So, I had a photoshoot earlier today and for the last few days I was looking forward to it because it was an "alter ego" style concept. It was going to be a fun shoot. If you're not familiar with this type of concept, it's basically through photographing and some clever editing where you place the subject in the same photo so it appears that there are two of the same person in the scene. For example, you can have a picture of you talking to yourself in the mirror but your reflection is doing something totally different like turned away as if ignoring you. That's the gist of it.
Anyway, for the last few days I got my camera and other equipment ready for the shoot because with more elaborate photoshoots like this I like to pre-plan a little bit so I have an idea of how I want to shoot the session. For this shoot I decided I wanted to shoot with my camera tethered to my laptop. I haven't shot tethered in a while and this type of photoshoot would be perfect for it. When I shoot tethered I use Capture One.
I spent an hour or so familiarizing myself with Capture One since it's been a long time since I used Capture one for tethered shooting. It didn't take long for me to get back into the groove of it but I wanted to go through the motions so I wouldn't have any issues during the photoshoot. I checked the Live View, checked the Focus, and Capture settings. I even played around with the Overlay feature because I knew I wanted to use it for this type of shoot since I was going to put my subject in the scene as three individuals. The Overlay feature would have been perfect for this shoot.
Fast forward to the shoot and did some quick exposure tests. I was making sure my settings were what I wanted and familiarizing myself again. All was working fine until I started doing test shots with the strobe light. This is where all the prepping I did days before went downhill.
For some reason, I could control the camera and activate the shutter button but the strobe light wasn't being activated by the trigger on the camera. I checked everything I could, and double checked it, and triple checked it. Nothing.
But when I disconnected the camera from the laptop and manually clicked the shutter button then the strobe would fire. There was some kind of miscommunication between the camera and laptop. I guess when I was familiarizing myself with Capture One I wasn't shooting with the strobe and trigger. I was testing everything with just the camera and not with the strobe light.
So, needless to say, I had to scratch the tethered idea and just shoot the normal way by pressing the shutter button. The main reason I wanted to shoot tethered is so I could position my subject using the Overlay feature in Capture One so I know exactly when I need to direct her in relation to the scene.
So, with all the prepping I did, something like this SNAFU comes along and totally puts a downer on how I wanted the shoot to go. Thankfully, all was not lost. I am used to shooting untethered so it wasn't bad at all, just that it would have been a smoother shoot and more precise had I shot tethered.
When I got home after the shoot, I researched online and I think I found the issue why this was happening. So, I will be doing some testing and will let you know the results. Hopefully, what I find out will clear up this issue I am having with the strobe light not firing when my camera is tethered to the laptop.
Stay tuned....
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