EOS Utitilitis for tethered shooting

JimKarczewski · October 6, 2012

So I thought I would try something different at tonight's football game. I just got my new little think tank laptop bag from CPS and thought, why not shoot tethered with EOS utilities running and download as I shoot. Either EOS Utilities is not the right program to use or it tethered sports shooting isn't worth it without using the Ethernet on the 1Dx.

As I'm shooting I hit the 30 photo buffer (RAW) and camera just stops.. until it starts moving the files over to the laptop (USB2.0) So, is there a way to tell it to keep writing to the camera and download as it can? Because otherwise that's a really horrible system unless I figure this Ethernet issue out...

ziggy53 · October 6, 2012

Tethered shooting capability was designed for product photography and some modeling photography. I'm sure that sports photography was never a consideration.

I believe that Sports Illustrated still uses memory card storage and "runners" to relay the cards to a central processing and viewing facility, where a custom application strips the files off of the cards, and then the files (generally RAWs) are processed, using a short series of software and macros, for viewing and review/selection by editorial staff.

If you could develop a similar system and just change out the cards during a lull in the action, you could probably manage with your laptop. That would keep the "smart buffer" capability of the camera active, and allow you to continue shooting (albeit more slowly) after the buffer is full.

jhefti · October 6, 2012

I've never used the EOS utility for shooting tethered, aside from just playing around, but there are many wireless ways to download your shots to your laptop that won't slow down your camera. A good cheap way is Eye-Fi, but it really only works with jpegs. Basically, it uses an SD card to transmit, and I have it set up to send directly to my laptop. (You can have it send to a remote site via the internet, but it is slow.) I only use it for jpegs, as it is too slow for RAW files. However, I have used a dual-write selection in which RAW files are stored on a CF card, while jpegs are written to the Eye-Fi card, then sent to my laptop. It works fine, and I have used this at shoots with moderate success.

However, if you really want to do this right you'll need a WFT-E6A wireless file transmitter. This gives me more than enough speed to download live, which is nice for sports in which taking out the flash card and downloading it means not shooting parts of the game. For baseball, this is not a problem; for soccer, it is. I really hate to miss parts of the game, so when I need to submit live this is what I use.

jhefti · October 6, 2012

ziggy53 wrote: »

I believe that Sports Illustrated still uses memory card storage and "runners" to relay the cards to a central processing and viewing facility, where a custom application strips the files off of the cards, and then the files (generally RAWs) are processed, using a short series of software and macros, for viewing and review/selection by editorial staff.

Don't know about the SI shooters, but no one in the wells I occupy uses runners. Some download manually, but most use wireless transfer. The only time I see runners is at youth tournaments, and that's for those guys who set up booths to show and print photos. There is little editing, if any, and probably just a batch tune-up of color and other settings. Then again, their product shows it.

ziggy53 · October 6, 2012

jhefti wrote: »

Don't know about the SI shooters, but no one in the wells I occupy uses runners. Some download manually, but most use wireless transfer. The only time I see runners is at youth tournaments, and that's for those guys who set up booths to show and print photos. There is little editing, if any, and probably just a batch tune-up of color and other settings. Then again, their product shows it.

This is the most recent indication I could find that SI still uses runners:

http://pdnpulse.com/2011/02/pdn-video-pick-sports-illustrated-photographs-the-super-bowl.html

"... now there are fleet-footed “card” runners helping to move over 11,000 images per hour from 11 Sports Illustrated photographers at the Super Bowl."

http://vimeo.com/19698009

A much older and more thorough look at the workflow:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6453-6821

jhefti · October 7, 2012

ziggy53 wrote: »

This is the most recent indication I could find that SI still uses runners:

http://pdnpulse.com/2011/02/pdn-video-pick-sports-illustrated-photographs-the-super-bowl.html

"... now there are fleet-footed “card” runners helping to move over 11,000 images per hour from 11 Sports Illustrated photographers at the Super Bowl."

http://vimeo.com/19698009

A much older and more thorough look at the workflow:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6453-6821

I can believe it at the Superbowl. At most events, however, we don't have someone to edit and caption our shots; we do it ourselves. Would be nice though...

JimKarczewski · October 7, 2012

I guess I just need to figure out the Gigabit ethernet issue. I mean, I set the camera to 10.0.0.2 and Laptop to 10.0.0.1 and set the gateway to the opposite IP address, which is correct for connecting with a crossover.. but once I start shooting the LAN light goes Red on the 1Dx. Other than that, it's green. But also the Canon pairing software doesn't seen the camera either. But if I do it via a switch everything works fine.. so I need to find a USB powered 2 port switch I guess.. Which so far I've only been able to find something sold in anywhere but the USA.

JimKarczewski · October 7, 2012

And John.. While the EyeFi would be nice, the 1Dx is dual CF...

roakey · October 9, 2012

I used the EOS utilities for a tethered setup at a motorcycle race a year or so ago and it worked wonderfully. You can setup tethered shooting to keep the raw files on the card and only push the jpg files across the USB. Set jpgs to small and they take very little time.

A post of mine that you might want to look at (that I posted before I went out and actually used the setup):

http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1622131&postcount=17

I thought I had a thread on my adventure in the sports section but I can't find it.

Here's an example picture and a picture of my setup that day:

That camo lump by the track is the camera.

Roak

Brett1000 · October 12, 2012

jhefti wrote: »

I've never used the EOS utility for shooting tethered, aside from just playing around, but there are many wireless ways to download your shots to your laptop that won't slow down your camera. A good cheap way is Eye-Fi, but it really only works with jpegs. Basically, it uses an SD card to transmit, and I have it set up to send directly to my laptop. (You can have it send to a remote site via the internet, but it is slow.) I only use it for jpegs, as it is too slow for RAW files. However, I have used a dual-write selection in which RAW files are stored on a CF card, while jpegs are written to the Eye-Fi card, then sent to my laptop. It works fine, and I have used this at shoots with moderate success.

However, if you really want to do this right you'll need a WFT-E6A wireless file transmitter. This gives me more than enough speed to download live, which is nice for sports in which taking out the flash card and downloading it means not shooting parts of the game. For baseball, this is not a problem; for soccer, it is. I really hate to miss parts of the game, so when I need to submit live this is what I use.

I've never tried tethered shooting for sports but I can see the frustrations, if I just wanted to download quickly the Eye-Fi card is the way to go

BradfordBenn · October 12, 2012

Speed killed the photo star
Actually I think that the file sizes are the issue of the day. From what I can see a RAW image would be 24MB from a 1Dx. This file size presents problems to most transfer methods.

Allow me to compare the bandwidth and the resulting transfer times for the images. A key item is that MB is a Megabyte and Mb is a megabit. A Megabyte is eight times large than the Megabit.

100BaseT Ethernet - Many large enterprise buildings such as stadiums, use this as the widespread network as it is less expensive than Gigabit everywhere. So some locations such as press boxes are 100BaseT as they are not thinking about streaming but rather cost. That will take approximately two and a quarter seconds to transfer the 24MB image. This is why Card Runners make sense. (I can further about why the stadiums take this approach as my real job is working on networked audio systems.)
802.11n Wireless - The best transfer speed one can get is 150Mb/s however that is misleading. That is the true data rate, but not the thru put. There are housekeeping things that have to happen, including packetizing and depacketizing the data. Also since it is half-duplex it has to stop every so often to make sure that data is being received. That 150Mb/s also means that there is no RF interference or sharing devices. So for instance if both the laptop and the camera are connected to an 802.11n network, they will not both have 150Mb/s typically if using a "consumer" grade access point. it will assign half the bandwidth to each. Now if you connect directly you can get higher speed. At 150Mb/s the transfer of a single 24MB image would take 1.5 seconds. Part of the reason I do wired connections at home instead of wireless.
USB2.0 - The data rate of USB2.0 is 480Mb/s, more than three times the speed of the 802.11n wireless. So definitely an improvement, but it takes slightly less than half a second (0.47 seconds) to transfer the 24MB image.
10MB/s (800Mb/sec) Compact Flash - The bleeding edge technology has data transfer rates of 10MB/s for the Compact Flash card with Flash Memory. This is a pretty quick transfer for the 24MB file at a little over a quarter of a second (0.28) So this is eight times faster than the typical network infrastructure.
1000BaseT (Gigabit) Ethernet - Obviously this is the fastest of all the protocols listed so far. The transfer time for the 24MB image would be a little under a quarter of a second at 0.22s.

So of these methods only two have the photographer not attached and tangled in a cable. The 802.11n wireless network but that takes 1.5 seconds an image or the Compact Flash Card that is 0.28s an image. Being basically six times faster I would go with the Compact Flash and a Card Runner.

There is also the issue of how fast is the receiving device. Not the processing power of the computer but rather the hard drive that is storing the data. This question is much more difficult as it has items more variables to define it. How big is the platter? How fast does is spin (faster platters means lower battery life)? What is the block or sector size? Where on the platter is being written? is there a write buffer? Just to use an average for a PCI style drive at 7200RPM (pretty typical) its transfer rate is ~1000Mb/s. So once again it can only write that 24MB image in a little under a quarter second. That doesn't take into account the process of converting the data stream of Ethernet or 802.11n to the data stream for the hard drive. One could go with eSata which can be up to 3 times faster. However getting the data from the Compact Flash Card or the Camera is still going to be about a quarter second per 24MB image.

So of all these options I would go with Cards and a Runner or Multiple cards and multiple readers. Now if you want we can continue to discuss how by having enough cards and copying them to a hard disk can result in at least one more copy of the image being saved.

Hope that helps explain that you are going to have forced moments of Zen until technology catches up to file sizes. Now there are faster methods of transfer but they are not designed for end node use.

ziggy53 · October 13, 2012

As an option, the Sanho HyperDrive COLORSPACE UDMA 2 is a very competent stand-alone device for backing up memory cards with a single button press, and which becomes an external USB hard drive as needed.

The advantage is that very little user intervention is required to perform the backup operation, which proceeds automatically once it's launched. The small size makes it convenient to keep with you and to use. Then you just attach the unit as common external storage to review, and copy the picks onto the computer for processing. Multiple cards worth of images, available from the same external drive.

This unit is discontinued but there is some current stock available. (Amazon, for one source.)

Edit: I see that B&H and Adorama still have the units for sale.

Wayupthere · October 13, 2012

This is a great thread, as I was trying to formulate my own question thread.
Now I can do some research on the ideas listed (1000BaseT (Gigabit) Ethernet ) and then ask dumb questions later

Ziggy, not sure if it is the same model as you were looking at but B&H has several Sanho.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/887215-REG/Sanho_shdcsudma21t_1_0TB_HyperDrive_COLORSPACE_UDMA2.html
Gary

ziggy53 · October 13, 2012

Wayupthere wrote: »

This is a great thread, as I was trying to formulate my own question thread.
Now I can do some research on the ideas listed (1000BaseT (Gigabit) Ethernet ) and then ask dumb questions later
Ziggy, not sure if it is the same model as you were looking at but B&H has several Sanho.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/887215-REG/Sanho_shdcsudma21t_1_0TB_HyperDrive_COLORSPACE_UDMA2.html
Gary

Thanks Gary, I see that now.

JimKarczewski · October 14, 2012

FYI, The reason for me, personally wanting to shoot tethered is to not to have to download. I want to get to the press box at half time for a football game with all of my images on the computer already, ingested via "live ingest" on PhotoMechanic with my slug, title and partial caption already put in so all I have to do is select, caption and transmit and maybe have time to get down and shoot more of the 3rd quarter before deadline.

Our games start at 7PM, typically on a good night.. a GOOD one, halftime will end up at 8PM. Bad night (lot of penalties) 8:30-8:45. My deadline is 9:30. To download 1000 images with my USB2 (because I didn't notice my new i5 laptop has no USB 3 ports and I can't afford to go buy another) takes 15-20 minutes. On a bad night, that puts me a 9:15. 15 minutes is not a hell of a lot of time to sort through 1000 photos, select your top 10 and caption them, crop/adjust, resize and FTP them to the mothership.

Gigabit ether, if I could get it to work, would be my salvation. But again, still having issues there. May try on my desktop and then see what I can find out...

ziggy53 · October 14, 2012

Maybe contact the makers of PhotoMechanic for advice?

Wayupthere · October 15, 2012

1000BaseT (Gigabit) Ethernet - Obviously this is the fastest of all the protocols listed so far. The transfer time for the 24MB image would be a little under a quarter of a second at 0.22s.

Would this be the appropriate cable for this?
http://www.sfcable.com/CAT6A-25.html

because I didn't notice my new i5 laptop has no USB 3 ports

If the above cable is correct, they also sell a 2.0 adapter. Hard to say how much that would slow down the process.

http://www.sfcable.com/1504-SF-98.html
Gary

roakey · October 15, 2012

If it's for publication do you really need RAW photos? As I stated in the thread I linked to (http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1622131&postcount=17), you can leave the RAW photos on the card and ship the .jpgs to the computer. This way you'll immediately have photos suitable for publication on your computer and if you have some Pulitzer prizewinning photo, you'll have the RAW of it on the card.

That post has links to USB extenders as well.

Roak

Ps. From what I can find, the 1Dx does not have USB 3.0 ports. If true, USB 3.0 ports on your laptop won't help (unless you're talking an Ethernet to USB adapter -- exactly what configuration we're talking about is becoming a bit confusing).

JimKarczewski · October 16, 2012

roakey wrote: »

If it's for publication do you really need RAW photos? As I stated in the thread I linked to (http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1622131&postcount=17), you can leave the RAW photos on the card and ship the .jpgs to the computer. This way you'll immediately have photos suitable for publication on your computer and if you have some Pulitzer prizewinning photo, you'll have the RAW of it on the card.

That post has links to USB extenders as well.

Roak

Ps. From what I can find, the 1Dx does not have USB 3.0 ports. If true, USB 3.0 ports on your laptop won't help (unless you're talking an Ethernet to USB adapter -- exactly what configuration we're talking about is becoming a bit confusing).

Depends on the game and the location. Some places the lights cycle like crazy (one frame normal, one dark brown) when shooting high shutter speeds, so RAW is the fastest way to fix this here.

Yeah, I know the 1Dx doesn't have USB3, but I have a Lexar USB3 card reader that is a hell of a lot faster on my desktop vs the USB2 card readers. Which is why Gigabit ether makes the most sense.

And for someone who mentioned earlier.. CameraBits has nothing to do with my issues, it's all Canon and I can't seem to find anyone that's done this... nor anyone willing to try to do it.. which I thought was the whole point of having 24./7 support at my level...

ziggy53 · October 16, 2012

jhefti wrote: »

... However, if you really want to do this right you'll need a WFT-E6A wireless file transmitter. This gives me more than enough speed to download live, which is nice for sports in which taking out the flash card and downloading it means not shooting parts of the game. For baseball, this is not a problem; for soccer, it is. I really hate to miss parts of the game, so when I need to submit live this is what I use.

John is giving you the solution, should you choose to use it. Canon will support this solution.

JimKarczewski wrote: »

... And for someone who mentioned earlier.. CameraBits has nothing to do with my issues, ...

I was not suggesting that CameraBits, the makers of PhotoMechanic software, could help you with your desire to use Canon 1D X Ethernet port in an unsupported capacity, only that they might have an understanding of what systems other professional shooters use to transport image files from the camera into the computer. They may have knowledge beyond that of our forum members.

JimKarczewski wrote: »

... Yeah, I know the 1Dx doesn't have USB3, but I have a Lexar USB3 card reader that is a hell of a lot faster on my desktop vs the USB2 card readers. Which is why Gigabit ether makes the most sense.

... it's all Canon and I can't seem to find anyone that's done this... nor anyone willing to try to do it.. which I thought was the whole point of having 24./7 support at my level...

Canon has provided a wireless A/B/G/N system, specifically the WFT-E6A wireless file transmitter, for photographers and our user "jhefti" has verified that it works in his application for sports photography. At this point, that's your best option for a working solution. (At $599 the current wireless transmitter is not a trivial purchase, but it represents a virtual "steal" compared to the previous Canon WFT-E1A which really did sell for $999.)

I do believe that the use of a Sanho HyperDrive ColorSpace UDMA 2 could be helpful, and I base that suggestion on my own use of an older device, the HyperDrive HD80, and my use of the device for event shooting, which has some similarities to sports in that it often requires a rapid sequence of images, during which any significant interruption may result in a lost opportunity.

Certainly suggest the use of tethered shooting via the EOS Utilities and Ethernet to Canon as a feature request for sports photography, by enabling a smart buffer capability, but I suggest that Canon already has a very good and working solution in the WFT-E6A wireless file transmitter.

JimKarczewski · October 17, 2012

Not sure how the wireless transmitter can send faster than the physical gigabit port. See my last post on SportsShooter:

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=40747

ziggy53 · October 17, 2012

JimKarczewski wrote: »

Not sure how the wireless transmitter can send faster than the physical gigabit port. See my last post on SportsShooter:

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=40747

Because it works and it is designed for the purpose. I believe that it will support simultaneous shooting with smart buffer while it transfers files, which, I believe, was one of your wishes.

For those following along, it appears that Jim has gotten (as of 5:11 PM, Oct 16, 2012) the direct connection of camera to computer through Gigabit-Ethernet (GigE) using a null-ethernet cable, and by turning off the firewall on his computer. WTG Jim.

"Cam:
IP - 10.0.0.1
Gateway 10.0.0.2

Laptop (PC)
IP - 10.0.0.2
Gateway 10.0.0.1"

Now the problem appears to be sluggish transfer speeds from card to computer, indicating that there is a bottleneck. From Jim's post on SportsShooter:

"Well, this comes from CPS....

According to CPS, the White Paper for the 5DII (he couldn't find anything on the 1Dx) had a max read rate of 135Mb/Sec or 16.875 MB/sec.

So assuming the read rates have increased, the bottleneck is the reading from the card, NOT the ethernet port.

I took the same card and read it to my computer 2 different ways, one via FTP, the other via a Lexar Pro Dual Reader. Here are the results:

Lexar Professional 1000x 32GB Card.

Windows reports 29.7GB Used (31,944,507,392 to be exact)

Using a Lexar Professional Dual Slot (CF/SD) USB 3 Reader to a set of striped SSD Drives:

Using Robocopy Command: robocopy f: . /s

Speed : 94068683 Bytes/sec.
Speed : 5382.653 MegaBytes/min.

That's 89.7MB/Sec, taking 5:39 seconds to copy all files on the card.

Using FTP Transfer over a GigE connection:

26:03 to transfer the same files...

Which equates to approximately 1.2GB/Minute or 20MB/Sec over FTP which means it's the reading from the camera of the card and pushing that data to the GigE. Which really sucks if that's the case. He said there was a white paper on the 5DII he was getting his info from about reading from the card, not sure if one exists yet for the 1Dx.. but basically the bottleneck is card reading..."

Does that sum up the current situation, Jim?

JimKarczewski · October 18, 2012

yup. It works. Just not how I want it to.

. Wish the GigE built in worked like the smart buffer of the WiFi. Disappointing to say the least..

I'm going to rent the wireless transmitter for a few days to see how it works... and then go bitch CPS out of it works like the GigE Should work..

Wayupthere · October 18, 2012

I'm going to rent the wireless transmitter for a few days to see how it works... and then go bitch CPS out of it works like the GigE Should work..

Ya..that will teach them..

Gary

JimKarczewski · October 18, 2012

Wayupthere wrote: »

Ya..that will teach them..
Gary

Well, IMHO, they should both work the same way. Otherwise, why even put a damn GigE port on the camera if you can't transfer at full speeds when shooting. Just stick to making everyone buy a $600 wireless receiver then. Sometimes I just don't get the "engineering" reasons for doing things like that. They could has saved themselves an extra $10 a camera and just put a USB3 port on it and called it a day.

JimKarczewski · October 20, 2012

Shot tethered via Gigabit ethernet tonight. Seems like that shooting tethered works just like shooting with the wireless. You aren't waiting for images to download like you do when shooting via the USB and EOSUTIL.

Only pain in the ass is that you have to wait for all images to transfer before you can use voice annotation on an image.. Which aren't transferred so I'm not sure why this restriction exists and if it's the same with the wireless (guessing yes) transmitter.

Was nice to walk into the press box, open my laptop and not have to wait for anything to download. Second half of the game I set PhotoMechanic to LiveIngest and had my pics partially captioned and slugged for publication.

ziggy53 · October 20, 2012

Mostly good news.

Does it make sense to use a separate sound recording utility with your laptop, or a separate voice recorder altogether, to record the voice notes?

JimKarczewski · October 20, 2012

ziggy53 wrote: »

Mostly good news.

Does it make sense to use a separate sound recording utility with your laptop, or a separate voice recorder altogether, to record the voice notes?

Nah. If I want an annotation I can download them after, the files are tiny, so it would take a matter of seconds. Or, if I really need the info I can go back and listen on camera. I'm still going to talk to Canon about this part to see if there is a way for it to force the voice annotation over.

And.. That's one of the reasons I bought the 1D series.. Using another means of recording, writing, etc.. is well.. painful!

EOS Utitilitis for tethered shooting

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