More software packages are making it possible to tether a digital camera to a computer, either for remote operation (from the computer) or to share the images with others easily. I recently had need of just that.

A friend of mine makes devices that test breath for things like carbon monoxide or hydrogen (Breathe E-Z Systems) and needed updated photos of one of the units. With a shoot like this where small details are important, the client often needs to see what's going on in the camera. Asking Doug to try to see that kind of detail on the back of the camera would be difficult at best.

WIth the introduction of Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom, more people are taking advantage of tethered shooting. Nikon's remote control software, now Camera Control Pro 2, also supports that, and has for years now. Cabling the D300 up to my Lenovo W700 photo laptop meant that the camera would now download images directly to a folder on the computer (and not to the card). Then it was just a matter of launching a browser (Nikon's View NX or Photo Mechanic) and pointing to that folder.

With Doug at the computer, I could work with the model (his daughter) and concentrate on light and framing, and he could check what I was shooting and make suggestions. Not only could he look at the photos easily, but we could zoom in to 100% when needed and I had a large histogram to keep an eye on the exposure. The whole process couldn't have been simpler.

In the old days this would have required using a Polaroid back and more time and money. The promise with digital photography was that it would make our photography better and our work lives better. I love it when it lives up to its promises.