Discussion Forum Leica S System S2 S2 Tethering experience on an editorial shoot.
  • #2885
    arminw

    Hello everybody

    I thought I share my experience with you shooting the Leica tethered on my last editorial. I usually use my hasselblad h4d5o for that kind of shooting , simply because I know it’s reliable ,fast and tethering is a pleasure with Hasselblads own phocus software. The Leica S2 on its own is a fantastic camera, and the quality it produces is mindblowin. However, in the world of fashion tethering is required a lot and Adobe’s Lightroom 4 is just not fast enough! It’s been so painful getting the images into the computer, adding some simple adjustments and transferring the settings to each new photograph captured . A real time killer was the switch between shooting landscape mode and portrait mode … It took forever for Lightroom to rotate the image . It was so slow I came to the conclusion this system is just not up for the job . Whatever Leica is doing next S3 or whatever ??? This has to be sorted. I don’t think any of my colleagues wanting to shoot the S2 will put up with having to restart the computer several times, unreliable recognition of camera connected to the computer and slow transfer. as I said before, I don’t and can’t afford using it again (tethered ) on any of my shoots . I might have to shoot to card then let the assistant transfere it to the computer every ten shots or so, but what choice do I have when the client , art director wants to see the images as you shoot them ? Leica / Adobe come on get this sorted …. !

  • #2912
    Pete Walentin

    Hi Armin,

    I was surprised when I read this the first time, but kept it in mind for the next shooting, which I had a few days ago. I used the S2 tethered with LR4 and did not experienced the problems you described.

    I do not have the comparison between a Hasselblad and their Phocus Software but the experience I had with capturing with a Phase into C1 is similar to the experience I have now with the S2 and LR4. I do not needed to restart my computer or whatever. I also edited some pictures in between with Photoshop and had no problems at all.

    There is a lag between capturing and seeing the files on screen, but I guess this is a normal thing and you can not really avoid it. But the question is, how long is the lag you had?

    Maybe the cable you have used has some problems? Guessing…

    Cheers.

  • #2915
    fotografz

    I’ve had issues with the S2 tethered to my Mac Tower … LR simply wouldn’t recognize the S2 was connected. Jumped through all kinds of hoops trying to fix it to no avail.

    Finally solved it by creating a second account on the troubled computer and using that when shooting tethered with the S2. It should be noted that I did not have any of these issues when shooting tethered to my MacBook Pro.

    In either case, the capture is slower than when shooting a H4D/60 tethered via Phocus. I may be wrong, but I attribute that to different transfer speeds … the S2 is USB-2 on my computer, and the H4D/60 is FW800. Even though the H4D/60 files are twice as big, they appear faster (which includes applying basic alterations like WB made to the first shot.

    Is the S2 USB-3 compatible?

    -Marc

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