Capture One Mobile Live View Support for Phase One IQ4-series Digital Backs Now Available
Capture One Mobile, a year ago known as Capture One for iPad, now offers Live View for supported cameras and with update 2.3.5 offers support for IQ4-series digital backs from Phase One. (This article was written at the time that version 2.3.5 debuted and has been updated based on the increased features through the incremental updates up to version 2.5.5)
iOS workflow with IQ4 prior to this update required the dual use of Capture One as well as the separate program Cascable for if you wanted to make use of Live View, but now Capture One alone can manage your wired or wirelessly tethered shoot to your compatible iOS device.
As discussed in prior articles for both Cascable and Capture One for iPad, completely wireless tethering is not recommended due to the large capture size of the 150mp files the IQ4-150 digital backs produce even in their smallest S14 compression form. Similarly, the wireless Live View experience suffers compared to the existing wired solution as demonstrated in the video below.
Because of the limitation of data flow not only for shooting but for Live View, I still recommend a wired setup,
especially with the addition of a USB-C power bank that can fuel both the iPad and the IQ4 for longer shoot sessions:
Use of Live View is pretty straightforward, simply tap the button and it launches into a small window that can be maximized to full screen.
Hitting the top left ‘X’ button on the window minimizes the window again but does not arrest the Live View feed, so word to the wise, you’ll still need to tap the blue (active) Live View button again on the right side of the interface in order to quit, or hit the ‘X’ on the minimized Live View window.
Live View Navigation
While there are no pinch to zoom sorts of gestural controls within the application, it’s very easy to double tap in and double tap out of any place within the scene, which is the prime benefit of live viewing prior to capture. Capture One for mobile is a beautiful integration for the IQ4-series digital backs and drastically reduces the need for a laptop on location and is in many ways better, although I still find that shooting to card at the same time as iPad tether is my preference, because I’ll import my card same as I ever did to my primary retouching station and once secure there, delete from my iPad, since the export / re-import process from iOS to desktop/laptop is still in need of some refining.
Prior Statements of previous versions of software withdrawn:
There are no gestural controls and zoom levels must be selected by +/- buttons within the ‘FIT’ icon and then you need to manually scroll the screen to the portion you want to see with the enhanced magnification. The Zoom increment will jump from Fit to Screen all the way into 100% in the center of the frame, so it can take a decent amount of swiping to evaluate at 100% at the edge of frame. If you’ve navigated to the edge and then go back to full frame view, the next time you zoom in it’ll frustratingly jump straight to the center again
Note: Within this release (2.3.5), I have found this control panel to act erratically, often with the inability to zoom at all or once zoomed, get back out to Fit to Screen without minimizing the window and then maximizing it back out to full screen. (Fixed in version 2.4.5)
Camera Controls and Focus Controls are available within the Live View screen, but the Camera Focus control often suffers the inability to launch after you’ve been playing with the zoom control. If you plan on using Camera Focus on screen, best to launch the window first before zooming into the image. (Fixed in version 2.4.5)
Capture One mobile (ver 2.3.5) finally offers IQ4 users a version 1.0 view of what they need for a full-featured remote application, but there are definitely some caveats of use and hoops to jump through in order to get reasonable functionality out of it. (EDIT: Version 2.4.5 very much improved, completely enjoyable and useful while shooting, although still unable to work with LCC’s and other advanced workflow needs, so Capture One for Desktop is still necessary somewhere in the image pipeline for technical camera shooters)
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