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new Nikon gear - borisbg - 01-09-2015

Quote:Ah, thanks for that. I haven't checked the RRS web site for ages, so I wasn't aware that something like this exists. Everything here uses Arca-Style plates, so such a collar would indeed make sense. Even though it looks a bit bulky...


-- Markus
Yes they have one, but it is very expensive.

I agree with JoJu, the lens works better without the collar, I experienced myself. Nikon needs to revisit the design here, they should've done something similar to 70-200 f2.8. If the problem is with the lens tube, then I am not sure how RRS will work.



new Nikon gear - Klaus - 01-09-2015

It'll be interesting to see where RAW converters will be heading.

 

Honestly I don't really see the point of a full auto-correction for instance. A distortion level of -say- 2% for wide angles and %1 for tele is perfectly fine most of the time. This way you wouldn't sacrifice too much information and avoid "overstretching" the corners (which cannot be recovered). A similar discussion applies to vignetting. Zero vignetting isn't really needed either - 0.5 to 0.75EV is acceptable. I also think that DxO's approach with local sharpness optimization is rather smart - thus the softer corners are sharpened more than the center for instances.

Of course, this doesn't make our own job any easier since a good portion of the IQ is the responsibility of the RAW converter. As the recent Sony discussion is showing, people are already getting confused by our "raw" finding compared to what they actually experience. A viable discussion here. However, we just can't discuss the end results across 5 different RAW converters (-versions).

 

As for image management - that's what I always hated in Lightroom. Postprocessing and image management are two completely different things altogether. Personally I just don't want to have them linked in a single application. I think that the current management tools are all already outdated. e.g. I would prefer to archive most of my images on Amazon Glacier (cloud) with some of the "hotter" images on Amazon S3 whereas the best you can do these days is plain storage to cloud disks. Most are still very local disk-centric.




new Nikon gear - Scythels - 01-10-2015

Regarding the two open source raw processors I mentioned... both are developed by a single person (at least ImageJ still is, to the best of my knowledge).

 

Regarding distoriton, vignetting, etc.  "internet photographers" and enthusiasts in general are an interesting point of discussion.  There are a couple of generally applicable targets that we like to shoot for when designing lenses.  If a lens is being designed for a specific sensor a comon goal is MTF > 50% at the nyquist frequency of the sensor.  Additionally, distortion is typically set to be "simply" less than 4% if controlling it is not a specific goal, as it is at about that level that the human eye begins to notice in most scenes.  Regarding vignetting, it depends on the maximum aperture but for "common speed lenses" - slower than f/2.8 - the general target is to have at least 40% of the center brightness in the corner.  In the f/2.8 to f/2 range we like to see at least 25% illuminance in the corner.  At apertures faster than f/2 one might accept as low as 15% or even 10% illuminance. 

 

Of course often we work to do better than the vignetting and distortion guideline, but in general you have a "bad" design if you fail to control one better than that. 

 

I can't really comment on asset management stuff, as I do not shoot images in sufficient volume to need a DAM program.




new Nikon gear - stoppingdown - 01-10-2015

The point about open source is complex. I'm a software engineer and I routinely work with tons of open source. There are quite a lot of different governance models for open source projects, and they are relevant to the final quality of the product. Some are excellent and provide focus and consistency, even though there are lots of contributions by different people; others suffer from the pitfalls mentioned by JoJu.

 

Unfortunately, in the photography field the scenario is definitely unsatisfactory. Also, while as an engineer I can use also "raw" (in the sense of low-level) tools, such those found in the Unix command line, I frankly don't want them for my photos. Photography is a visual discipline and I want visual tools (in some cases the command line can be still useful, but it's an exception).

 

Many years ago I started filling the gap, writing an open source application for photo management and processing. But while it's rather easy for me to deal with the DAM part, I'm not expert at all in the raw processing thing. I was unable to involve people with the required knowledge. In the end, it is just another aborted project, like many in the field.

 

I pretty much agree with Klaus, DAM and raw processing are two different things and should be offered as a two separate, integrable things. Frankly, I'm fine with the DAM part of Lightroom. The RAW processing part is good enough, but I'd like to be easily able to plug in a different, better converter. Unfortunately, it's not possible without making the workflow more complex.




new Nikon gear - JJ_SO - 01-10-2015

I don't see the point of two separate tools for managing and developing - or do you use a RIP to print WORD-files?

 

Don't get me wrong, I would like to have an independent RAW-tool (or some of them) and a seamless integration of those in a DAM, but the interfaces are critical. Be it MediaPro and CaptureOne or PhotoMechanic and DxO, I didn't find those combinations superior to One-package solutions like Lightroom or Aperture. And standalone-tools like Nikon NX just fail to get pictures organized.

 

Now we hopefully get back to the new Nikon stuff Smile Interestingly, nobody wants to talk about D5500 or this 55-200




new Nikon gear - stoppingdown - 01-10-2015


Quote:<div>I don't see the point of two separate tools for managing and developing - or do you use a RIP to print WORD-files?
 
 
 

</div>
Well, I don't use Word to organize my documents Smile 
 

Quote:<div>Don't get me wrong, I would like to have an independent RAW-tool (or some of them) and a seamless integration of those in a DAM, but the interfaces are critical. 
 
 
 

</div>
In fact I agree. But critical doesn't mean "impossible". As a software engineer I can tell you that it would be perfectly possible to have a seamless integration. The problem is that the solution should be defined and supported by the DAM tool, which is the "master", and Adobe clearly has no interest in favouring the competitors...


new Nikon gear - JJ_SO - 01-10-2015

Nobody has  :mellow:

 

otherwise we wouldn't have gazillion "different" RAW-file types. I can't talk about Canon or other manufacturers but Nikon is coming up with a new NEF "standard" each time the announce a new body. Maybe somebody of you guys knows why that's absolutely necessary, I just don't.  <_<




new Nikon gear - stoppingdown - 01-10-2015

Confirmed: more or less, every manufacturer does that. I've written a raw decoder (decoder only, not processor) time ago, as part of my project. It was impossible for a single person to track everything; you need to collect samples for each manufacturer, model and possibly firmware version.

 

Vendors enjoy some form of lock-in. That's why only an open source group would have the idealistic push to do an open platform.




new Nikon gear - JJ_SO - 01-10-2015

Great. And they need an OpenCameraPlatform because sooner or later they could get trouble because of patent violation or because of all those photographers yelling "only the original converter can handle the files of Olicontaxanon-4458-microcrisp perfectly", passengers to hell, please take your seats.




new Nikon gear - stoppingdown - 01-10-2015

It's not so easy, fortunately. While they are not so spread, there's quite a number of open software (dcraw, libopenraw) used by some commercial product, and they haven't been suited so far, in spite of being able to deal with virtually every camera model in the world. Reverse-engineering, if done with the purpose of interoperability, is decently warranted by law (furthermore, we're not talking of reverse-engineering a piece of software, but a datum; software might be protected by a license agreement which usually forbids reverse engineering, but the raw file is mine and not protected by the license).

 

Even though the scenario is in constant evolution, sometimes towards the good, others towards the bad. And, of course, with some gray areas.

 

Sure, the "only the original converter..." point is valid, but, then, everybody would pick the proper solution for his need.