system.

it says works with Mac or Windows, I'd first look to see which OS it supports.

[chauncey]

Apple/mac is verboten in our house...merely inquiring as to importance of a high-res monitor or laptop.

[IzzieK]

Bill......this is the third time I am writing this message. And to sum it up, when you get a laptop, make sure it has a solid state drive (SSD) in it. It will make your life easier in the long run. It boots up very quick and good, fast access to programs like Photoshop. Nvidia CUDA compliant graphic card and lots of RAMs will also help...my ASUS laptop is supposed to be a gaming machine (I don't play online games) and very good with graphics but very slow to boot up and access programs. Then my son in Australia told me to change my hard drive to an SSD and I've never looked back. The tethering software that I use is CameraRC and I am very happy with it, I bought a lifetime membership to it.

'Hope this helps...


BTW, my eldest son is a programmer and he advised us to get rid of our iPAD...because the norm in his world is Android.

[Colin Southern]

BTW, my eldest son is a programmer and he advised us to get rid of our iPAD...because the norm in his world is Android.

Darn, just bought another one (and loving it) - wish I'd known that Android was taking over the world!

[Manfred M]

I bought a CamRanger about a month ago, and it is NOT going to give you tetherered shooting per se, although you can see the images you took. What it gives you is remote control of the camera (which is why I bought it). It runs really well on Apple technology; not too bad on Android, but the Microsoft technology is still beta and rather flakey at best. It works best with a tablet; using it with a laptop is certainly not the way to go, and if you insist on a laptop; have a good, hard look at using one with a touchscreen. I would hate to use the CamRanger with a touchpad or a mouse.

I have installed the software on Android and MS, and the person who recommeded it runs it on a Mac.

There are better, less expensive tethered solutions (all involving cables). Wireless, unless you are going with the lowest resolution jpegs your camera is capable of producing, is all you are going to be able to see in a reasonable length of time because of the amount of data that has with the other formats. The RAW files still need to be stored on the camera and transferred to your editing machine the traditional way.

Have another careful look at the CamRanger site, and see what the technology does, versus what you wish it could do.

[FootLoose]

Darn, just bought another one (and loving it) - wish I'd known that Android was taking over the world!

I reckon that is probably right-- I bought my first smart phone last week and it is an Android.

[Manfred M]

Bill......this is the third time I am writing this message. And to sum it up, when you get a laptop, make sure it has a solid state drive (SSD) in it. It will make your life easier in the long run. It boots up very quick and good, fast access to programs like Photoshop. Nvidia CUDA compliant graphic card and lots of RAMs will also help...my ASUS laptop is supposed to be a gaming machine (I don't play online games) and very good with graphics but very slow to boot up and access programs. Then my son in Australia told me to change my hard drive to an SSD and I've never looked back. The tethering software that I use is CameraRC and I am very happy with it, I bought a lifetime membership to it.

'Hope this helps...


BTW, my eldest son is a programmer and he advised us to get rid of our iPAD...because the norm in his world is Android.

Sorry, I can't agree with you on this. I have one laptop with and one without the SSD drive and the startup time difference can measured in seconds, and if that is the only parameter to measuring performance, then the SSD is indeed an advantage. I generally leave my machines on all the time, so this difference is not all that important to me. I tend to walk away when the machine starts up.

A higher end video performance; unless it is an Adobe recognized nVidia CUDA capable card and you are running Premiere Pro CS5 or newer, it is going to have zero impact on performace for most image editing work. The video cards are going to generally only be used for 3D graphics for gaming, that is what they are designed for.

Again, if the SSD is used for buffering your output, there is a speed advantage, but again, in the case of the two machines I am using, I'd be hard pressed to suggest one is faster than the other; the SSD machine is about 6 months newer than the machine without one.

On the other hand, more RAM has a very definite advantage (reduced swapping to the HDD).

[Colin Southern]

Sorry, I can't agree with you on this. I have one laptop with and one without the SSD drive and the startup time difference can measured in seconds, and if that is the only parameter to measuring performance, then the SSD is indeed an advantage. I generally leave my machines on all the time, so this difference is not all that important to me. I tend to walk away when the machine starts up.

A higher end video performance; unless it is an Adobe recognized nVidia CUDA capable card and you are running Premiere Pro CS5 or newer, it is going to have zero impact on performace for most image editing work. The video cards are going to generally only be used for 3D graphics for gaming, that is what they are designed for.

Again, if the SSD is used for buffering your output, there is a speed advantage, but again, in the case of the two machines I am using, I'd be hard pressed to suggest one is faster than the other; the SSD machine is about 6 months newer than the machine without one.

On the other hand, more RAM has a very definite advantage (reduced swapping to the HDD).

I have to say that I've been doing quite a few SSD conversions for clients - and we've all been pretty darned impressed with the results.

Having just said that, we run a min of 8GB RAM anyway, so swapping is always minimal - thus disk drive performance becomes the archillies heal. Typically we're seeing SSD boot times of around 10 sec (Win 7).

In Photoshop it probably wouldn't make much difference, but when syncing changes across hundreds of files in ACR, the difference is very noticeable.

Most of all though, we just love them most for their reliability.

[IzzieK]

Manfred...my laptop is 2 years old. I too walk away when the machine boots up, do something useful and my laptop was dead weight on my last trip to Australia. Didn't use it at all. So I didn't tell my son that I had brought it or he would have brought it with him and have the HD changed immediately then and there. I waited until we came back here to the States to have it changed and I am now using it everyday in my studio connected to a reasonably big tv. With three tornado warnings last week it became very useful while I was in the basement alone with three dogs. Thank God we don't live in tornado alley.

[chauncey]

I bought a CamRanger about a month ago, and it is NOT going to give you tetherered shooting per se,

Manfred...good to talk with someone that actually has one of these things.

Did you buy the remote controlled motorized head as shown here...http://camranger.com/camranger-pan-tilt/
or the Wireless Camera Control and Tethering...http://camranger.com/wp-content/uplo...-tethering.jpg

[Manfred M]

Manfred...good to talk with someone that actually has one of these things.

Did you buy the remote controlled motorized head as shown here...http://camranger.com/camranger-pan-tilt/
or the Wireless Camera Control and Tethering...http://camranger.com/wp-content/uplo...-tethering.jpg

No, just the CamRanger itself. The application I am using it for is using a fixed camera on a tripod (absolutely zero camera movement) while I manuiplate the subject and subject lighting. I have no need to remotely change the positioning of the camera sitting on the tripod.

[Manfred M]

Colin / Isabel - All I can do is comment on my own experiences. The no SSD laptop is a higher end HP unit and the one is a middle-range ASUS that came with a 64GB HDD. Both machines run dual core i7 processors, have 8 GB of RAM.

Being a techie, I had expected noticeable improvements betweent the two machines, and unfortunately, I have not. I primarily run MS Office and Creative Suite CC with a web browser. Other people that I have spoken to are of two minds; one is "wow", and the other have essentially said the same thing I have.

It suspect that had I gone with a 100% SSD solution, I might have seen more of a speed increase (but I do like and need the 750GB HDD), and expect that the SDD primarily runs the OS and buffers the read / write to the HDD. Unfortunately the way the ASUS is configured, I see a single hard drive only, so can't tweak where software sits on the unit.

[chauncey]

it is NOT going to give you tetherered shooting per se, although you can see the images you took. What it gives you is remote control of the camera

Manfred, I guess that we're having a failure to communicate...what do you mean when you say that "it is NOT going to give you tethered shooting per se"?

My description of tethered shooting would be...a preview of the scene/shot to be taken before squeezing the shutter and having complete camera control from the display device (be it tablet/laptop/whatever) during the scene composition/set-up.

Back to my original question...How important is the resolution of that display device?

[IzzieK]

I have 16GB RAM on the laptop and operating on dual core processor i7 so I was quite surprised how slow it was. I bought it just in time for our fly-in event here in Missouri to use it at our airport to move shots from cameras of different photographers on site at the time. Anyway, I was quite satisfied with it until one photographer from CA tried to operate it at our banquet then asked "why is it too slow to boot?" -- I never found the answer until last February. Now it has three HDD, one old one that came with the pooter, which became my installed software drive and the SSD which run the operating system and an external TB drive. I am happy...

[loosecanon]

I use android Dslr controller, was about £7 when I bought it. This gives full control, including now download of images onto device via a usb cable. I keep a small 7" tablet for this use, but one can use phone as well.
Even better they provide software to convert a TP link battery powered wireless modem (about £35) to give a wireless capability. The software gives full control of almost any canon slr that has liveview.

Look at their website - has lots of info and clearly they have fully used the interface into canon cameras. Sadly it cannot work with EOS M as canon disabled internal connections.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, I guess that we're having a failure to communicate...what do you mean when you say that "it is NOT going to give you tethered shooting per se"?

My description of tethered shooting would be...a preview of the scene/shot to be taken before squeezing the shutter and having complete camera control from the display device (be it tablet/laptop/whatever) during the scene composition/set-up.

Back to my original question...How important is the resolution of that display device?

Now that I understand your definition of tethered shooting; it's a bit different than mine. My view of a tethered shot is the ability to review it on a larger screen AFTER I have taken it.

The CamRanger will do what you are looking to do. How important is the resolution of the device; depends on what you are trying to do.

The way I use the CamRanger is to fire the camera when I am some 30 - 60ft away from it, over a period of a number of minutes so that I can get identical shots to stack together. I do all my setup (including focus) before starting to shoot. I then disconnect the autofocus and either shoot manually or on shutter priority (so there is no change of DoF). I do review the shots on the screen to make sure I got what I wanted; but don't need a high quality image.

[travelfinn]

I have been usuing the camranger a lot during the last six months for lowlight landscape and architectual photography.
Using the Ipad 4 with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and fully satisfied with the resolution. Shooting iso 100 f8 and exposure between 1 and 30 seconds. Only problem is with longer exposures is that live view is pixelated and to get a better view is to raise the iso so shutter speed is higher and then get a better view to compose. Then change back to iso 100.
Shooting sometimes ground level no way to use the viewfinder. Some times straight up or ground level with 45 degrees angle. No other way to compose or set camera correctly.
After taking the photo have the photo on the screen to check everything. And can retake it if necessary.
Only problem is the touch screen. One can accidentally touch it while adjusting the camera. One has only two hands. Using the Manfrotto three way gearhead.
But what resolution to use on tour laptop my recomendation is as high you can afford.
Or test before buying and see the difference

[chauncey]

But what resolution to use on tour laptop my recomendation is as high you can afford.

For that specific response Ilmari, I thank you!