Cascable Studio Reviews

CascableStudio has serious potential but it doesn’t seem to work quite yet with the Sony A7Riii. I have updated the firmware on my camera to Sony’s latest firmware and CascableStudio is still buggy. When using the shutter robot the shutter fires at random times and not at the times set in CascableStudio . Often times it will randomly shoot a burst of multiple frames. When the shutter firing does seem to be in sync, the camera locks up and just keeps on shooting regardless of the time or number frames set for the threshold. The camera has to be powered off and then back on in order to get it to respond otherwise it just keeps on shooting indefinitely with no other way to get it to respond.

I had serious hopes for CascableStudio but it was a big disappointment in the end. Hopefully it gets fixed soon or I can get my $30 back.

I’ve been using CascableStudio for years and overall it has worked well and done what I’ve needed. The new version claims better compatibility, faster and better previews for Nikon Z, but for me it’s the opposite. Previews are so slow and take so long it is almost unusable. I’ve tried with both my iPhone 12 and iPad Air and they function the same. Please fix this so I can continue to use CascableStudio.

Edit: the developer has responded and suggested that the reason it is slower is due to better quality previews and that I should try disabling Bluetooth. I’ve found no discernible difference in quality in the previews vs what I’ve seen in the past, and disabling Bluetooth did not solve the issue.

I love the concept of CascableStudio, but it has several main flaws.

1. It freezes a lot. When connecting to my Fujifilm X-E2. It sometimes works in the beginning, after a while, it freezes, and I have to shut down CascableStudio and my camera and reconnect.

2. Shutter and aperture adjustment in CascableStudio has a major problem, almost every time I adjust shutter and aperture in Cascable, it first works ok, EV on live view changes, then it just stop working, in my case no matter how I adjust shutter value in Cascable, it jumps back to 25sec, similar situation when I adjust aperture value, and EV won’t change anymore. I’ve tried to set aperture value to ‘auto’, shutter value to ‘auto’ or ‘bulb’ on my Fujifilm X-E2, but still all the same.

3. Geotagging in China might have a problem. Chinese government asks map providers to “shift” locations on every map in China for a certain distance (because of national security reason blah blah blah), after geotagging with Cascable, locations where I actually take pictures is a distance away from those on the map in Cascable. I believe the location info is correctly geotagged onto the photos, it’s just shown incorrectly on the map in Cascable due to that Chinese government problem. There’s an app ‘Fog of World’ and it had the same problem before, then the developer solved it, maybe Cascable developer can write FoG a letter.

This is a very solid app with many helpful features. Most of which, I probably won’t use because my needs are more basic.

It easily connects to the camera and allows me to preview images on the card. It does NOT, however, allow rating of images while reading the card. You must download them to the iPad before giving them a rating.

This feature of rating images on the card exists on the Canon Camera Connect app and it’s critical for my workflow. I want to show the client images on the card and allow them to make ratings. Downloading images to my iPad is a waste of time and space since I do all my editing on the PC. After the shoot, I simply want to transfer images from the card to my computer with the ratings already in place.

If you add this feature, I’m happy to take another look because it seems very solid.

Update 2: 3.8.2 update fixes the error.
As reported by others, bulb mode doesn’t work, and it cannot copy over raw files. This is a limitation of Fuji and not CascableStudio . It may be of some use to people using their camera in a studio and having an iPad as a large screen to help view/frame their image. But I prefer using my camera outside and CascableStudio doesn’t help me there.

Update: just saw the newer 3.8.2 update, will give it a try tomorrow and see if that fixes the issue.

Original review below:

iPad Pro 12.9” (1st generation) iOS 12.1.1
App version 3.8.1
Fuji X100F firmware version 2.11

Upon setting up the wifi and clicking ok to connect via CascableStudio , CascableStudio crashes back to the iOS home screen.

Restarted the iPad (holding down power and home button until the Apple logo appears) and tried again. But app still crashes.

Camera connects to the standard Fuji app ok, so it’s not the camera or the iPad, but an issue with your app.

A previous version of CascableStudio worked in the past, but not sure what version it was, and not sure if my Fuji camera was on firmware 2.11 or 2.10.

Hope this helps to replicate the problem and provide a fix. Thanks

CascableStudio is awesome. The pro version allows you to write entire protocols for your camera. This came in handy when doing family self portraits. You just set a timer to start it and how long you want the camera to keep firing in continuous mode. That’s right, you can set a remote timer on high speed continuous shooting. Total game changer. Side note: I’m shooting with a Canon 5D IV.

Opened CascableStudio after installation and the pop-up telling me the connection to the camera failed repeatedly came up. I couldn’t get through the intro. This was so frustrating I had given up. Then their support clued me in that it was trying to connect to something it thought was a camera on my network. Turned off WiFi and I have it working well now. If there’s a way to make it wait until you complete the intro to start hunting for a camera connection that make this worth 5 stars.

Really happy with CascableStudio. Love the fact it gives you more control over your camera than what the camera’s own app does, ie...Nikon D750!
However, the only thing I would like to see improvement is when you use the timer feature, a robot banner appears on your screen and covers your image your trying to take pictures of. I have no idea how to take this off in order to take a shot. Perhaps it’s an operator error or maybe it’s how it’s setup. Regardless, that robot info banner needs to clear out of the way in order to us to compose, focus and take the shot like normal.

Really liking my time with CascableStudio, it does what I need it todo without a lot of the fuss with cables. After some tinkering with it, I would like to see 2 things improve/added.

1. Live-view via WiFI is low quality. I tried turning off Bluetooth, and it did not help. It would be nice to see the live-view with better transmission quality. You can still work with this quality, but since we are connecting via 5ghz, it would be nice to give us an option for higher quality if we wanted to switch to it.

2. Nikon USB: I know this is not currently available via CascableStudio, but I’m thinking that if we could connect USB-C to mini HDMI, maybe this would give us better live-view quality. However, if number 1 was improved, then obviously my #2 would automatically become irrelevant.

Other than that, I finally found an app that resolves most of my issues, thank you. Hopefully more improvements will come along the way.

Update: The developers quickly responded to me and explained that the bulb timer mode is what works for what I was going for. Awesome customer service and great app, now that it works for astro I’m stoked!

Original: Awesome app, way better than other camera control apps. However, I bought the pro version so that I could use the intervalometer for astrophotography, and it doesn’t work how it should. After going to the robot mode and selecting intervalometer, it lets you set a time interval to wait between the set number of exposures (or time, depending on your settings) that you’re taking them. I have found that the only thing that this interval does is wait that amount of time before taking the first picture, and the the other pictures all take back-to-back with no pause to let the sensor cool. Fix this and it would be about perfect!

I wish it had more of the camera's features available but this software works pretty well. Sometimes a little cranky and slow at connecting to the camera. Sometimes when I go into and then back out of one of the function menus, the software crashes and exits to the iOS home screen. BUT. In manual mode I can set ISO, shutter speed and aperture from the phone. If it was not for the crashes and the slow connecting. This would be a five star review. I would be nice to have the real time light meter from the camera it sort of has one but you can't see it while adjusting settings

Using Cascable for real estate photography and occasional portrait shoot. Works smoothly with workflow. Wish I knew what WiFi extender could help speed up transfers (currently 4-8 seconds on Nikon D5300. Also I wish there was bracketing feature. Sometimes the image fails to show in preview. Sometimes focus doesn’t work and have to reset. This could be unrelated, could be a power issue with camera.
UPDATE: I just went through the recipes tutorial. This type of complex repetitive programming is just what I was hoping for. Could be a game changer. It seems bracketing IS available and much more I just never knew it! Only thing I would fix is the scrolling, I often scroll up/down 2 or 3 stops quickly and go way past the setting I want. Reminds me of Wheel of Fortune. I think they used to have a way to quick scroll by keeping finger on the screen.

I have a Nikon D750 and a Nikon P900 (bridge camera). Both work with Nikon WMU but barely... which sent me looking and asking around for a better way.
In a Facebook Group... someone turned me on to Cascable..... so I got my D750 and headed to Apple Apps. Well it took all of 5 minutes of playing with the free version to convert me. I went all in on the Pro Version. The Shutter Robot is so easy to use and the file transfer to phone is intuitive. It’s just what I needed for my D750. ... I can live with the other camera and it’s app.
I can’t wait to get out and do some long exposure work while using Cascable... I don’t have to buy a remote IR now.
Nov 2018

I love it and compared to the Fuji app, this is well worth the $24 for paid features(not required but does have neat features; geotagging, )
Other reviews mentioned the price is outrageous but I feel it’s fair because it’s not just a transfer app but offers other features as well. If you’re not a fan of paying the $24 they also have other options like a subscription plan to split up the payments but this isn’t needed if you just want to transfer. I think the subscription would be well worth it. Considering you’re funding for new features that you would get with your subscription once they release.

TLDR: Better than Fuji app, well worth it.

I discovered Cascable almost a year ago now and it totally revolutionized my studio photography workflow. No longer did I need to lug around my laptop to do tethered capturing, but now I could simply connect my iPad and have full control of every setting right from my hand. While the wireless connection through WiFi is convenient, the only thing missing for me was the ability to use wired tethering since that’s faster and more stable…and they just added that into the latest update! I’d absolutely recommend CascableStudio for anybody who uses a modern Nikon DSLR and has an iPad. I promise CascableStudio will change your whole workflow!

Believe me I am not a tech savvy person nor a photographer by any stretch of the imagination! I recently really got into astronomy and wanted to be able to photograph the night sky. I purchased an entry level DSLR Canon EOS M100 (no photography experience whatsoever) after researching that CascableStudio would be able to control the camera remotely. Work flawlessly! Very simple to use, I was up and running in no time. My only recommendation is to make sure your camera is supported by CascableStudio .

I wanted so much to love CascableStudio! I bought it because it supports RAW files, something my Olympus transfer app does not do. It works.. sometimes... and when it does it is as “slow as molasses in the wintertime”. Most times it just doesn’t work at all, or it takes several times of turning it off and on again. Too much frustration.

Update!! After the developers suggested turning off Bluetooth, I tried it! Makes a HUGE difference!! Much faster transfer speeds. Thank you! I love CascableStudio now.

The Panasonic Image app is super slow, buggy, and has a really grainy live preview. Plus transferring videos over Wi-Fi takes an eternity. However CascableStudio works amazing for me.

The only thing I wish CascableStudio had is a zoom control. I’m not sure if it’s just not supported for my specific model, or if it’s not a feature in CascableStudio at all. That’s the only thing I miss from Panasonics app, but it’s not enough to make me switch back.

This is the only app that I’ve been able to find that can actually properly geotag the EXIF data on iOS. Many apps can set the geo location in Photos, but that doesn’t actually change the EXIF data. So if you want to import your photos in to Lightroom, you don’t get geo data. Cascable lets you work with images as files in iOS and geotag them that way (manually or via GPX tracks) and THEN import them into Lightroom (or elsewhere). I’ve been using it to download photos from a Canon 5D IV and Fujifilm X100F over WiFi as well as via SD card and geotag the ones from the X100F (5DIV has GPS). Getting the WiFI connection to work took some learning but I can make it work reliabily now. Overall excellent app, thank you!

I was looking forward to CascableStudio working well with the Phase ONE IQ 4 however it does not. Connection is easy and stable, but the preview takes 45 seconds to show up on the iPhone (12 Pro MAX) and you cannot shoot another until it does. Hoping they have improve this, but I will delete it for now.

They reached out with some solutions and I will give it another try. 5 stars for support!