I like to shoot tethered sometimes (especially product and food photography) and to have the live view mode displayed on my computer's screen. Lightroom has a built-in tethering mode, which works just fine but it doesn't have the live view mode. I had been using free software 'Soforbild' for tethering with live view on my iMac until I discovered it wasn't updated for over a year and I couldn't get it to work with my Nikon D610. After a very extensive research and almost losing my hopes for a free alternative, I finally ran across qDSLRDashboard (dDSLRDashboard.info).
qDSLRDashboard is not only a tethering software but it also gives you a live preview from a camera on a computer's screen. Before you download it, be aware that it is in early development stage (currently in version 0.2.3) so it might have some bugs and it occasionally performs slow. However, its rich features and the wide range of cameras it supports clearly outgrows any bugs it might potentially have. What's also important is that it's regularly updated by the developer.
Here are some qDSLRDashboard's interesting features:
- support for Nikon, Canon and Sony cameras
- available for MAC OS X, Windows, Linux
- available on mobile devices - Android and iOS
- tethering and live view using a USB cable and camera's WiFi connection
- timelapse function
- focus point control
- full manual control - shutter speed, aperture, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance
- manual focus tuning
- video recording from within qDSLRDashboard with live view preview and audio monitoring
These are only some of the features from the top of my head but I have to admit that they're quite impressive, especially for free software (and when I say free I mean FREE - no ads, no malware, etc.).
If you like the software, it would be great if you could donate some money to the developer. You can find a Paypal button on the software's website (I'm not affiliated with the developer and he didn't ask me to say it but for such a free software, I think donating is appropriate).