Shooting tethered

I plan to do a lot of indoor flash portrait photography this winter and was thinking it may be an advantage to be able to see the results on my laptop in real time.

Does this make sense and do I achieve this by linking camera and computer by USB cable? Another thought, what software, if any, is needed or recommended? I'll mostly be using the D810 but may also try the D500.

The laptop runs Windows 10, Capture NX-D and Nikon Transfer 2.

Others will be able to chime in with Capture and Transfer info. I use LightRoom in tether mode with a USB and it works well. The main reason I'm chiming in is there is a 16' limit on USB cables. So that's something to consider if you plan to use a USB cable. Sorry I wasn't a ton of help.

I've done some tethered shooting, but not too much. I typically use the USB cable (I'm running a longer TetherTools orange USB cable in order to get the reach I want), but have also shot tethered using the CamRanger wireless remote. The CamRanger seems to be a little more dependable, since it's just dropping files into a watched folder, vs having Lightroom try to control the camera, but both are doable.

I use Digicam using a USB cable. Works perfectly on my muti screen. One for the controls, one for liveview and one for text and other programs.

DigiCamControl works very well and is free, so that's an easy choice in my view.

As far as USB cable lengths go, both the D500 and D810 use USB 3.0, where the maximum cable length is limited as PapaST says. Things may still work with cables longer than 16', but there are no guarantees. Most Nikons have the older USB 2.0 connections, though, with a smaller, trapezoidal camera connector instead of the wide, fairly flat and sort of dual-hump USB 3.0 one. You can tether with much longer cables on USB 2.0.

Nikon obviously wants us to use SnapBridge for tethering with newer cameras, but like many others who shared their experience, I think it's little more than a gimmick that also renders the built-in WiFi useless.