Exceptional work all round

[UrsaMajor]

I have been looking at the threads here and the pix. Some of you really have some exceptional work, and it is made more interesting by the contexts and stories attached. I hope that 'visitors' drop in and view this forum regularly because it has become a showcase for some excellent Alpha images.

I agree with that statement - speaking as someone for whom photography is just for personal enjoyment, and who makes no claims to expert judgment. I like to see what others are doing, and feel that I have learned from visiting here, both from the photos that have been taken and from the critique of those photos.

One of the things that I appreciate about this forum is that people do not hesitate to offer suggestions for improving the composition, cropping, exposure, etc. - and normally do so politely. There have been a number of forums that I have followed for a while before I dropped them because the only comments about posted images were rave reviews, even for images that were poor in comparison to my images - and my images certainly have a lot of room for improvement in most cases.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[David Kilpatrick]

The Nikon D5000 12 megapixels is way better than a Sony A700 12 megapixel.

I suppose you're not talking high ISO here? For years now everybody dreams about the A700, it's colour rendering, dynamic range, whatever. Is it about sharpness? Is the A700 that bad? Should I jump ship?

No. There are several reasons why the A700 is an entirely different class of camera. But the Nikon D300 and D90 were already better than the A700 (mainly high ISO) and the D5000 improves further by having a very weak AA filter, so it produces stunningly sharp pix - but it can easily produce moiré from textures. I would say the D5000 has a 12 megapixel sensor with an AA filter about as weak as the original Sony A100. What it produces looks like A100 quality but 12 megapixels, and of course, better at high ISO. The A700 has never been as sharp, pixel for pixel, as our two A100s were. It simply has a much stronger AA filter.

People say the A900 has more noise than the A700, but in my opinion it simply has a weaker AA filter. I think the v4 A700 processing and the A900 processing are similar, but the A900 image looks sharper and also more noisy because of the different AA filter. The Nikon D5000 is also not noise-free even at ISO 200, but with it you get that extra sharpness.

David

[bakubo]

Maybe one of these days I will try to do something with the photos. Right now we are very busy packing and marking off items on a long to do list. We leave Hawaii early Monday morning and will fly to Japan. Expect to be there for a few months. I bought rail passes and we can travel around too. I have done it several times in Japan since 1985 on my own, but this time my wife is looking forward to doing it too. In recent years she has warmed up to travel a lot more. The two trips to Thailand in the last 3 years and the Mexico trip last year helped her see what she was missing. She also liked our long spring road trip a lot.

[Greg Beetham]

Do you keep your unit for the few months while you're away Henry? (expensive), or sublet..
Greg
ps. Have a good one.

[aster]

Hi Bakubo,

Hopefully it'll be the journey you expect it all to be.
Don't forget to post from there on any subject and camera gear if you can find the time and the means.

Yildiz

[ianmiddy]

David, OT I know, but out of interest:

I use Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, C1 Pro or DxO Optics Pro to do the resizing....

....Alamy forces me to edit my work rigorously and to process with care. Everything must be named, captioned, copyright embedded and keyworded (I use iView Media Pro for this). The resulting files form a catalogue on a large hard disk (backed up to another HD) with both overall iView indexing, and individual iView catalogues saved. I can now search over 8,500 images by keyword, subject etc and find our pix very quickly. The missing 1,500 are early stuff from pre-iView processing.

What advantages does IView offer you over the KeyWording in LR ? - curious as I've just started using LR but have to do some work on comparing LR, Aperture, C1, IView & Extensis portfolio...

Thanks

IDM

[David Kilpatrick]

Speed, mainly. It's incredibly quick, and you can save loads of keyword sets and apply them additively. You can change filenames, sort by name, capture date, almowt any criterion; you can create web images in lightning speed (it does not use Photoshop, it just processes the files to the size you specify and turns them into sRGB JPEGs) - or any other output size and type; you have a catalogue which loads in seconds, can be read by a free iView reader so you can send your catalogue to anyone else and they can view the photos without having the originals; you can select your folders instantly (just green-light any number of folders on your disk, and the entire set of photos appears as one searchable selection).

Also, different image views are extremely rapid. iView contains thumbnails, and a screen preview. These are almost instant. But if you select 100% view, it goes to the main file and views it at 100% - then you can step through each file just with a keystroke (arrow) and see them all at 100%.

And it will also index, search, preview and find movies, text files, graphics and almost anything else. To open in Photoshop you just alt-click on the screen view or preview. iView also holds the keywords externally to the file. Lightroom just embeds keywords. iView keeps a database. You create your keywords, then export them into the files - you can also import from existing keyworded files. Because of this, if you lose your keyworded JPEG all you have to do is create another with exactly the same file name and put it in the same folder, then tell iView Media Pro to synchronise (export data to original file). It will then restore all the metadata to your new file. This also means you can go back to an image and create a new raw conversion, maybe a superior version using later software. You have TWO copies of the metadata, one in the iView Media pro catalogue, one embedded in your JPEG. You can re-create a catalogue from keyworded JPEGs; you can re-create keyworded JPEGs even if your disk crashes and loses you all the image files, as long as you have kept an iView catalogue backed up elsewhere. There is no way I would ever use ACR, Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom to do the work iView Media Pro does for me.

It also supports multiple catalogues. I have for example 'Alamy Alicante 2008' which is all our Alicante fogueres week shoot. Then I have 'Alamy Archive' which is all 10,000+ images for Alamy.

David

[Philip]

David, having been sold on the benifits of iView media pro by your comments above, I find that it is no longer availible..... Any recomendations as to a simlar product for Mac use?

Philip

[ianmiddy]

Thanks for your time & a very detailed appraisal, David - but...

David, having been sold on the benifits of iView media pro by your comments above, I find that it is no longer availible..... Any recomendations as to a simlar product for Mac use?

...and Windoze ? [is Microsoft Expression Media really "the next generation of iView MediaPro" - it looks like its moving in a different, less 'catalogue-oriented' direction ?]

Cheers

IDM

[David Kilpatrick]

Microsoft Expression Media is dual platform (the installer disk includes both). Well, I hope so anyway. I started using it as iView, then iView Media Pro before it was bought by Microsoft.

This the version I have for Mac:

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Express ... B000OOG3R6

I guess I should be looking at upgrading, but there does not seem to be an upgrade path except by ordering an £83 upgrade to v2 from Amazon in the UK. I've just done that as I do not want to be left behind with this software. I downloaded a 30-day-trial demo to make sure it works just the same. I could find a $99 upgrade edition US only, or $199 for the program from scratch. It strikes me as fairly expensive for what it is, but for me, it's essential.

I see some reviews talk about four minutes to add to a catalogue a single file; this is nonsense. I just did a test run on my iMac 24 inch 2.16 GHz with loads of other programs running. It took exactly 21 seconds to catalogue with previews and thumbnails 115 A900 processed files totally 526MB of data and creating a catalogue 1.5MB in size. In other words, not one file every four minutes but four files per second or better, dealing with 70MB images!

The new version will deal with raw files. I just ran another trial - 475 A900 rawfiles to catalogue from a folder containing subfolders. Took exactly 2 minutes 45 seconds to create a 16.5MB catalogue file, using Apple's OSX raw conversion (if opened) but using embedded thumbnails. Each full screen image took about 10-12 seconds to process on demand, but is then viewable at 100% instantly. Keywords can be embedded in raw files but I gather this is a dangerous process, and after 'saving' some simple metadata back to a raw file, I can not see it in Bridge - so that would not be advised.

The most widely recommended alternative is Extensis Portfolio - it shares many of the same features, but it's a rather more complex and heavy-duty product.

David

[01af]

There's a user forum for digital asset management in general and for iView MediaPro/Expression Media in particular.

-- Olaf

[Philip]

Thanks for your swift reply David. I've now ordered a copy of Expression Media V2 from Amazon - no one else I tried had a copy in stock - judging from the Microsoft website http://www.microsoft.com/uk/expression/ there might be an upgrade in the offing for the Media version as everything listed is V3 (and no mention of Expression Media), but the system spec for everything listed there is for Windows only, unless I'm missing something....

Philip

[bfitzgerald]

Microsoft Expression, sends shivers down my spine!

[David Kilpatrick]

You just have to try to remember that it's really the product of a small British software developer and started life on the Mac - but if you remember your history, that's where Microsoft also started life. On the Mac, with a word-processing program that got rather well known. Windows came later.

I do not use Microsoft Office, I have been using NeoOffice open source software for a year or two now. It is not perfect but covers all the key tasks I need. It also replaced the old Appleworks suite for me, though the incompatiblity between Appleworks/Clarisworks and other programs like Office means I'm stuck with a version of Appleworks almost for ever to read a few old files.

Biggest annoyance for me is the inability of any one vector drawing format to 'read' any other program's docs. My drawings, diagrams and plans done in Appleworks and before that using MacDraw and MacDraft even when re-saved as PICT files (PICT is a vector-capable format) end up as useless bitmaps. Even NeoOffice's drawing module can't read them.

David

[ianmiddy]

Still OT, I know, but thought I might as well continue the Expression Media discussion here...

...installed it yesterday and set the catalogue of about 35,000 images building - and after about 1/2 hour left it to its own devices and went to Uni - so don't know how long it finally took...

...but it runs like it's in molasses ! - David, do you hold your images on the same machine as the catalogue - reading some threads in the DAM forum Olaf posted, it seems like there may be issues if they reside on a NAS - seems as though it continually refers to the Network files rather than it's database...

I need to make sure I have an up-to-date SP2 install, but aside from the ability to export the catalogues, I think I'll stay with LR after I've finished my evaluation work...especially as LR3 Beta has just been released, and on the forum mentioned above there seem to be concerns re EMs future [I think it talks about it having been 'broken-out' from the other studio apps?]

Cheers

IDM