Tether Tools Cables Don’t Deserve Their Reputation, And maybe area 51 doesn’t either
In February, 2025 I was called up to St. Louis to work as a digitech for a job reproducing a large collection of paintings. During prepro, The photographer I was working with was building a gear list for three bays to photograph paintings simultaneously. Each would have a Phase One IQ4 150, two would have XF camera bodies, and one would be a tech camera. All would be tethered to Mac Minis with Eizo monitors.
When asked what 30’ USB-C tether cables I recommended, I said Area 51. Though I hadn’t used their cables previously, I knew their reputation in the industry and I had planned to upgrade to these cables once mine were ready to be replaced. 3 cables were ordered for testing with the digital backs. My own cables would be used as backups if needed.
Once I arrived in STL my first job was of course to test all of the equipment. We had a limited amount of time to complete the job and due to the sheer size of the collection we had to move at a brisk predetermined pace to finish on time. If a bay went down for whatever reason, we’d have to get it back up and running asap, making the tether connection obviously very important, as it always is.
With all the gear on the table I connected the first digital back with a brand new Area 51 “Wilton XL Illumination 10g Series USB-C to USB-C Cable 9.5m/31ft” to one of the mac minis. No response in Capture One.
Disconnect, reconnect.
Restore default settings.
New Session
Confirm Phase One activated and no others in C1 Tethering Menu
Restart camera.
Restart computer.
Swap digital back.
Swap cables.
Connected! Briefly… and then the connection drops.
Re-connects spontaneously.
Drops again.
Change ends of cable, despite bi-directionality. No change.
Swap to third cable. No change.
Swap to third digital back. No change.
Swap Mac Minis. No change.
Long story short, not one of the three Area 51 cables provided a stable connection with any sort of reliability in any configuration of settings or combination of equipment. If a connection was achieved, it would drop within a few seconds, or after the first capture.
My 15’ TetherTools cables connected immediately with all digital backs, and with all mac minis. Live view ran flawlessly, and connection never dropped during testing.
Ok, weird. We tried to contact Area 51 and they did eventually say that the combo should work.
We overnighted 3 more 30’ tether cables from Tether Tools, specifically the “TetherPro Optima USB-C Cable 31’”. All connected promptly without any sort of drama.
Two 30’ tether cables from two manufacturers. One worked flawlessly, the other never worked at all.
Tether Tools has developed an unfortunate reputation in the industry for having lesser quality cables, or that their cables drop connection more frequently. I’m here to tell you this is not the case, or if it ever was, it isn’t any more.
It can be sort of fun for people to pick an unlucky brand and pile on. Sometimes the naysayers have an actual experience of being burned, assuming troubleshooting was performed correctly and that a new or properly maintained cable was the problem (a big assumption), in which case I understand the sentiment, but I expect a large portion of the negativity spread is confabulated with people hearing of bad experiences and taking on that experience as if it also happened to them.
I had never heard anything ill said of Area 51, despite perhaps their prices.
This could have been a bad batch of cables. It happens, I suppose. Hard to know why all three of them failed while all the Tether Tools cables worked flawlessly, with settings equalized during testing across the board. But even if it was a bad batch of cables, this is clearly a potential outcome of using cables from any brand, Area 51 included.
I do not recall the specifics of the operating systems or versions of C1 at the time, except that they were up to date. The firmware versions of the digital backs were also up to date. But in all practicality, none of them matter. The A/B test is everything.
Let’s say the same Area 51 cables would have worked great with a laptop instead of a Mac Mini, or on a Mac Pro, or on a different operating system, or on a different USB-C port on the computer, or with a booster, or some other tweak of tech. This additional requirement for minimal functionality already puts it below the Tether Tools cables, since the Tether Tools cables did everything right without any sort of additional fiddling.
If it’s a Phase One compatibility issue then I’ve not seen any documentation describing it, nor have the support staff at Area 51. And again- Tether Tools comes out on top.
All of this to say, the Tether Tools cables saved the shoot. Around 25 days of capture across three different bays shooting 150MP with live view for around 6 hours a day resulted in not one need for a cable swap or even a notable drop in connection. The Area 51 cables couldn’t handle 25 seconds.
Do Area 51 cables work? Of course they do. I imagine if we ordered three more 30’ cables from Area 51 for the same job, they would work just fine. But they didn’t when we needed them. And the much maligned red headed stepchild Tether Tools cables? Flawless.
The lesson I take from this is: A, yet another reminder that testing gear before a project is non-negotiable. B, backup cables of different sizes as well as different brands is a good practice. C, even the highest regarded products can still fail. And D, not everyone’s opinion is worth listening to.
Area 51 eventually did provide a refund to the photographer after returning the cables and providing a video that clearly demonstrated the issue.
After my first experience with Area 51 cables, I can’t currently recommend them. I’ve never seen 3 cables from the same brand consistently fail to perform in A/B testing like this. Yes, it was a one-off experience, sort of (3 different cables?!). I know most of them work, or else the company would be out of business and their reputation would not be what it is.
Even so, I’ll keep using my Tether Tools cables happily, and if I detect a side eye or judgement of that choice, I’ll have no trouble recounting this first hand experience.
