USB Tethering the Canon EOS 5D Mark II to the Samsung Galaxy S III

Tethering a 5D Mark II to a Smartphone – whatever for?

If you’re a photographer, professional or otherwise, chances are it has crossed your mind more than once of the inadequacies of the on-board 3″ LCD for critical viewing. And with the immense popularity of the Apple iPad and other Android or Windows based 10-inch tablets you would think the concept of tethering required nothing more than buying a long enough USB cable and plugging into your favourite tablet. Unfortunately this is not the case. The iPad for one only adds misery to your day if you spend too much time wishful thinking – at time of this post, it can’t be done. Period. Your only saviour is either an Android (maybe Windows too) tablet (see compatibility list). This blog post began for reasons (and disappointment) I have explained in the opening paragraph of Tethering USB Flash Drive and Memory Card Reader to the Samsung Galaxy S III.

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Replace the smartphone with a compatible 10″ Android tablet and you’ll have a great external display for critical viewing. I only wished I had this set-up during my two week hotel photography assignment in Singapore. Would have eased my workflow when client would be certain “we got the shot.”

With an appropriate USB cable and DSLR Controller tethering “Live View” is finally possible and real as these photos indicate. There’s just one problem — ability to control my camera isn’t really what I need or even desire. What I do need is quite simply one that works like Canon’s EOS Utility and ZoomBrowser combined much like how I’ve always been able to use on my Windows 7 laptop. I’m hoping this blog post gets the attention of the person behind Chainfire to develop an app specifically for this purpose.