Cheapest laptop for shooting tethered?

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I am in the market for a laptop, preferably used. Ideally, under $100. I found some on eBay for pretty cheap. I was wondering what laptop would give me the ability to shoot tethered. It can be a little slow, but not terribly slow. And, what program would I need to use with said laptop?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance,</p>

<p>Joseph</p>

<p>The big question is, what camera are you using? Most that can shoot teathered have a manufacturer's program that can do it. CaptureOne (PhaseOne) can do most major/pro ones.</p>

<p>Once a shot is brought into the machine, I know LightRoom supports "watched folders" to show what you shot.</p>

<p>As for the laptop, find the software that works before you decide on what hardware can work with it.</p>

<p>I don't think USB 2.0 was really standard until about 2003. There were alot of USB 1.0 devices and computers still lurking around at the time, and you have to be wary of that if the computer is over 5 years old. The difference in speed is about 10x, or the difference between shooting away happily and pulling your hair out.</p>

<p>Not going to happen. If you are going to use it to just view, they make larger external lcd's. But like Peter said what camera?<br>

Cannon comes with software for this,but others you will have to buy additional software. I shoot Nikon and use camera control pro. There are others.<br>

If your going to shoot large files or do any type of editing you'll need some horsepower that those old laptops with little ram can't provide. Combine that with laptop screens that suck and your looking at a diaster. I looked into this last year and I ended up buying a refirb think pad from a dealer and had him max out the ram, external hard drive and only use it for tethered and it's ok, I got $500 into it, versus the $3500 I should have spent.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I just found a refurbished Compaq Presario with 3GB RAM and 160GB HDD for less than $300 at Micro Center (www.microcenter.com). They often have good deals on refurbs.<br>

<Chas></p>

<p>The person who pinches pennies often ends up spending more in the long run (classic statement: the miser spends the most).</p>

<p>That being said, some older laptops can be used if you are skilled enough in updating hard drives and perhaps most of all, if you are adept in something like Linux, for one example, enough to do your own work. Alternatively, for more "already built" solutions, you might be able to find older software for those computers that dates back to when they were bright and new. It is unlikely that the latest stuff will run well, if it runs at all.</p>

<p>You can get a decent Toshiba on sale brand new from places like Frys.com or Staples on sale for about $300 or less. This time of year they are aiming at sales to students, prices of new Laptops drop. Id go for max speed and memory you can get or even add memory which is a lot lower in price now than a few years ago. New Laptops have the ability to use faster memory and greater amounts. <br>

You have no idea what you might get on eBay in a used computer.</p>

 

<p>JDM: It is also said, "The poor man pays twice."</p>

<p>I've never seen a used laptop for under $100. Not in working condition anyway. I tend to agree that the price imposed is too low, even for a bargain hunter.</p>

<p>@JDM vW : do any of the camera capture programs run under Linux? For my Canon 50D I know only of Capture 0ne, Canon's EOS Utility, and Breeze System's DSLR Capture Pro, and none run on anything but Windows TTBOMK.<br>

I have a nice Linux laptop for work that would be nice for tethered shooting, but it has only Linux.</p>

<p><Chas></p>

<p>For what purpose are you shooting tethered? Are you going to use the laptop monitor image to adjust your exposure compensation levels? </p>

<p>I'm still new to all of this, but I have a Canon 40D and last year, I looked into a laptop for shooting tethered for macro work. I found that I needed to buy a Macbook Pro or something with an equivelent graphics card in order to get any accuracy in the color profile. </p>

<p>If I'm wrong, I hope others will chime in and correct me, but if you need the image on the screen to be profiled for printing, I don't think a cheap laptop will work for you. </p>

<p>I do all my studio photography tethered to my laptop. Shooting tethered allows me to evaluate exposure, lighting, and composition more accurately and conveniently than the LCD on the back of my 50D. I transfer the files to a desktop computer with a calibrated monitor for post-processing.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

<p>Chas, I'm curious, what laptop are you using? I tried using my Dell D610 work PC (basic business laptop) and it was horrible for exposures since it sees almost no shades of grey.</p>

<p>Kristin, I use a Dell XPS 1530M laptop for my tethered shooting. As I said, the screen is pretty poor, but I do my post processing on another computer and use the laptop screen for only lighting, exposure, and composition, not final color correction.<br>

You can see more about my studio photography on my blog at www.charlesLwebster.com/blog. There are several articles where you can see the laptop in use.<br>

If you are limited to using only the laptop for your photography, I suggest buying a high-quality external monitor and using a hardware calibrator to profile that monitor and use it for your post processing exclusively.<br>

<Chas><br /></p>

<p>Disclaimer: I am NOT a Linux nerd, although I have a certain long-standing fascination with operating systems. I do have a friend who is crazy (and I do not use that term lightly) about Linux. I hear a lot about it and I think he has every distro ever put out. Unfortunately, he's not a camera nut too. He has a half dozen or so yardsale computers running it that he paid less than a $100 for (and fixed himself).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>do any of the camera capture programs run under Linux? For my Canon 50D I know only of Capture 0ne, Canon's EOS Utility, and Breeze System's DSLR Capture Pro, and none run on anything but Windows TTBOMK.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have never tried to use Linux in this way, but I would be very surprised if there weren't some such capability somewhere. You need to go to an expert for details. Since many of the programs work under Mac OS X (which is basically UNIX beneath the skin), it is clearly possible. You might check out GIMP and see if anyone has done anything for that in terms of tethered shooting.</p>

<p>Does ViewScan have any capability here? You might check and there is a Linux version of that.</p>

<p>I have tried every conceivable combination, and I have to say, a simple and effective combination for me has been to use my LCD TV instead of a laptop. I haul the TV out of my bedroom for every shoot, stick it on a stand in my studio, and connect it via HDMI to my camera.</p>

<p>It is instant, versus the wait 10sec for Lightroom to pick the image from a watched folder, and the image size is huge which is nice for you and the model. And you can flip back over your photos from your camera vs going to your laptop and using the arrow keys (so u can stay in one position, flip pics, and tell the model 'do like this one').</p>

<p>The only downfall in this is a TV screen isn't as accurate as a laptop for color (but likely better than a $100 laptop).</p>

<p>A fellow photographer friend used video out from his camera to a $20 "TV Box" to an old CRT PC monitor. That was quite effective too. These TV boxes are the size of a small router or ethernet hub and convert typical video out to CRT RGB. Of course u can get CRTs for a dime a dozen.</p>

 

<p>In JDM Von Weinberg's analogy, I would be the crazy Linux follower, and I happened upon this forum looking for the same answers for my cousin the would be Photog/owner of a Canon 50D. I am by no means an expert or a programmer, but that is one of the reasons that Linux, and Ubuntu in particular, appeal to me. With that said, I will spare you the sermon. My Google search began after reading, in this order, the following links:<br>

http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/47498-sophisticated-picture-taking-with-gphoto<br>

http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/126189:schedule-photo-taking-with-gphoto-and-cron<br>

http://www.linux.com/news/software/multimedia/402-shuttertux-digital-photography-on-linux<br>

http://gphoto.sourceforge.net/</p>

<p>I do not know if the tether feature is fully enabled in Linux, as it is with Canon's proprietary software, but we aim to certainly find out very soon.</p>

<p>Ubuntu is on a 6 month release cycle and Ubuntu 9.10 was released yesterday, October 29, 2009, free of charge. It is available for download, torrent, or you may have a pressed disk sent to you for free.<br>

http://www.ubuntu.com/</p>

<p>Charles, I'm writing this from a Dell XPS M1530, that I have dual booting Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows Vista (that came with it). Triple boot, if you want to include the Media Direct feature (that is a stripped out version of XP turned "instant on" media player that I <em>thought</em> was going to be so cool). It runs very well under Ubuntu.</p>

<p>At the risk of having my membership revoked for link spam, I leave you with one more:<br>

http://ubuntuforums.org/<br>

If you have any questions about Ubuntu, almost any distribution of Linux, or applications this would be the place to start.</p>

<p>Hope this helps. I'll try to remember to post our results when we get the chance to try it out.<br>

-Aaron</p>

<p> </p>