Tethering to a Windows laptop

[MischaR]

Hi,

Let me first introduce myself.
I'm MischaR, I live in Holland and I just recently bought a H5D-200 MS.
I'm in the process of learning how to work with this amazing camera.
I can imagine that my question has been posted before, but I'm new to this community and I'm not too sure how to search for a similar topic.

Oké, this is the problem I'm trying to solve.
There are two Mac Pro's available in my workrooms, one 4.1 and one 5.1.
The first one runs on Mavericks and the other one on Sierra.
I've installed two different versions of Phocus on these machines and when I tether my H5D to them all works fine, no problems at all.

But I'd like to shoot on location once in a while and I was hoping that I could use my little Dell E6400 (running on Windows 7 64 Bit) to tether my camera to.
Now this laptop only has the small 4-pins Firewire port and I tried tot connect the camera to it using an adapter, but that doesn't work, the H5D doesn't show up in Phocus.
The Dell also has a PCMCIA slot, so I reckoned if I get a Firewire 800 controller that might work.
But they aren't easy to find, and if you can order one it's quite expensive.
And even if I buy me one of those, will the controller get enough power from the laptop without connecting it to a 230 wall outlet?
So before I spend some money on this, I'd like to try and get some advice of a community member who has some experience with this.

Thanks and cheers,
MischaR

[eyedear]

I current use the dell inspiron 7577 notebook which has a thunderbolt port with the apple thunderbolt/usbc to thundernbolt 2 +thunderbolt to FireWire 800 dongle attached to my hasselblad h4d-50 and it works properly.

[jerome_m]

Now this laptop only has the small 4-pins Firewire port and I tried tot connect the camera to it using an adapter, but that doesn't work, the H5D doesn't show up in Phocus.

AFAIK, the H5D needs to be powered from the FW port for Phocus to recognise it, so you will need a power injector and battery or a powered FW hub. Power injector cables for FW are hard to find, but can be made by anyone with basic soldering skills.

[Conner999]

Unlike the H4D, on the H5D you can set the camera to take power from the camera battery vs. laptop, thus saving the need to a powered hub or power-injection cable. Makes for a nice, clean minimalist setup.

[jerome_m]

Unlike the H4D, on the H5D you can set the camera to take power from the camera battery vs. laptop, thus saving the need to a powered hub or power-injection cable. Makes for a nice, clean minimalist setup.

Then it should work on the 4-pins FW when the correct setting is chosen in the menu.

[MischaR]

Hi,

Thanks for all your suggestions.
I tried changing the tethered camera power setting from from "Host" to "Camera".
But unfortunately the camera still wasn't recognized in Phocus.
I gather I'll have to find me a Firewire 800 Controller Express Card and just try if that works?

Mike

[Detlef_g]

Hi MischaR,

i had the same problem like you with my H4D40 and final i solved it with follwoing solution.


a Firewire Express card plus an 12 V rechargeable battery. Works perfect on my T530.

Detlef

[MischaR]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your suggestions.
The problem has been solved.
First of all I found two(!) not too expensive FireWire 800 Express Cards, and they did the trick on my Windows laptop.
It worked like a charm, even without using a additional power source.

But after that I decided that I wanted a more elegant, and above all, a faster solution.
So I bought a very powerful used Macbook Pro 17".
Not only does this standard come with a Firewire 800 port, but also it has a better display for photographic use, and it's much more powerful tha my Dell Windows machine.
It's really a pity Apple stopped producing these portable work stations.

So, if there's anyone interested in a Firewire 800 Express card, I have a spare one for sale.

Thanks again and cheers,
MischaR