Tethered Shooting Time Lag

When you’re shooting while tethered, just how sluggish is the response when you tell the camera to take the shot? This is a meaningless question when shooting static subjects, but it’s really important when you’re trying to capture some action.

I often use the Capture One editor when doing tethered shooting, which is considered the “industry standard”. Most photographers use short cables, but I happen to do a lot of shooting with a 100-foot (30.5 meter) Ethernet cable. USB-style cables have much more constrained length limitations (typically 15 feet, or 4.6 meters).

My camera of choice is the Nikon Z9, which has a gigantic battery in it, allowing it to shoot all day even when it’s constantly power up. This camera lets me use either USB-C or Ethernet cables. Not many cameras have native Ethernet capabilities.

If you’re unfamiliar with tethered shooting, here’s a brief synopsis. You connect your camera to a computer with a communications cable, and then you take photographs via your computer.

So how sluggish is this 100-foot Ethernet Cable?

I know what you’re thinking. That long cable will ruin the response time between clicking the shutter and taking the shot, right?

Here’s my test for that thought:

First, connect a 6-foot USB-C cable instead of the Ethernet cable. Shoot a photo of a timer in front of the Capture One tethered Live View computer monitor.

Second, connect a 100-foot Ethernet cable instead of the USB-C cable. Shoot a photo of a timer in front of the Capture One tethered Live View computer monitor.

Tethered camera shooting a timer in front of the Live View monitor

There’s a fun ‘special effect’ you get when photographing your computer monitor screen while running tethered shooting software.

6-foot USB-C (left) 100-foot Ethernet (right)

I got these interesting shots of Capture One’s tethered Live View window immediately behind a timer running on my phone. The shot is actually from my tethered Nikon Z9.

Each image of the phone’s timer is a different update of the monitor by Capture One. The left-hand photograph was physically “requested” at 5.54 seconds, and it was captured by the camera at 5.67 seconds. The time lag was then 0.13 seconds. Notice that the Live View window gets updated about every 0.06 or 0.07 seconds. USB-C in this test then lagged by 0.13 seconds.

The right-hand Ethernet test showed more uneven updates, with the longest being 0.15 seconds and the shortest being 0.05 seconds. The photo capture lag here was just 0.07 seconds.

Set the priority to ‘Shooting’ for quickest response

In any event, these response times are faster than most people can react. Human response time is somewhere around 0.2 to 0.25 seconds. There’s virtually no time penalty for using a long Ethernet cable, compared to a short USB cable.

Action shots aren’t usually associated with tethered shooting, especially when most photographers use short-distance cables. Long cables, such as my Ethernet cable, provide the ability to keep remote from shy subjects and hence potentially enable shots that people usually associate with having to hide inside of a blind.