How to tether a Canon 20D?

UUilliam · Aug 25, 2010

I FINALLY got my 20D

the screen is smaller than I had anticipated but its no biggie... (forgive the pun.)

I have EOS utilities (not the disc, had to do some messing around in registry to get it cause "someone" lost my disk...

Reason I want to tether it is:~
I have yet to get a CF Card... I have no money

so need to tether it to shoot directly to hard drive, just to test the sensor and see if it is working all right really.

Looking forward to replies

also if anyone could direct me to where I can download firmware / driver updates for it, I would appreciate it. (looked at canon website but there is LOADS there.)

oldmacman · Aug 25, 2010

Tethering is done through the Photo Professional App that comes on the disk but is also available for download. In Canada, the link is: 20D Software.

If you have Aperture or Lightroom (my experience is version 3 for both) they both support tethering.

Big Mike · Aug 25, 2010

I don't think it will work, as I think that even when tethered, the camera still needs to write the files to the card.

If you had a Nikon, it think it would be possible, as they don't need to write to the card while tethered.

At least, that's the way it was several years ago when I was reading up on it.

oldmacman · Aug 25, 2010

Big Mike said:
I don't think it will work, as I think that even when tethered, the camera still needs to write the files to the card.

If you had a Nikon, it think it would be possible, as they don't need to write to the card while tethered.

At least, that's the way it was several years ago when I was reading up on it.

Yeah, it depends whether you can set the camera to shoot without a card. My son's 10D does not support it, but my 5D mk II does. A quick google search seems to indicate that the feature was included in the 20D.

Big Mike · Aug 25, 2010

Ah yes, I know that my 20Ds can be set to shoot w/o a card...but I didn't think that it might be possible to save to a computer while shooting like that. I thought it was just so you could play around with the camera, without a card.

Idahophoto · Aug 25, 2010

It should, If I do it with my 50D the files go directly to the PC hard Drive not the cameras CF card.

Just use this link and it should have everything you need. Select your OS and download a fresh utility. I lost my disk aswell when I got a new Laptop.
Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : EOS 50D

This is the 50D but the utility software should work for your 20 just fine.

UUilliam · Aug 25, 2010

tried in lightroom it just says "no camera detected"
my camera IS connected and powered on...

OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)

the thing is, I get the sound to tell me a device has been plugged in, when I pull it out, i get the sound to tell me a device has been pulled out, but it doesn't show it in my computer / show it in lightroom.

It shows up in device manager with a "warning" triangle
I uninstalled it
then re plugged it in.
and it started to install the driver but then it said that it could not find drivers...