When I just lock it down on continuous for 60 seconds, I get 19 captures booted into Mac and 29 booted into Windows. Neither platform is useable after those first 12-15 frames though- it's like 15 frames, wait 8-10 secs, 2 frames, wait 6 secs, one frame, wait 10-12 secs, 2 frames... like that. For comparison, a P30+ on the same machine gave me 34 captures in 60 seconds at a completely constant rate of just under 2 secs/capture.
Are those of you who are tethering the Mark III getting substantially better results than that with DPP? Or are you all just shooting JPEGs to the computer? Does using a Windows machine rather than a Mac running Windows improve RAW tethering greatly or something? Are my standards just too high or something? Could somebody with a Windows machine (laptop if possible) do the same test- lock it down for 60 seconds and tell me how many RAW captures you get in a minute and how many before the camera becomes unresponsive?
I bought an dell 17" studio expressly for tethering the 1ds Mark III's and there is a difference between the usb drivers, or maybe the computer, running vista compared to a mac.
I didn't do the stop watch timed test, but shooting fast you get about 24 frames before you hit the buffer (faster than a p21+) and the previews are about 2 seconds a full screen rez preview.
After approx 20 frames there is a buffer but it starts to clear in 2 seconds or so and in three seconds it's cleared up to 5 frames so you can keep shooting.
If you shoot to the speed of most studio flash or just to my standard shooting speed, it never hits the buffer and will always be ahead of the previews as you can shoot much faster than 1 fps. the previews build as fast as the p21+ on 3.78, probably faster and definatley more detailed.
Now this is all through eos utility and dpp, which lets you name files as they come in, or rename files, apply settings to the camera or apply settings at a later date. You can also shoot tethered and to cards but the names coming into the computer will specificially named and the files on the cf card will be camera numbered.
Still, if you have a lot of cards I guess it's a good safety measure, though I have never needed to pull an image off a card when tethering.
I don't dislike eos utility, though more simple than c-1 it does the job and the previews are nice and the learning curve is quick. Same with vista, which is about 15% different than working the mac and it runs programs like cs3 and light room very fast.
I did load c-1 4.5 into the dell but as far as I know 4.5 doesn't tether in vista for canon or my phase backs. I don't know for sure, but I don't think phase has written 4.5 to tether through vista.
I actually find the dell faster than my new macbook 17" for just about every function. The last job we shot tethered I just used the Canons rather than the p-30+ or the p21+. It was just easier.
You might want to read this as Nikon is promising fast tethering speed on their new D3x. I don't know if it applies to apple or vista but this is interesting.
http://nikonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/...081128-0006.jpg