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scottawoodward
Participating Frequently
July 10, 2011

P: Tethering

  • July 10, 2011
  • 193 replies
  • 4377 views

I am a professional photographer who relies heavily on LR for my digital workflow. I tether my Nikon D3 and D3x to LR frequently. I've never had an issue with tethering my cameras to LR until this past week. And, after much frustration and processes-of-elimination and testing the issue across multiple machines, I BELIEVE that the problem has to do with the latest OSX 10.6.8 update when running LR 3.4.1.

You can read my initial post about this problem on Adobe forums here http://forums.adobe.com/message/37883... when I was stumped about why it was happening.

Then you can see my follow-up post about this problem today here http://forums.adobe.com/message/37894... and why I think it has to do with the recent 10.6.8 update.

Please feel free to contact me for anymore information. I really hope you can look into this issue.

Thank you,

Scott Woodward

This topic has been closed for replies.

193 replies

Participating Frequently
November 9, 2011
It's not a secret fix, but we are seeking more feedback before we can conclusively declare the problem fixed, since it's been a difficult one for us to reproduce.

I think there's a very good chance it'll fix similar tethering problems on the D700. Please give it a try and let me know.

-kevin
Participating Frequently
November 9, 2011
SEE WHAT I MEAN ADOBE. OWN UP and GET IT FIXED. That is how you should roll.

Bob Carmichael
Very disturbing huh fellow photographers?
Zesty_visionary16B8
Participating Frequently
November 9, 2011
The tether issue is not addressed in the notes accompanying the LR3.6 RC update.

Is this some sort of "Secret Fix"?

Additionally, the fix described above only mentions the Nikon D3.
Since I am having the problem with Nikon D700, I am wondering if the fix applied to my camera. Is that also a secret?
Inspiring
November 9, 2011
"Own up and get it fixed..."

Anyone reading this thread with comprehension would see they were trying to gather information from those having problems (and still are), even asking for it at times, and trying to replicate the problem so they could fix it.
Participating Frequently
November 9, 2011
This is GREAT news as a D3 shooter. FINALLY someone from Adobe has stepped up and notified us that we can go back to LR3.

But, I suggest more transparency from Adobe fellows. Admit the problem and then Fix the problem. The bad feedback you've been getting stems from continuing to promote, market the LR3 tether ability when WE KNOW it ain't werkin!!!

Congratulations to Kevin Tieskoetter for getting er done. Will download 3.6RC ( I assume that stands for Robert Carmichael) tomorrow! In the meantime I'll go on my social media and extol the good work of Kevin. But this is NOT the model for how problems and fixes should go. Own up and get it fixed... That engenders loyalty yall KNOW that...

Bob Carmichael
Participating Frequently
November 9, 2011
Lightroom 3.6RC has been posted. It should fix the tethering problem with the Nikon D3 (where it stops pulling in photos partway into the shoot), and the problem reported here for Canon cameras (changing the lens or some lens settings causes a disconnect).

However, I've learned today that it apparently does NOT fix the problem for the Nikon D3x, or, more specifically, a new issue has arisen from the previous fix just with this camera. I had not had a chance to test it against the D3x previously, but I'll be looking into this problem this week.

So, if you were having tether problems and have a Nikon D3 or a Canon with the problem mentioned above, please download the latest RC and post your results.

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...
Inspiring
November 4, 2011
We decided to start trailing tethered shooting for some of our work and have been having exactly the same problems as being reported on this thread! Our setup is

Windows 7
Lightroom 3.5
Canon 5DII with firmware 1.1.0
Canon 70-200 2.8L
Sigma 28-70 ex dg

We believe the problem starts when swapping lenses during the shoot.

(I do not switch the camera off or do anything special ) We just notice the images are not transferring. Switching off the camera does not achieve anything as the camera just shows the transfer icon on the back continuing to whirr with nothing happening!

The only way out seems to be remove the battery, disconnect, stop the tether on Lightroom then start all over again. Needless to say I'm not terribly happy about this. Lightroom should be able to cop even if an accident like pulling out the cable happens!
Participating Frequently
November 1, 2011
A good days shooting today with only one failure - as it was during set up I thought I'd take some time instead of the usual panic when it happens during a shoot. When I noticed the final image that I had shot was not coming through in the usual 4 seconds or so, I waited, while the SBOD span around and eventually after maybe thirty or forty seconds the image appeared, at which point the connection window suddenly changed status to "no camera detected". Stopping and restarting tethering resumed normal service.............Nikon D3, 2m USB, MacBook 10.6.8, LR 3.5
Inspiring
November 1, 2011
In addition to my contribution above, I can say that whatever the file size (1Mb to 15 MB), I do NOT have any problem with Sofortbild tethered mode ...
Zesty_visionary16B8
Participating Frequently
November 1, 2011
I have often reported the problems I have had with LR tethering and was hopeful that the promise made in this forum that the failures of LR would finally be fixed with the latest version (3.5) , but was frustrated to discover that the problem continues even after the upgrade.

I am using a Dell Laptop with 8GB Memory and an I-5 processor with Windows 7 - Dell's custom edition. . I use a 15 foot long USB cable and my laptop recognizes my Nikon D700 camera instantly while LR takes a much longer time (2-5 minutes) to discover there is a camera available.

Once it finally discovered the camera, LR worked just fine for the first 200 photos. Then it stopped loading photos from my camera. In fact, one entire entire sitting vanished because I did not see that the images had stopped downloading. Luckily for me, I offer the clients a chance to examine the images after each sitting and discovered my problem before they went away.

But ALL THE BEAUTIFUL IMAGES I thought I had captured were LOST!
They were NOT on my Laptop nor on my computer.
All the while, the camera and laptop both reported that they were connected and even LR reported that it was connected to the camera, but the photos did not load into the computer. I tried many things to see if I could get the missing images to appear.
Like just waiting a little. Waiting a little more. Disconnecting the camera to see if they had gone onto my memory card (NO!) And when it happened again, I also tried firing the camera from LR's tether window release button. NOTHING!

All the while LR was reporting that it was connected to my D700.

In order to keep up with the line of clients, I had to disconnect the camera and show my clients previews off the back of the camera.

OUCH!!!!! Imagine how unprofessional that made me look!!!

Because LR took so long to discover the camera and I had clients lining up at my photo booth, I could 't even connect my camera to the computer to show clients photos until I had a obvious lull in business. Meanwhile I was forced to show camera-back previews to my clients and getting funny looks.

I was forced to wait for a lull in the shooting to get my D700 and LR working together because of the long lag time it takes to get LR starting to see the D700. And the only way I could get the camera communicating with LR working was to reboot.

But the problem recurred, only much sooner - after less than 40 photos.

I had some success after trying many different ideas when I tried changing the Lightroom Tethered-download preferences to use a different folder. But I don't know why that mattered, or if it was just a quirk that it worked at all. Changing folders SEEMED to be the reason I was finally able to download images into Lightroom again.

But only for a while.

I asked myself if it might be a bad connection, because that has always been a first looked at problem, but my camera was reporting connection and my computer also reported a connection.

Only LR had problems.

I have tried to examine every possible reason that my cameras and LR don't work together, but the ONLY reason that seems to come up is that LR is still a BADLY engineered program.

It is just not designed to do tethered-shooting and should NOT make claims that it can.