This version still supports Mac OS X 10.5 and includes support for all camera models mentioned on the website (for older models you have to enable legacy support in the preferences window and then relaunch the app though).

Download: Sofortbild Beta

The Sofortbild website lists all currently supported camera models. These are most of the Nikon DSLR that exist. Sofortbild right now relies on the official Nikon camera drivers which Nikon releases to third party developers as the Nikon SDK.

As you can see yourself on the SDK Website Nikon does not provide camera drivers for the older models. I was able to use the camera drivers that come with CCP2, but since there is no documentation available Sofortbild does not always work correctly with very old models like the D1 series.

Nikon has also not released camera drivers for the latest models yet, which is the reason why Sofortbild does not support the D7000, D3100 or D3000 yet. Unfortunately Nikon does not have any support for third party developers so there is no way I can tell you when I will be able to provide an update for those models.

That’s it for the Nikon DSLRs.

Since releasing Sofortbild (and Nikon Control before renaming the software) I think I got emails asking for support of basically every other DSLR ever released. As mentioned above and in other posts in the past, Sofortbild currently uses the Nikon camera drivers exclusively.

Canon provides SDKs for third party developers as well. Both SDK do not have much in common which means I have to rewrite most of the code to add support for Canon cameras. Adding support for Sony and other DSLR is even harder.

I am and have been the only developer of Sofortbild. I am a full time graduate student and still work part time. This means there is not much time where I can work on private projects and Sofortbild is not my only private project.

Although Sofortbild has become one of the most used applications for tethered shooting, I have not made much money with it at all. A few people have donated some money, for which I am really grateful, but it is not enough to invest a lot of time into Sofortbild. With that said, I am still actively developing Sofortbild, adding features and supporting new Nikon cameras as drivers become available, but I can not give any details on when I will be able to add support for Canon, Sony, … DSLRs.

(I am currently thinking about options including making Sofortbild Open Source.)

Although I have done Windows programming in the past and would do it again if there is a project that would need to run on Windows, I am a Mac OS X user and thus primarily develop for Mac OS X or iOS.

There is basically not a single line of code in Sofortbild that could be shared with a Windows version. So a Windows version would be a completely new software project. This is why I am not going to provide a Windows version of Sofortbild.

You could switch to a Mac of course if you want to use Sofortbild. Otherwise I usually recommend trying out DCamCapture which has a similar feature set.

When I started writing Sofortbild about two years ago I just got my first DSRL (a Nikon D90). One of the reasons I bought a DSLR was HDR imaging. Unfortunately the Nikon D90 only captures three images with the built in bracketing functionality.

Around that time a developer wrote some software that would allow him to record a movie with a Nikon D300 which did not have video recording itself. The developer was using the Nikon SDK to grab the Live View images from the camera to create a movie.

Since the weather was not that nice outside back then, this got my attention. I downloaded the SDK and played around with the sample project for a few days until I had it running natively as a Cocoa application on my Mac (which was a pain due to the lack of documentation).

I had already done iPhone apps at that time and since I did not want to carry around a MacBook (Pro) when doing bracketing for HDR images I looked into making an iPhone bracketing app. Unfortunately back then there was no way to talk to accessories without jailbreaking the device. So there was no way to write an iPhone app that could be distributed over the App Store.

Instead I began writing a desktop version which got a lot of (media) attention and me a lot of feedback. After several beta version and adding more features this desktop application ended up in being what Sofortbild is today.

But all the time since then I never gave up the wish to write an iPhone/iPad version. When iOS 3.0 came out with the Accessory.framework it became technically possible to do it. Unfortunately it is more complicated than you might think. You can not just use a USB cable with the right plugs and connect your camera to an iPhone or iPad.

The Accessory.framework (which is the only way to communicate with external devices without using a webserver and WiFi which is not an option in this case) requires developers to provide additional hardware to make it work. You basically need to build the iPad Camera Connection Kit USB Adapter yourself because as a third party developer you can not use this accessory.

So to sum this up: I do not have the resources to build this hardware, let in manufacture somewhere in China and sell it myself. But having this hardware is crucial for an iOS version of Sofortbild. So this is the reason why I did not release an iPhone/iPad version of Sofortbild yet (and probably not very soon in the future).

Download: Sofortbild Beta

There are no new features besides the support for all remaining camera models. The GPS location is now shown at the correct position in the map in the inspector.

Please use the auto update feature of Sofortbild to install the latest version.

Download: Sofortbild Beta