Third-party Pentax tethering software updated

posted Friday, February 17, 2012 at 11:58 PM EDT

PK_Tether--the unofficial tethering solution for Pentax SLRs--has just been updated to a new version, we hear today.

Created by Polish programmer Tomasz Kos, and originally known as 'Pentax Kx Periodic Shooting', PK_Tether has been on the scene for a little over a year now.

As its earlier name suggests, PK_Tether was first created specifically with the Pentax K-x in mind. It's grown a lot since then, though, and now provides support for many Pentax K-series DSLRs. (Only the *ist series, K100D, K100D Super, K110D, K-m / K2000 and 645D aren't supported by the program.) While it doesn't provide live view capability, since Pentax's own, now-discontinued tethering solution never offered this, it does allow for remote shooting including direct access to a broad selection of exposure controls.

The new release is PK_Tether v0.6.4, which makes a number of changes. The shutter release functionality has been redesigned to avoid bugs with interval shooting in Bulb mode, and the program will no longer allow more than seven frames to be buffered at any given time. There's also a new function to group shots in folders by capture date, and the debug options have been moved into the menu system, rather than having dedicated buttons in the PK_Tether interface.