D800 tethering cable?

[CBronicki]

Hi guys, this may sound like a silly question, but what cable do you use to tether a D800 with to a Macbook Pro?

It does not use a standard firewire cable and I don't recall my Nikon coming with a longer tethering cable of any sort.

Also, where can I buy the correct cable online (i'm in Australia and we seem to be late getting stuff).

Thanks.
Chris

 

[tashley]

It does come with a cable: the camera end is flatish and crimped into two sections, the other end is USB, not firewire...

 

[Steen]

Take a look at this thread http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/nikon/38619-d800-tethered.html.

Maybe there is some information you can use if you need a longer cable than the one that comes with the camera.

 

[Deleted member 7792]

It does come with a cable: the camera end is flatish and crimped into two sections, the other end is USB, not firewire...

That's a USB 3.0 cable. Both the D800/D800E and the MacBook Pro support USB 3.0 (but not FireWire).

 

[Steen]

As a side note: Tim Ashley (yup, the above 'tashley') recently had this excellent blog post about tethering with Capture One Pro.

Tim Ashley Photography | Capture One tethering with D800

It may be the RAW converter you already use, or you may want to try it out for tethered shooting. Works really well.

 

[CBronicki]

Thanks guys. I know the cable you are referring to, I will get an extension lead for it.

And yes, I will be using Capture One Pro (latest version is half price this week only). Some people have mentioned issues with tethering D800's. I'll see how I go.

 

[tashley]

An extension lead is a bad idea. It would be better to buy a longer cable instead. Extension leads for cables carrying data at high speeds is not recommended.

Seconded

 

[danielmoore]

If you're going to try it be sure it's a USB 3.0 active repeater type. I haven't got one to test with but I've tried USB 2 active repeaters and the connection was random.

 

[Pingang]

Speak of tethering, the current USD 3 cables are all rather short, maxium length is around 3 meters and already hard to find - that is awfully short for fashion works. What I did was using a 1.5m USB3 connecting to a 5 meter USB2 repeater cable on my MBP with Retina Display and it works flawlessly with C1Pro until I upgrade to Snow Leopard, so I have to go back to use my 17" MBP, and it works well. Yes, the set up effectively made the connection becomes USB2 but I did not notice much difference of connecting short USB3 and USB3+USB2 repeater - probably the reason why Canon stays with USB2 on 5DIII.

Pingang

Hi guys, this may sound like a silly question, but what cable do you use to tether a D800 with to a Macbook Pro?

It does not use a standard firewire cable and I don't recall my Nikon coming with a longer tethering cable of any sort.

Also, where can I buy the correct cable online (i'm in Australia and we seem to be late getting stuff).

Thanks.
Chris