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Tethering Phase One H25 back

A

anyone

Well-known member
Hi there,
I got a Phase One H25 that I would like to tether to a Mac Mini. I have the right FireWire cable, the back is recognised by Capture One 20 and 12, I can shoot it, but the frames are entirely black. The LEDs show green, so I suppose it has power. I can hit the trigger button in Capture One which activates the back, it starts blinking. I can fire the shutter of the camera and it will confirm with a beep that the image is captured and transferred. But all what shows up in Capture One is a black frame.

Multiple camera bodies, sync cables have been used. Does anyone have an idea what could be the issue?

I run MacOS Mojave on the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is a late 2012 model with Firewire 800 port. I use a Firewire 800 to 400 conversion cable with which I successfully tethered my back-then P20+ back.

Thank you!
 
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M

MartinN

Well-known member
Hmm, sounds like a sync problem. The described procedures sound ok, and something is happening when a black frame is transferred. There could be some problem with the ccd readout etc, but that is perhaps not the first issue to suspect. What if you connect the sync cables and keep the back halfway detatched so it certainly gets light all the time ?
 
A

anyone

Well-known member
MartinN said:
Hmm, sounds like a sync problem. The described procedures sound ok, and something is happening when a black frame is transferred. There could be some problem with the ccd readout etc, but that is perhaps not the first issue to suspect. What if you connect the sync cables and keep the back halfway detatched so it certainly gets light all the time ?
Click to expand...
It produces an error, if the back is already exposed to light when it's triggered (error beep). We tried also several sync cables. And we tried two H25 backs, both with the same behaviour. A similar hardware failure on both of them sounds so unlikely.

I'm wondering if there is something at the software side.

FloatingLens said:
What kind of body are you using? Change of the back‘s sync setting could help.
Click to expand...
I tried two different 500C/M's and my Cambo camera. I couldn't find a way to change the sync settings.

The only thing I didn't change is the Firewire cable and the Mac Mini. But according to specs it should be all fine. Nevertheless I asked the P1 support if they can provide the version of C1 DB that was still running on a Power PC G5 Mac Pro. I have one for running an older scanner.
 
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A

anyone

Well-known member
The Phase One support kindly provided very(!) old installation files. On my G5 Mac Pro I got it working. So it must be somehow the Mac Mini. Upside: yes it works! Downside: C1 3.7.9 is nowadays no joy to use anymore.
 
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M

MartinN

Well-known member
Last time I tethered H10 and H20 I used a Macbook with FW400 and OS X 10.6.8 and Capture One DB 6. That combination worked. Intel processor, and quite fast without PC crap.
 
buildbot

buildbot

Well-known member
anyone said:
The Phase One support kindly provided very(!) old installation files. On my G5 Mac Pro I got it working. So it must be somehow the Mac Mini. Upside: yes it works! Downside: C1 3.7.9 is nowadays no joy to use anymore.
Click to expand...
Phase One support is awesome, they always try to help you out even for stuff that is 20 years old or weird spec requests
 
Digitalcameraman

Digitalcameraman

Active member
The H25 is not getting enough power from the Mac mini, very common problem on firewire for Phase One cameras. Capture One is not seeing or able to transfer the image after capture because they system is under powered. We saw many of these cases when the Mac mini first came out. You need a firewire booster or powered firewire hub.https://digitalback.com/products/ci-fw800-powered-hub. This is only available now in FW 800 so you have to make the cables work. This fixes this issue 99% of the time. Here is the Phase One article too. https://support.phaseone.com/knowledgebase/article/KA-01131/en-us
 
TechTalk

TechTalk

Well-known member
Excellent advice! A powered FireWire hub can solve connection issues and minimize any inconsistencies. As for FireWire cables, FireWire 800 (9-pin) to FireWire 400 (6-pin) cables are still available in various lengths, as are 800 to 800 and 400 to 400 cables.

I haven't searched for any other sources of FireWire 400 powered hubs, but I checked Granite Digital and they still offer one. I've used a lot of their products over the years.
 
A

anyone

Well-known member
A follow up: is there any information available about the Macbook models that allow tethering the H25 without additional power supply?

Can I expect that for example an older Macbook Pro 13" with Core2Duo will have enough power for the back?
 
M

MartinN

Well-known member
What I found, is that Firewire 800 is specified to tiny 7 Watts output, whereas Firewire 400 can output monstruous 60 Watts. It also seems that FW400 outputs 5 Volts, where FW800 provides 12 Volts. From this I would bet that FW400 native Macbooks are adequate for Firewire 400 Phase digital backs. I have successfully tethered H10 and H20 with FW400 native Macbooks.
 
A

anyone

Well-known member
That is good news. Which Macbook do you use precisely? I would guess when a H20 works, a H25 will as well.

This article here says the opposite:
www.teamworkphoto.com

P-series & H-series backs shooting to portable computers or iMac's

Knowledgebase Article: P-Series and H-Series backs shooting to portable computers or iMacs.
www.teamworkphoto.com www.teamworkphoto.com
Quote: "Portable and iMac computers from Apple do not provide sufficient power to Phase One Digital Backs from the FW bus"
 
M

MartinN

Well-known member
Today I tested this:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...re-i5-2.5-13-mid-2012-unibody-usb3-specs.html
with Phase One P25, Firewire 800 to 400 cable, OS X Mojave, Capture One 12.

No problems whatsoever. The back was without battery, but the camera was Mamiya AFD I.
This proves, even FW800 on Macbook pro is powered enough, but probably Mac Mini has problems.

However, the back had to configured Image storage Firewire instead of Memory card and that had me scratching my head.
 
A

anyone

Well-known member
MartinN said:
Today I tested this:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...re-i5-2.5-13-mid-2012-unibody-usb3-specs.html
with Phase One P25, Firewire 800 to 400 cable, OS X Mojave, Capture One 12.

No problems whatsoever. The back was without battery, but the camera was Mamiya AFD I.
This proves, even FW800 on Macbook pro is powered enough, but probably Mac Mini has problems.

However, the back had to configured Image storage Firewire instead of Memory card and that had me scratching my head.
Click to expand...
Thank you for testing it out! I think I'll look for an old Macbook Pro.
 
buildbot

buildbot

Well-known member
MartinN said:
What I found, is that Firewire 800 is specified to tiny 7 Watts output, whereas Firewire 400 can output monstruous 60 Watts. It also seems that FW400 outputs 5 Volts, where FW800 provides 12 Volts. From this I would bet that FW400 native Macbooks are adequate for Firewire 400 Phase digital backs. I have successfully tethered H10 and H20 with FW400 native Macbooks.
Click to expand...
NB- firewire can be up to 30v and be in spec! 9 is the lowest according to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394?wprov=sfti1
Firewire in general is specced to 45W. No idea what an apple laptop will actually put out.
 
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