From a fresh download to an armed rig on eclipse morning. It's written for photographers, not engineers. Work through it once at your desk, then rehearse it for real before the day.
Download Umbra, drag it to your Applications folder, and open it. Paste the license key from your beta link when prompted, and you're in. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon (M1 or newer).
Put the body into PC / PTP mode, quit any vendor tether app (LUMIX Tether, for example; it will hold the connection hostage), connect over USB, and click Detect cameras. On Sony, this means the USB connection mode Remote Shooting (older bodies call it PC Remote), not MTP, Mass Storage, or USB Streaming; in the other modes the native driver can't claim the body and it falls back to the slower universal one (you'll see it named generically, like "Alpha-A7III (Control)" — switch the mode and Detect again).
Running more than one camera? Plug each one straight into the Mac or a powered USB hub, not a docking station or an unpowered hub shared with other gear. A shared dock splits one USB connection across everything on it, which can leave cameras connected but unable to fire, or only one working at a time.
LUMIX works natively, and Sony and Canon now use their makers' official native SDKs (Sony's Camera Remote SDK and Canon's EOS SDK) for fast, reliable control. Nikon and Fujifilm, and older Sony/Canon bodies a native SDK does not cover, route through a copy of gphoto2 bundled inside the app, nothing to install. It all happens automatically per body.
Pass the Manual-mode check (Umbra wants your camera off auto so exposures are predictable), and set every body to Manual FOCUS too, not just manual exposure. On autofocus a camera can refuse the remote shutter until focus locks, so you may see a half-press with no photo. Prefocus, switch to MF, then fire a single test shot to confirm the whole chain, from app to shutter to card, and check the memory card for the frame.
Before building anything, pick a saved site or drop a pin on the map. This drives all contact-relative timing: your C1/C2/MAX/C3/C4 moments and totality length are computed from this point, and the script tools (and Validate) check your shots against the Sun's position here.
With your location set, build the sequence: the step-by-step Script Wizard (⌘K), the AI Script Assistant, or load the bundled test script. Either way, run Validate. Umbra checks that every shot clears the horizon and that your exposure cadence fits the totality time available at your site. Want to read or hand-tweak the script? The script language guide explains every command and field.
Simulated run (Simulated timing): a scrubbable clock you control. Press Play to run it at real-time speed, or scrub anywhere on the timeline and jump straight to any contact (C1 to C4). This is how you practice: are the right shots firing, in the right order, at the right offsets and settings, and can your cameras hold the cadence. It is the cheapest way to catch a mistake while you can still fix it.
One thing to know: a simulated run still fires your connected cameras for real. "Simulated" refers to the clock, not the shutters. So a simulated run with bodies plugged in is a true test of capture and cadence, your dress rehearsal for the day. Do at least one under realistic heat.
When the day comes, switch to Live timing (Arm Real Eclipse Clock) and the clock locks to the real eclipse UTC, so every contact fires at its true moment.
Flip to Live timing and Live cameras. From here Umbra fires every shot at its contact-relative moment. You can put the remote down and watch totality.
Use the Simulation Analyzer to reconcile what's actually on your SD card against the plan. It produces an HTML report so you can see, shot by shot, what fired and what didn't.
This is the one that bites people. Spain in August is hot, and a hot Mac throttles its CPU to protect itself. A throttling, struggling Mac is how you drop shots in the middle of totality, the one moment you can't get back. The firing engine is built to keep running even when the machine is hot, but the best fix is to never let it get there.
Before the eclipse, run down this list:
Most importantly, rehearse under realistic heat. A cool indoor test tells you nothing about how your rig behaves in direct sun on a summer field. Do at least one dress rehearsal in the conditions you'll actually shoot in, so throttling shows up in practice and not on eclipse day.
Use Report a Bug in the app, or email [email protected]. On a non-LUMIX body you may be the very first person to test that brand, so even a plain "it didn't work" is a truly useful (and welcome) report.