Mirrorless cameras have, in many ways, unseated digital SLRs as the must-have photo and video tools for the modern era. Many of us picked them for their superior video features, or just because we wanted smaller and lighter camera rigs.
Looking to do even more with your mirrorless? You’ve got a perfectly good USB port just waiting to be used.
1
USB charging cables
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I know, it sounds pretty obvious, but a hallmark feature of mirrorless cameras is the ability to charge the internal camera battery directly via the USB port. If you think that I’m weird for pointing this out, you might not remember the dark days of early digital SLRs that didn’t actually support this feature.
I bought my first digital SLR in 2005, an entry-grade Nikon D50 that I still own and love to this day. Since digital SLRs were essentially 35mm film cameras with digital sensors where the film should go, early models came with many of the same limitations as film cameras. One of these was a requirement to charge the chunky removable battery with a dedicated battery charger.
The downside here is that not all mirrorless cameras now come with a dedicated battery charger in the box, while older models may charge painfully slow using this method.
2
USB power banks
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Along the same lines of charging your camera battery by leaving it in the body and plugging it into a wall charger, USB power banks can be used to provide power on the go when you’re away from a socket. The same limitations here are worth keeping in mind if you’re hoping to use an external USB power bank as an extended battery.
Ideally, if you want to shoot and charge at the same time, your camera should support USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) and be paired with an adequately powerful power bank that can push the requisite power levels required for charging. Basic 5W charging (5V over 1A) might extend the battery life slightly, but you’re going to be using power faster than you replenish it.
Sony has a list of cameras that support USB-PD and states that fast charging requires at least 18W of power (9V over 2A). Nikon mirrorless cameras like the Z7 II and Z6 II also support USB-PD as long as the feature is enabled. Fuji has a neat list of cameras that details USB standards and associated power draw.
If you’re going to go this route, it’s a good idea to come up with some sort of solution for where to put the battery. For small battery packs, you might have joy mounting the camera to a cage like a SmallRig. For tripod shooting, a pouch that attaches to the tripod (or a battery you can hang) with a suitably long USB cable works best.
3
Stabilizing gimbals
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Stabilizing gimbals can help you shoot silky smooth video by countering camera shake and wobble. They’re one of the easiest ways to improve video quality outside of the camera, allowing you to get professional-looking results even when shooting handheld. They’ve also come down in price and size considerably over the last decade or so.
The only problem with these devices is that they position your hand (or hands, if you’re using a particularly large gimbal) away from your camera. This makes it difficult to do things like start or stop recording, change focal length, and adjust other camera settings. Thankfully, many of these gimbals are able to control mirrorless (and some digital SLR) cameras directly using built-in buttons and dials.
DJI may be best known for its drones, but the company is also a big player in the stabilizer world. The company has a list gimbals that support camera control for its Ronin series. Zhiyun is another big gimbal manufacturer, and it too has a compatibility list.
Note that many gimbals include both support for USB camera control via an included cable and Bluetooth support.
4
Wireless transmitters
Though they’re beyond the reach of most hobbyist photographers, wireless transmitters add another layer of power to a mirrorless shooting setup. These expensive devices attach to the camera directly and make it easy to get images out of the camera in a far quicker manner than using a USB host or memory card reader.
Two notable examples here are the $1,300 Sony PDT-FP1 and the $935 Nikon WT-7A. The Sony adds 5G support for mobile data transfer (with support for dual SIMs, for traveling photojournalists), gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and even includes an HDMI output. The Nikon transmitter works over local communication with support for Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
5
Ethernet adapters
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If you have a Nikon Z9, Z8, or Z6 III, you don’t technically need to spend a grand on the aforementioned transmitter to get Ethernet support since your camera supports this functionality out of the box. All you need to do is pair a standard USB-C Ethernet adapter with Nikon’s Wireless Transmitter Utility for Windows or macOS.
Your images will be transferred to your computer via the connection, which is popular among studio photographers, where the practice is known as shooting tethered.
6
Your computer
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While we’re on the topic of tethering your camera to a computer, you don’t necessarily need to go the Ethernet route. Many cameras support this functionality over a standard USB cable, but you’ll need to pair your camera with the right software.
Nikon has a free app called NX Tether for this, Sony has the free Imaging Edge Desktop, while Canon has EOS Utility. You can go further and use premium software like Adobe Lightroom to do this, too.
Outside of controlling your camera and getting quick feedback about how your images look, you can also use a standard USB connection to copy your images from the internal microSD card (of course).
7
Tablets and smartphones
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If you’d rather shoot tethered to an iPad (or an iPhone), you can use the Cascable Studio app and a USB cable to shoot with the aid of a more portable device instead. The app is free to start, but costs $7.99 per month to unlock the full feature set.
The app is definitely worth trying before you buy, particularly since the list of compatible cameras and supported functions is varied. Some cameras lack support for features like RAW image support when tethered, which might be a deal-breaker for you.
Another app that’s worth mentioning is HeliconSoft’s Helicon Remote. This is automation software for focus bracketing (where different steps of focus are stacked and combined to get everything in focus), exposure bracketing (the same but for light levels), and time-lapse photography.
Helicon Remote is also premium software, and has a list of compatible cameras that you’ll want to study before you buy. Again, the app can be downloaded and tested before you buy it, so make sure it’s up to the task and compatible with your particular setup.
If you’re new to the world of mirrorless cameras, you might have expected webcam functionality to be commonly supported by way of the USB port (after all, that’s how standard webcams work). Some cameras do indeed support this functionality, notably Canon models.
But if you want the best quality video, you’ll want to use an HDMI capture card to capture uncompressed video using your camera’s HDMI output instead.
