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Initial Setup

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Script File Format

Camera Configuration

Notes

Troubleshooting

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Credits & Acknowledgments

Please make sure to follow the basic recommendations hereafter before tethering your camera.
Not all cameras support tethered shooting, and those that do may need to be set up in different ways to enable this functionality. When those settings are modified you must disconnect the camera and then reconnect.
In general it is recomended to update the camera’s firmware to its latest version: usually a firmware update packs more fixes than those mentioned. Nevertheless updating the camera firmware only a month away to an eclipse can be risky if anything goes wrong. For Nikon DSLRs and MILCs you can check this webpage and this one for Canon.
Turn off Camera Detection in every other applications such as Image Capture, Photos (Yosemite and newer), Nikon Transfer, Graphic Converter, or cloud web services such as Dropbox, etc. If you don’t, those applications will launch, sometimes in the background, when you connect a camera. If you have installed Canon applications, then ensure in Image Capture that No application is selected following a camera connection, as the Canon applications have no setting to turn them off; if you don’t those will launch automatically when a camera is connected, hence blocking Mercury Venus Transit Maestro.
When you connect your DSLR or MILC loaded with a memory card full of hundreds of images, the camera may not be identified quickly. If that is the case, then wait until the memory card access light stops flashing.
WiFi on the Canon EOS 6D and 70D should be turned off as it can block the USB port when turned on. In general turning WiFi off is also beneficial to battery life.
Sony cameras are difficult to operate properly and have severe limitations by design. They don’t offer any way to store the images taken only onto the memory card (transfering the images to the host is required and slows down everything). Changing the exposure settings involves walking through all the intermediate values and as such is slow and unreliable. Anyway the minimal mandatory settings to make it work for category 7 models are:

• Menu > Setup > USB Connection > 'PC Remote'
• Menu > Setup > PC Remote Settings > Still Img. Save Dest. > 'PC+Camera'
• Menu > Setup > PC Remote Settings > RAW+J PC Save Img > 'JPEG Only'
• Menu > Camera Settings 1 > File Format > 'RAW & JPEG'
• Menu > Camera Settings 2 > [MOVIE Button] > 'Always'

It is also recommended to use 'Uncompressed' RAW images as Sony’s compressed RAWs are not lossless. Last please note that the date and time can not unfortunately be synchronized with those Sony cameras, so you’ll have to do it manually or else using your smartphone.
On Panasonic cameras make sure you use the mechanical shutter as exposures over one second do not work with the electronic shutter or else don’t use any exposure over one second. Also do set the exposure mode to Manual 'M' and drive mode to 'Burst - Medium Speed' (preferred to 'Single' so as to be able to execute bursts when needed) as those two settings can not be modified by the application. Please note that the date and time can not unfortunately be synchronized with those Panasonic cameras, so you’ll have to do it manually.
On Olympus cameras set the exposure mode to Manual 'M' as this setting can not be modified by the application.

Please make sure you set and/or check the following items on your camera prior to connecting it:

• Exposure stop increment to ⅓
• ISO stop increment to ⅓
• Manual (M) exposure mode (Bulb (B) and Program (P) can also be used in certain circumstances)
• Autofocus should be turned off
• Deactivate any noise reduction (long exposure and/or high ISO)
• Proper connection mode (refer to table below or consult your camera documentation)
• Memory card slot 2 recording setting on capable cameras (best performance with "Overflow" for Nikon and "Auto switch card" for Canon)

For optimal speed and highest dynamic range, set the image quality on the camera to 14-bit RAW lossless compressed and 12-bit RAW if the former setting isn’t available. Compressing the image file takes less time than writing the data size difference to the memory card.

¹ supported only in the Intel version (Snow Leopard or newer)
² supported only in the Universal Binary version (Tiger or newer; due to a Canon bug, Canon’s camera control may not work on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan or Sierra; in the later case, prefer the use of Snow Leopard)
³ supported only in the Lion version or newer
⁴ unofficially supported only in the Universal Binary version (Tiger or newer; due to a Canon bug, Canon’s camera control may not work on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan or Sierra; in the later case, prefer the use of Snow Leopard)
⁵ supported only in the Yosemite version or newer
⁶ latest camera firmware only
⁷ please read
⁸ latest camera firmware only (X-T1 3.00+, X-T2 1.10+, etc)
⁹ latest camera firmware only (645Z 1.10+, K-1 1.10+, etc)
(*) not supported anymore
(**) informative values (when possible use lossless compression and deactivate noise reduction for higher speed)

	Mark	Minimum Serial Data Writing Speed	SD Bus Mode
UHS Speed Class		30MB/s	UHS-II UHS-I
		10MB/s
Speed Class		10MB/s	High Speed
		6MB/s	Normal Speed
		4MB/s
		2MB/s