Each weekend I try to learn something new about photograp and get some shooting practice in. This weekend I decided to learn how to shoot tethered (with my camera hooked up to my computer). I already know how to shoot tethered to my computer, but I wanted to learn how to shoot tethered using Lightroom.
I read a lot of Scott Kelby's books and I learn a lot about photography through Kelby Training. I have written about Kelby Training in previous blogs. It is an online program providing instructional videos on photography. It is a great deal. Here's the link.
For those of you who are not familiar with Scott Kelby, he is a big proponent of shooting tethered in the studio. That is, having your camera tethered to your computer so that you can see your shots "live" on the computer instead of having to check out your shots on that tiny screen on the back of your camera.
I shoot with Canon cameras, which come boxed with the software you need to shoot tethered. If you shoot Nikon, the software does not come with your camera but you can download if for free from the Nikon website. I have known how to shoot tethered for a while now. What I didn't know, was how to shoot tethered and have my photos open directly into Lightroom.
I have attended the Photoshop World Conference in Las Vegas for a couple of years now, and at every convention I would hear speakers talk about Lightroom. I finally broke down and bought it a few months ago and I've got to tell you folks… it's an awesome program. It makes my photos look dynamite and my workflow has become a whole lot easier.
What I didn't know, however, is that I can shoot tethered and have my photos open directly into Lightroom. This gives me a large image to look at and I have my histogram and a ton of control right there at my finger tips. And the REALLY cool thing is that is was so easy to set up. All you have to do is use the free software for your camera to select a destination folder on your computer for you images. Then you choose that folder to be "watched" in Lightroom. There are a couple of steps to complete the process but it is REALLY easy.
BACKUP EQUIPMENT NEEDED!
This week a friend of mine who happens to do some modeling work is going to come over to the studio for a session. We have been planning to do this for weeks. Wouldn't you know it, this weekend my 70-200mm IS lens decided to act up on me. Something is going on with the image stabilization. I press the shutter button on my camera to pre-focus and the thing whirs like a well-fed cat… and won't stop. That's fine for a well-fed cat, but not for my camera.
Today I have to call Canon and see what I need to do to get it fixed. I'll let you know how that goes. It reinforces the point that, if you want to get into wedding photography, make sure you have backup equipment. You never know when it will decide to go south on you! You don't want to be shooting someone's wedding and go, "oops, sorry, my equipment just broke down and I don't have a backup!" That would be very, very bad!
That's it for today. At 10:00AM I will be watching a webinar put on by Redford Studios. It should be a good one. I'll give you a short re-cap tomorrow.
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