Real World Workflow

Hey Techs, Just wanted to pass on something from Miss Winnie. Seems that shooting tethered with a Leaf Aptus 5 and a 27″ iMac are not so compatible right out of the box. iMac’s FW port power is 7W and the Leaf needs about twelve to spark up and do it’s thing, so use a powered FW repeater when in Leafland with the iMac.

This is one spot where the Phase backs and their ability to use battery power while tethered come in handy. Just remember to have a ton of them and keep them warm if using in cold temps. Colorado was not nice to the batts on one of my last shoots. To be fair just about any battery is going to have a problem in freezing temps and Jon Gilbert over at Phase One has a great suggestion of using handwarmer packs taped to the batts to keep them going in cold situations.

I find it interesting that the iMac is so under-powered in the FW department. Hell my pre-unibody MBP spits out about the same power and I’ve never had an issue with connections on any Leaf backs though I have heard of notebooks not providing enough power as well. One thing for certain is not to try to shoot to an external FW bus powered drive and power a DB because the power is split among all the connected devices. (Eric I. will tell you that that style of shooting is just plain stupid anyway, and I agree.)

Anyhoo, many thanks to Winne Au for sharing this and here’s wishing a good connection to all of you in Techland.