I was just reading Joe McNally’s post about Aperture 3 and I thought, Yes, three is the lucky number for Nikon and Apple, huh?
Someone today asked me to give a short answer as to which they should buy. Here it is:
Probably neither. But if you must… if you use a Mac, get Aperture; if you use Windows, get Lightroom.
Continue reading about Nikon/Canon SLRs after the jump and why Aperture 3 rocks
After a year of bouncing rumors and requests among friends and watching Adobe erode Apple’s marketshare, Aperture 3 is finally out. As far as I’m concerned, the people who are disappointed in the update probably shouldn’t have bought Aperture in the first place.
One of the things in the new Adobe Lightroom that is implemented (and improved on) in Aperture 3 is the concept of presets. This is one step closer to having me abandon my insanely slow Photoshop workflow for something that is fast, can be undone, and doesn’t chew up disk space. But the thing that was bothering me was, will it blend? Can I really get away with not leaving Aperture unless I really, really have to.
Let‘s see what I can create in a few minutes of fiddling around.
The Fallout75’s Vintage Film effect tries to mimic the fading that occurs when a photo starts to fade over the years: the process is outlined here. Here is what I get in Aperture when I try to follow the same rules:
Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)
This is my Vintage Film preset. Mouseover the image to see the original.
Here is the output in Adobe Photoshop CS4 when the action is run:
Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)
This is Fallout75’s action. Mouseover the image to see the original.
You can see that Fallout75 has two undocumented effects: a brightening of the center region and a vignetting on the edges. I can emulate this, but I didn’t know what I created the current version of the action. I suppose that’ll be for later.
Continue reading about One more preset and downloads after the jump
Now that Aperture 3 is out, I need to update one area of my previous article.
No, Aperture 3 doesn’t support the Olympus E-P1/E-P2/E-PL1 or Panasonic GF-1 RAWs (yet).
There is a workaround, however, for doing sorting, selecting, and metadata in Aperture 3.
Trying to return to “Set RAW as Master’ and then Catapulting yields and “Editing Error” as the backdoor used by Catapult is now closed. 🙁
Therefore, you must export masters manually to the drop folder, generate RAWs, and then Catapult. If you do so, you can’t reimport the sidecar xmps, currently.
Here is some proof:
Olympus E-P2, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 50mm f1.1
1/8sec5, ISO200, 50mm (100mm)
Image processed from ACR in Aperture. Try as you might, you can’t recover clipped highlights.
(BTW, the images were uploaded with the new built in Flickr support, so we’ll see how good sync is—it appears to be uni-directional. For instance, I just found out movies aren’t supported in Flickr sync, so videos are synced back as stills.)
Olympus E-P1, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
00:15, 1280×1070, 30fps
From a previous article, I finally found a way to work in Aperture again. But since I’m also trying to pick up photography again, I thought it’d be fun to write a little bit showing a few experimental images taken from that day.
This will be a way to test out a new WordPress plugin I just wrote to do mouseovers. As long as you’re on this blog article, you can run your mouse over the image to see the pre-processed original image.
Olympus E-P2, M. Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6
1/5sec @ ƒ3.9, iso 1600, 17mm (35mm)
I arrived a little late as usual, but just in time to order dinner with everyone else.
This was actually the first image I used to test out whether the workflow works. Because of that, the DNG output was 8-bit, not 16-bit. That may have accounted for the overaggressive smoothing, or it could be the lack of dynamic range in an ISO 1600 µ4:3 CMOS sensor (roughly 1/4 the size of a 35mm frame). Then again, maybe it’s the setting on Topaz Adjust plugin. In any case, it does have the painterly look that you get when you start remapping dynamic range of an image. Not too sure if I can still call this a photograph.
If you mouseover the image, you may be wondering how I pulled color from the black-and-white original. The original is the JPEG, but the image was generated from the RAW. For documentary photography, on cameras which resemble rangefinders like the Leica M8 and the Olympus E-P2, I prefer black-and-whites previews, which force me to concentrate on tone and not color—but it’s always nice to be able to grab the color channels from the RAW if I change my mind.
This exposure tests the outer-limits of the kit lens: 1/5 of a second at a borderline too-high-for-this-camera ISO at the largest aperture for this 35mm EFL. Had I my old 17mm pancake, I’d have gotten a full stop faster. Still, it got focus-lock and the in-body image stabilization allowed me to shoot handheld braced against elbows on the table. Yeah!
More photos in later pages…
One of the most annoying aspects of Apple Aperture is that there is no API for RAW plugins. This means that you’re stuck with Aperture’s RAW rendering—and Apple has been slow to update support for the latest cameras. For instance, the Olympus E-P1/E-P2/E-PL1 series has been out since August, selling like hotcakes, but there is still no RAW support for these models, even though the E-30, which is supported, uses the same basic RAW file format.
Well finally my workaround seems to work for my satisfaction. Whee!
Olympus E-P2, M.ZUIKO Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6
1/3sec, iso 160, 14mm (28mm)
For those too lazy to read forward here is the step-by-step:
Someone on a forum asked what the LH-3 lens hood accessory looks like on the 35mm NOKTON.
Nikon D3, Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D, Canon 500D diopter
1/60sec @ ƒ4, ISO560, 85mm
Phil Greenspun asks us to guess how many Canon EOS lenses have been made.
I guess…
Olympus launched a teaser site for the next E-Pnext:
For reference, I decided to see if I could glean it for MY last camera which came last month… the E-P2
Nikon D3, Nikkor Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D
1/5sec @ ƒ4, ISO200, 85mm
I didn’t have a 17mm pancake like in the picture and my “man-hands” are blocking some of the details, but the E-P2 extends out to my palm, while the photo shows the next one extending out to the woman’s knuckles. The length of my hand should be about right so it’s at most about an inch smaller and just as tall.
Continue reading about Guesses about the next Pen from Olympus after the jump
(Article continued from part 3)
Unlike in the article four years ago, I’ll be covering specific models. I’ll cover them in the reverse order to my original article, because I felt I gave the less popular brands a short shrift last time.
The Pentax K-x ($550 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
Four years ago, I stated that Pentax makes shooter-centric cameras at a great value. In fact, I mentioned that Pentax was the first entry in this dSLR price category, and this was in line with Pentax’s history: to bring those people on a budget a quality camera.
Continue reading about Pentax, Sony and Olympus entry dSLRs after the jump
(Article continued from part 2)
I wrote an article about purchasing an entry dSLR four years ago. What it so surprising is how much of it has stood the test of time—only small details and features have changed: Nikon autofocus now has more points than Canon (as well as better coverage and the use of color); Olympus no longer is the only company with Live View (even Pentax does it), nor the only company with dust shake (all the others, starting with Canon, now offer it); Sony is not the only company with sensor-shift image stabilization.
Still, the essence is still true: Canon and Nikon remain among the last three holdouts adamantly against sensor-based image stabilization. Canon settings are still bulletproof; Nikon still is light focused: with the best autoexposure system and the best high ISO performance. Olympus and Panasonic are still cramming the coolest tech into the smallest space, Sony is proving their engineering chops, and Pentax is still putting photographic value first.
Olympus E-P2, M.ZUIKO Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6
1/6sec @ ƒ5.2, iso 800, 36mm (72mm)
It’s still best to forego the kit and stick a fast-wide-cheap prime on your camera. This Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens is not cheap, but Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens is the 50mm equivalent for Nikon APS-C and costs about the same as a kit lens. I’ll talk about lenses in a later section.
The rounded right side of the camera is actually an extremely well thought out way for resting smaller these smaller cameras in your palm. It’s a tiny detail, I’ve not seen in the other Nikon models, but it’s just one of the reasons why people rave about Nikon small body dSLR ergonomics.
The advice hasn’t changed: When you buy a first dSLR, it is still the best to forgo the kit lens and plaster on a cheap, fast prime. Lenses still get more expensive, and bodies still get cheaper. Every manufacturer makes a camera for your budget with a negligible price difference…
And the problem is all the cameras are still too good.
In fact, the most significant difference from four years ago is only that the “entry level dSLR” has dropped below $700 for an entire kit, (in addition to) the $1000 “body-only” category—redefining the latter as an “enthusiast” category. Not only that, in many cases, manufacturers have issued multiple models in this sub $700 category, all offering at least one full kit below $550. Three of these sell kits for less than a Canon G11 pocket camera!
Continue reading about The mistake not mentioned after the jump