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09-29-2010, 10:58 AM   #1
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K-5 & Tethered Shooting

Hi

Does anyone know wheteher the K-5 has tethered shooting.

We have that on the K10 & K20 and it is a feature I really really use. I'm really bummed it was dropped on the K7 ....

Here are some of the uses for tethered shooting, i'm sure others have their own list.

1) When teaching photography it is great to be able to show students the controls and the results immediately.
2) I do archictectural photography ... and sometimes I need to put the camera in awkward to reach places e.g. on scaffolding... Tethered shooting plus a remote controlled pan/tilt head is a perfect solution.
3) Nature photography when being near the camera may disturb the subject, being able to trigger the camera and make adjustments remotely plus view the results is just great.
4) Commercial work when my client needs to see the output in near real time.

Please Please Please pentax re-instate tethered shooting. How hard can it be ???

And while yo're at it bring it back on the K7 also. I intend to buy the K5 but I have to keep a K10 handy to be able to do tethered shooting. If possible I want to be able to use the K5 as my main camera and the k7 as backup.

If you do implement tethered shooting then also add this feature...:
The ability to adjust focus remotely... I.e. a software controlled manual focus. You leave the lens and camera in af mode but focus control is then done via software. Focus can be checked by taking a picture:

Also remote live view would be nice. (not abolutlely essential but very nice to have if possible).

Please do not mention Eye-fi ... it is not a solution coz you don't get control over the camera.

Rgds
Patrick

09-29-2010, 11:05 AM   #2
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I'm also very interested if this will be finally available again on pentax DSLR
09-29-2010, 01:30 PM   #3
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This maybe of some help, although not specifically to the OP ...


Lightroom can be set to import automatically from a watched folder. USB the camera and set the camera's card as the watched folder.

just a thought.
09-29-2010, 01:40 PM   #4
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But the camera can't be used, if connected to the PC...

09-29-2010, 02:30 PM   #5
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Right now, the only way you ll get tethering is using the eye fi wireless SD cards.
09-29-2010, 03:10 PM   #6
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does anyone know for sure you cant use it when connected? firmware is 0.3 and i serious doubt anyone at photokina brought along a cable and laptop and tried it out when they had the sd card doors glued shut - afew managed to find a camera with a door that would open and sneak there sd cards in but a laptop to test tethered shooting would have been abit obvious =)
09-29-2010, 03:44 PM   #7
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While not confirmed by Pentax, there has been some discussion on other threads that with a firmware update it maybe a possibility. That's about all that I know.

09-29-2010, 03:54 PM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by davidvcd Quote
Right now, the only way you ll get tethering is using the eye fi wireless SD cards.
That isn't tethered. That's just remote transfer. With Tethered, you can control the camera(s) and all functions with the computer and is really the only reason I can see for having it. File transfer, not so much. Perhaps useful to some, I understand that, but unless they are going to re implement the entire feature, there isn't much point in doing it at all.

09-29-2010, 05:52 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by JeffJS Quote
That isn't tethered. That's just remote transfer. With Tethered, you can control the camera(s) and all functions with the computer and is really the only reason I can see for having it. File transfer, not so much. Perhaps useful to some, I understand that, but unless they are going to re implement the entire feature, there isn't much point in doing it at all.

The point of file transfer is being able to see your image on a larger screen while you're shooting.

It's ridiculous that any SLR ships without either level of tethering in this day and age.
09-29-2010, 08:23 PM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by bobell69 Quote
While not confirmed by Pentax, there has been some discussion on other threads that with a firmware update it maybe a possibility. That's about all that I know.
Anytime you hear, "Perhaps later in a Firmware update" in Marketing speak, the actual translation to plain English is "No it will never happen because we are stupid & lazy"
09-29-2010, 09:57 PM - 1 Like   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by Smeggypants Quote
This maybe of some help, although not specifically to the OP ...


Lightroom can be set to import automatically from a watched folder. USB the camera and set the camera's card as the watched folder.

just a thought.
Actually that is really not tethering, thanks though ...what you describe is simply a way to slow your shooting down for marginal gain because the file xfer is SLOW. But when its all you have sometimes people can use it.

The K20D supports a crippled form of tethering which does not have a liveview access but does let you control pretty much everything else so it's not as bad as possible. but on the K20D liveview was sort of a bolt on thing to begin with and not done very well. Still it was Pentax's first whack at it...in fact the immature liveview was why I original when 40D as my first DSLR...even though I always loved the look of images from Pentax DSLR bodies.

Currently you can also put the camera in liveview mode and send the video (no not "video" but the liveview video to a high quality external display of some sort, a TV or just a nice monitor [this works on other bodies like the K20D but it's liveview output is pretty weak still better than nothing]) so you can see a larger image to help with getting the focus and composition. But it does not help when you can't get to the camera controls easily. I can't tell you how stupid it feels when trying to use a mirror to see the settings in this configuration.

Before anyone gets apoplectic even my "old" 40D, the K20D's main competition at the time, supports liveview in their tethering solution. But even canon's solution is not perfect but for me the key is seeing the love view to setup the composition and focus as for me tethering is most useful when I need to have the camera in a position when I simply cannot see the controls, rear panel and obviously the viewfinder...

It's the single feature, or lack of a feature, which stopped me from buying a K-7 when I learned it did not have tethering. So if the K-5 does not support it with on screen Liveview I am going to have to switch back to Canon and likely a 7D, I don't want to by any stretch of the imagination because of how much the K5 appears to have improved, but as anyone here always says "...use the camera that gives you the features you need most..."

So there we are...info from Photokina was completely conflicting and impossible to confirm either way...I dunno why because if it's not there I am gone because I have no choice not because I don't like my Pentax gear, so I feel like we are being used like children by Hoya. But we have yet to see a fully functional K5 so who knows...with my luck it will have a Hello Kitty auto watermark "feature" but never a fully functional tethering feature.

Oh, the 645D is also said to NOT have any sort of tethering fully functional or otherwise...so hard to imagine a digital studio camera WITHOUT tethering isn't it? Guess that is where the cut corners to get the price down.

yeah, I am a tad bitter about this because I am too worn down by many things to keep swinging at a moving target when things should be far more stable for basic feature sets.

For I am hoping we see the feature added officially in the production model.
09-29-2010, 10:00 PM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by stormcloud Quote
does anyone know for sure you cant use it when connected? firmware is 0.3 and i serious doubt anyone at photokina brought along a cable and laptop and tried it out when they had the sd card doors glued shut - afew managed to find a camera with a door that would open and sneak there sd cards in but a laptop to test tethered shooting would have been abit obvious =)
hehehehe....yeah, just a bit, plus you would need software on the laptop to actually talk to the camera...
09-30-2010, 03:53 AM   #13
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To do proper tethered shooting you need complete control of the camera... File transfer alone does not cut it.

The K10D/K20D pentax remote assistant was usable and had some nice features but there was lots of room for improvement. Hell if they give us a good open API i'm sure that there is enough talent out there to put together a good tethered solution. I would be willing to volunteer developer time to do it.
09-30-2010, 04:01 AM   #14
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I think the K5 will have tethering eventually, if -- and it is a big if -- the hardware is able to support it. Several have said that the K7 was incapable of being controlled through the USB port. The software will eventually come out, because as the 645D is distributed, there are going to be plenty of pros who want that kind of support before they invest in that expensive a camera, I just wonder if the K5 will be able to work well with it.
09-30-2010, 07:24 AM   #15
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All some people need is file transfer. Like in Lightroom, which would be nice to have via firmware.
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