Jan 7, 20193 min read

The Benefits of Shooting Tethered

Dance photoshoot behind the scenes

feat. Anna Romanova & Ricardo Macedo

Finally my answer to a question a few people asked the past months... Why don't you shoot tethered? A practical way to communicate with your team, review your photos and adjust your settings on location? Really? Here are my thoughts on the subject, the pros, and cons of shooting tethered... at least, according to my perspective!

The Benefits of Shooting Tethered:

The ability to view images on a large monitor as I shoot and adjust and check lighting, focus, composition, and camera settings more quickly and easily, and of course I can instantly see my images at full resolution!
You can apply edits to your photos as you shoot them. When creating, aiming a specific aesthetic on a shoot through special lighting. Applying edits can help you make sure you’re achieving that effect you want to better prepare the post-production process.
You can, of course, control your camera settings and remote trigger from the connected device
The luxury to better share images with your art director your client on-site or remotely
It also makes communication easier, you can collaborate more effectively with your assistants, stylists, and subjects... It's great when working with dancers, we can correct poses and movements faster.
It can also be helpful when you work solo... When you’re shooting without an assistant, it can be harder to be mindful of those small details that can make or break a photo.
Being able to tag, rate, compare images while you shoot is a time saver!
And last but not least, you are backing up your files to your hard-drive while shooting and thus reducing the chance of losing your images.

Of course, there are a few downsides :

You can get too caught up in little details while inspecting the photos, and this can slow down your photoshoot.
Don't ignore setup time, although it takes only a couple of minutes to set up when you shoot multiple scenes outside a studio, you have to handle and move more gear around, which can also slow you down and break the energy and the rhythm of your session.
Tethering can suck the battery life out of both your camera and your connected computer. if you are working on location, you’ll want to have extra batteries with you and be shooting near a wall socket.
Lastly, tethering software crashes sometimes for no apparent reason... I still use Lightroom, it is slow, I heard capture one was a better option!

These are the reasons why you don't see me shooting tethered on a lot of my shoots... I often need to work fast, I need freedom, so It all depends on the time I have on my hands, who I am working with, and the type of images I am creating... Huge thanks to the Contemporary art museum of Lyon and the Palais de la Bourse for welcoming us. Here are my 5 favorite shots from these sessions with Anna Romanova and Ricardo Macedo!

Anna Romanova 5D mark III + Brocolor SirosL

1/200 F8 ISO 800 - 24mm