Just like any specific type of photography, there is always a small niche of associated gear that can be extremely useful. The same holds true for shooting tethered. If you missed our article on why shooting tethered is so advantageous, check it out here!

We put together a list of the most useful gear that will help you excel in shooting tethered. This gear introduces safety, convenience, and dependability. All important aspects that functional gear should offer. Let’s get into it!

1) Tether Tools Tether Cable

The first and most essential piece of gear is a USB cable to ‘tether’ your camera to your computer. The cable that comes with your camera is usually fine, but sometimes you need a little more dependability out of your tethering cable, or slightly more length.

Tether Tools is a company dedicated to making tools for the tethered photographer, if you couldn’t tell by their name. Due to this, you will hear them mentioned a lot throughout this article.

With regard to cables, they have covered the photography industry’s need for quality USB tethering. Easily noticeable by their bright orange product line, these USB cables have larger gauge wires compared to a standard USB cable. This results in faster and more dependable data communication. If you shoot tethered for clients, you’ll want to invest in a quality cable. These were specifically designed with photographers and image transfer speeds in mind.

Check out their USB cables here!

2) Tether Tools Jerk Stopper

A constant risk in shooting tethered is having a cable freely existing around your work area. It’s easy to accidentally trip or otherwise yank on a cable that you are working around. This can put a lot of strain on your camera’s ports which is extremely hazardous as this is connected to the brains of your camera. Yanking your camera port too hard in the wrong direction could destroy your camera for good!

The Tether Tools Jerk Stopper solves this issue. This tool clamps on your tether cable and connects it to your camera’s strap hooks. This essentially transfers any force away from your delicate USB ports, and puts it where the camera was designed to bear force. The jerk stopper is one of those safety accessories where if you wait until you need it, it’s probably too late. Take care of your camera investment if you shoot tethered. The relative cost of the jerk stopper is very low considering the benefits.

3) Active Extension Cable

Long USB cables can be very convenient when shooting tethered. A longer cable will not limit your movement while shooting, even though you are physically connected to your computer. However, we can’t just buy a 30 foot USB cable for tethered shooting, unfortunately. The longer a USB cable is, the harder it is to transfer data through it quickly. With photography, transferring images in a timely manner is important, and you can run into issues if you don’t consider the cable limitations. Even a good quality USB cable is limited to a max length to hold acceptable communication speeds.

If you are looking for a total cable length longer than 10-15 feet, you will need what is called an active USB extension cable. This is an extension cable that also amplifies the signal from your existing cable, so it can be carried through longer lengths. If you have a good 15 foot tether cable, you can buy a 15 foot active extension, which results in a 30 foot cable! If you need more length, you can look into chaining additional active extensions. Active extension manufacturers will note how many active extensions can be connected together. You can also check out Tether Tools’ Tether Pro Tether Boost cable which adds a DC power input to stabilize communication level and reduce any signal loss at even longer lengths.

Tether Tools Active Extension

Amazon Basics Active Extension

4) Tether Block

Similar to the jerk stopper, this accessory is to prevent any sudden yanks from destroying your camera’s port interface. Instead of transferring force to your camera’s strap hook, like the jerk stopper, this transfers force to a base plate. The plate connects to the base of your camera via your tripod screw mount.

I would recommend this product if you shoot tethered on a tripod or if you don’t like the looseness of the jerk stopper. The Tether block can have the cable exit in a more stable and predictable direction.

If you are shooting handheld, the jerk stopper will be able to move around and not require the additional weight and bulk of a base plate to keep your camera safe. Also, I will admit that this tether block is much more expensive than it needs to be. However, it’s a good safety product nevertheless.

Check out the Tether Block from Tether Tools

5) Tripod Accessory Head

Your camera usually has its home in your hands or on a tripod. When shooting tethered, your computer is officially part of your active camera gear. It needs a convenient home! It’s helpful to have your computer in an accessible place as you will be shooting and reviewing back to back.

This horizontal tripod head accessory arm connects to your existing tripod legs and provides you with two head mounting locations! You can attach your normal tripod head on one mount, and a laptop stand on the other! This is the ideal setup for tethering, as you have your camera and laptop right next to each other. A perfect workstation!

Tether Tools and Manfrotto also offer a horizontal tripod accessory arm here. However they are much more expensive.

6) Laptop Stand

If you don’t want to share your current tripod with a laptop, or you are simply always shooting handheld, you may not need a dual purpose support system. A simple laptop stand would be sufficient.

There are a few benefits to not connecting your computer and camera on the same tripod. If you are using the computer, you may be shaking the tripod around which is also holding your camera. This could introduce unwanted composition adjustments to your image.

Fortunately many industries use simple laptop stands, so they are available widely. Photography specific ones seem to be a bit more expensive, and don’t offer much more functionality.  If you have an extra tripod lying around, you can simply use the laptop/tripod adapter as we touched on in #5.

7) Monitor Stand

Let’s go a step further. Do you want to use a normal computer or a large color accurate monitor? There is a solution for this too!

VESA compatible monitors have a 100 mm or 75mm spaced square screw pattern that allow mounting to other standard VESA brackets. If you have a strong light stand or column you want to mount a monitor to, check out this VESA pole mount.

If you don’t have anything to mount to, standalone VESA stands are available as well.

8) Think Tank Red Whips

With tethering we introduce lots of cables into our workspace. Spending a few minutes on cable management can make your workspace more attractive and a safer place to work. Not to mention that a clean and tidy workspace makes it easier for you to focus on your photography and not a tangled mess of cables.

The Think Tank Red Whip ties make quick work of cable organization.  You simply take your cables that don’t need to be constantly moving around, and tie them to your tripod, laptop stand, light stand, or any other structure that is convenient. These are also very quick to remove when you’re ready to wrap up your shoot. Lastly, they can be used to store your cables very neatly as well. I love a good multipurpose product, always more bang for your buck.

9) Laptop Jerk Stopper

Now that we have your computer involved, its best to protect this investment as well. Your computer’s power cords and other miscellaneous cables can be organized using the ties mentioned in #8, however your tether cable introduces the same risk as our camera.

Tether Tools of course has us covered here with the jerk stopper for laptops.  They offer a table clamp version and other various versions that are compatible with ports on your computer. These options mean you can secure your laptop USB cable pretty much anywhere.

10) Tether Tools Wireless Transfer

The last item on this list is a bit pricier. If you find yourself tethering a lot and your budget allows, Tether Tools offers wireless image transfer solutions, such as the Air Direct Wireless Tethering System. Is this even called tethering anymore?!

With wireless image transfer, you don’t have to worry about any of the jerk stopper, tether blocks, long USB cables, and active extensions. All that goes out the window. It’s definitely a luxury solution, as you can perform the same basic function with a USB cable. But this gives you absolute freedom in movement and convenience.

That’s It!

Hope you found some products that will make you life easier when shooting tethered. If you have any other products you would recommend, please share in the comments section below!