Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Looking at the Tether Tools Case Air was an interesting experience. It promises the same Camranger experience at half the cost, and a significantly lighter package. (we covered its kickoff here)
I have used the Camranger before on tradeshows and it was very smooth. The Case Air appears to be no different. It provides several nice functions: sending the files you shoot into a tablet/computer; A basic monitor; some focus peaking and so on.
CamRanger was almost a solo player in the wireless tethering arena for a very long time. While some suspected that CamRanger was simply an upgraded TPLINK 3040 router, the fact was that it delivered.
Now Tethertools are making their entry into this market and I am curious to see how they will match up. Their device is called The Case Air and it is a dongle that “sits” on your camera hot shoe. But it doesn’t just “sits” there it acts as a two way remote.
On one hand, it sends photos to a tablet or phone, and on the other it acts as a remote to take photos and videos with.
(we will be at photokina and give you some first hands impressions on this new device, follow us here!)
Several weeks ago, you may remember a post about Eye-Fi’s decision to “End of life” a bunch of their products. It’s not uncommon for companies to drop support for their older products, no matter how popular they may be. The problem with their decision, though, was that it would’ve basically bricked all of those products from September 16th, making them completely useless.
Ok, so you could still use them as regular SD cards. Although, who would use an overpriced Class 4 8GB card these days when fast 128GB UHS-I cards are so cheap? In a surprise email I received this morning, Eye-Fi have announced new software for those older cards. This software removes the need for online connectivity to activate or configure the cards.
They’re finally giving us the cards that the Eye-Fi should have been since day one.
Update: September 1st, 2016 – Windows version of the software is now available for download, see the bottom of the post for details.
For several years now, Camranger has been the only choice if you want to tether your Nikon, Sony or Canon DSLR wirelessly to your phone or tablet. While the Camranger is a worthy device that allows you access to all your camera settings remotely as well as instant viewing of your images, even in live view, the $299 pricetag, to me, seemed excessive. By the time you add extras such as the USB cable, mount, etc, you’re approaching $400 not including your tablet.
Well, this weekend, I’ve discovered a $40 alternative. All you need is a TP-Link MR3040 Battery Powered 3G Wireless Router and a $9 app called qDslrDashboard (Android or iOS).
Benjamin Von Wong has a short and sweet tutorial on how to wirelessly tether a camera to a computer (his post is Lightroom Specific, but I assume other programs will work in a similar manner).
You gain quite a lot of benefits from shooting tethered as Ben Explains: “Why tether you ask? Focus checking, framing, presenting shots to the clients on an actual screen, camera controls, live view, just to name a few… And all those are possible tethered directly to an iPad or a Computer using a nifty 300$ device named the CamRanger.“
The caveat is that indeed you would need to say goodbye to $300 for the unit, but if you are doing large scale shoots and/or need to deliver live results to a client that may be very well worth the money. The teaser video is right after the jump.[Read More…]
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