My On Site Tethering/Printing Solution

I was digging through some of my old electronics the other day and came across an old Acer Aspire One netbook that I bought for my daughter a few years ago.

I remember looking around for a tethered shooting option, but all my camera gear and Lightroom are in my home office tower.  The Aspire One is a nice, ultra thin netbook, but it cannot run Lightroom.

Then I stumbled across the DIYPHOTOBITS website and realized that this might be the solution for me.

The Aspire One has 150GB HDD, which is plenty of room for the files I would need to transfer.

The DIYPHOTOBITS software is very low footprint, so getting it up and running was a fairly easy thing.  I just followed the instructions on the website and had my Nikon D50 tethered and running within minutes.

The software can even fire the shutter and change aperture, ISO and exposure compensation(only to the positive side on the D50).  The shutter speed value does not seem to work remotely.

It also has functions for time lapse shooting as well as bracketing.

I set the D50 USB mode to PTP, fire up the software, connect the camera, have the software detect the camera, start tethering and that is that.

You can get a used Aspire One netbook for around a $100, and the software is free - so this setup is worth it if nothing more than to experiment.  I plan on using it for doing on site printing of 4x6 images on a dye sub printer(Canon Selphy 800).

I did a test shoot the other day and ended up putting an Ugli fruit into the light box and shooting tethered.  I also ended up shooting some impromptu self portraits with the help of my daughter.
Here are the examples:

Tech Info on the Ugli fruit:
Inside light tent, gridded SB-26 above and camera right at about 1/32 power.  ISO 200, 1/250th @ f/7.1 - triggered with Radio Poppers.   Nikon D50, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

Tech Info on the portrait:
In my kitchen, gridded SB-26 to camera right at 1/32 power, second light(bare SB-28 on the floor pointing up) in the room behind me shooting through the glass in the door at 1/64th power.  Triggered with Radio Poppers.  ISO 200, 1/500th, f/4.5.   Nikon D50, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
I really like Zack Arias' work and I did this in honor of the work he does and his ability to teach.