Brian

Here is a shot of all my EHDs that are hooked up to my Mac: Yours should be similar.

Thank you so much for the link, now I know what we are dealing with. APFS FORMAT IS FOR SSD DRIVES / Flash-based Media. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is meant for Spinning / Traditional Drives. How do I know that it's a Traditional / Spinning HD? From the price and specs. a 6TB Flash Based Drive is closer to $800 than $149. Let's begin... Believe it or not, you know the bulk of what we need to do, as you have done it already. I'd remove all external drives as a precaution, or simply right-click and select "Eject." Then head to Application Folder >> Utilities >> Disk Utility. From there, select that WD MyBook 6TB Drive and choose the "Erase Button" at the top. Give the HD a name, and when it asks for a Partition Type, you want Mac OS Extended (Journaled). >> JUST THAT ALL BY ITSELF, NO CASE SENSITIVE, NO ENCRYPTED, none of that stuff!! JUST PLAIN 'OL MAC OS EXTENDED (JOURNALED)!!! << Here is a shot of my 12TB external. Give it a name of your choice, something obvious, like "Time Machine." I'm sure there will be a few warning pop-ups, asking if you really-really want to do this, click Yes/OK/Confirm, whatever. Wait a few seconds and the drive will format. Close out of Disk Utility, and head back to the Mac Desktop. Right click on the WD EHD, and choose "Get Info." It should say Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Partition Type. Close the Get Info Box. Hook up all your external hard drives, if you can, and I'd do a restart. This will make sure everything is mounted. Once restarted, we will dork around with Time Machine. Head to the System Settings, Click the Gear Icon on the Dock Bar and select "General," you should see Time Machine on the right. System Settings >> General >> Time Machine. From there we want to add that WD 6TB EHD as your Time Machine Drive. We want to add that WD 6TB EHD to be the drive that's used for "Time Machine," by clicking the "+" sign at the bottom / lower-left corner... ...and selecting the drive we want to use for Time Machine: Then choose "Set Up Disk..." After it's selected to be a "Time Machine" Drive, click Options and be sure to exclude ANY External Hard Drives that have your Data / Images on them. >> Time Machine is really only meant to backup your Internal "Macintosh HD" Drive. << It is not good practice / really-really-really bad, to backup your externals to your Time Machine Drive. That's how you get into trouble; you are backing up your backup files to a Time Machine Drive that is serving as your backup. It's like a closed loop, got it? Meaning it is a recipe for disaster when the time comes to restore things. Plus, it's real easy to fill up a drive configured like that. Just...don't. (This is what started this mess, along with the wrong partition type.) Here is what my Time Machine Options look like, noticed how my externals are excluded, along with the actual Time Machine Drive: If you need to add any external HDs to be Excluded, just click the "+" sign and select the drives. (See a theme here? Apple makes this pretty straightforward.) Then click Done and close out of Time Machine. It should start the initial backup, which might take a few hours, then it's set to backup each hour. That should be it at this point, let me know if there are any problems.

I'd be more concerned with editing on a plane / airport, as the light around the tablet WILL change how you see your colors. Just like a laptop. So for culling and passing the time, sure. For serious editing work...you want to do that at home, in the area that you normally edit in. Give it a shot and report back. I'm curious.

RTX 5070 or 5080, with at least 8GB of dedicated Video RAM, using the NVIDIA Studio Drivers. (The more VRAM the better, like 12GB or 16GB+.) The "Studio Drivers" are meant for programs like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. The default Drivers are meant for Video Games / General Computing. I have never been a fan of the "60" or "50" of NVIDIA's lineup. (i.e. 3060 / 4050, etc.)

It could very well be a sensor issue (repair) that Canon needs to get involved.

YES. Also yes, but with Jazz Hands. That's what started us down this whole "Rabbit Hole," and I feel that it started with the WD software screwing up and creating things in the wrong parititon. I mean, how would you know that "Case-sensitive, (Journaled)" would cause you so much grief? In reality, ALL of your HDs need to be erased that have the Case-sensitive BS. Fortunately, it only sounds like that WD HD is the culprit and it had your files. In addition, if you had your Time Machine Backup files on it, I wouldn't worry about those either; with it being in the wrong format, those Time Machine files are worthless. Good times, eh? The good news is, you have Backblaze and this time it's saving your butt AND we can start a fresh Time Machine Backup. So get that Thumbdrive squared away and your files restored. Then once that is completed, I want to erase that WD 4TB EHD and re-partition/format it to the correct format. Is that EHD a traditional spinning drive?

WD Discovery Software?!!! Oh FFS... ::: BRIAN SMACKS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL ::: This just got a whole lot more complicated. You do not need any of that crap software that the manufactures include on their drives. Right now I want that WD Discovery software GONE. I will warn you, it's a bit messy and you will need to manually delete files and folders after the un-install. What I think we should do now, is remove all externals from the computer. I don't want anything hooked up, just you and your Mac. Then we are removing that blasted Western Digital Software, as I think it's getting in the way, trying to "help." I found these instructions, here is a screenshot of them: After you complete ALL the steps. REBOOT. The WD Discovery Software is trying to manage your new Thunderbolt Drive, along with all of the other drives on your computer. It is not needed; everything is built into the macOS, like Disk Utility...THAT is the only thing you need to manage hard drives. Get that software removed, and report back. At this point, I'm not worried about Bridge. While we are at it, I'm sure WD Drive Utilities software is also installed. (This is probably where the HD setup got screwed up, with the Case-sensitive Garbage.) So let's REMOVE WD DRIVE UTILITIES as well. BTW: It's not you who I'm frustrated at, it's the blasted Manufacturers. WD has been doing this stuff with their blasted software since the 1990's. It just causes so much grief, configure things incorrectly, and just gets in the way. Partitioning / Formatting a drive isn't that difficult, but they just use this fancy GUI software that is supposed to make you feel better about your purchase. The truth is, their software sucks...and has since I first dealt with in in 1993. So I want ALL Western Digital Software GONE-GONE-GONE. Why do they include it? To cut down on tech support calls / to save them money.

Alright, I'm back at my Desk. I want you to try this: Open Preferences (Gear Icon on the Dockbar.) Head to Privacy & Security Select Full Disk Access From there you should see a list of programs that have full disk access. Lightroom / Photoshop might be at the top: We will need to add Bridge CC to this list. Click the + sign towards the bottom, on the left side of the Full Disk Access Column. It will ask you for your logon password, enter it and click Modify Settings. It should open up your Application Folder, find the version of Adobe Bridge Folder that you are using in the list. On my computer, that's Adobe Bridge 2024: Select it, and click "Open." From there, select the actual Bridge 2024 (or whatever version you are using) Program File: Click Open at the bottom; Bridge should now be in the list: Now head back to Privacy & Security, and select, Files & Folders. Make sure Adobe Bridge has Full Disk Access, it should: Click the Red Circle / Close Button at the top of Privacy & Security, and for giggles, restart your computer. Then try ratings again. It should work.

Interesting. Buy it and report back!

I’m wondering if this is a permissions issue? Hmm. Hang on until I get back home from my day job. we will check what access Bridge has on your HD. If it doesn’t have permission to add to the files, like ratings, you will get a whole lotta nothing. We still need to nuke the Time Machine Drive, that’s a traditional spinning EHD, yes?

Another thing you could try, is lowering the resolution of your camera; lower it from 45MP to 25MP (or even lower) at the higher ISOs. That might help with the noise. In reality, most people only “need” between 16-20MP.

The Canon R5, like the Nikon D850 is around 45MP. Those two cameras need to have the current versions of the lenses you are using, especially zooms. So if you are using an older EF 70-200 with some sort of adapter, and not Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM Z Lens (Black), that could be the source of your issue. Yes, the camera adapter makes lenses technically "work," but if you want the best possible quality, you are forking out more money. This is one of the things that I hate with buying my D850...I had to buy a new 24-70 f/2.8 AND a new 70-200! Even though my older versions of the lenses work perfectly fine with my D4. That stupid camera body costed me so much money. Oh, the reason you are getting better results is the classic Prime vs Zoom thing that's been around forever. Primes will always be sharper and in this case, more-so. Mirrorless Bodies really require Mirrorless Lenses. Noise, just like my D850, the more megapixels, the more noise you are gonna get. My D4 with it's 16MP is light-years ahead of my fancy D850. I hate going above ISO 3200 with my D850, it's worthless. It's only money, right? What I'd do next is rent a RF 70-200 and see how that goes. Right now that lens is $3300, probably due to Tariffs, and I'd hate to see what you'd pay.

Yes, leave it at the default! Select GUID Partition Map!!! The Master Boot Record is for Windows Partitions, which we aren't doing, and the Apple Partition Map is for really old Macs from the 1990's.

Alright, you are 99% there since you already know about Disk Utility. Just click the "Erase" Button at the top and you should see something like this pop-up: Your name might be different, and that's fine, but the important choice you need to make is for the Format. Simply choose APFS in the choices menu. NO (Encrypted) NO (Case-sensitive) NO (Case-sensitive, Encrypted) None of that. JUST APFS all by itself. Give it a name that is obvious to you, like Thunderbolt 4TB or something along those lines. Then click Erase. After a few seconds you should see your new drive appear on the Mac Desktop. I'd copy over a simple file to your new drive as a read/write test, and when that works, copy over all the images / data files on your existing EHD, the one that has all of the issues. Do not copy the Time Machine Files. Leave them alone. Also, DO NOT MOVE / CLICK AND DRAG!!! I want you to do a "Select All" on that 4TB EHD and then choose "Copy." Open the new 4TB and select "Paste." Do nothing else on your computer. Just let it do it's thing. Bonus Points: Use the new Thunderbolt Drive in the Thunderbolt Port. The difference between the two is if you move / cut / drag files over, you are deleting the source material as it attempts the copy. If something were to go wrong, and you had to cancel the data transfer, you are fucked, to put it bluntly. By doing a Copy / Paste, the original source files stay intact. This way if something were to screw up, you hit cancel and try again. After you are 110% sure that all of your images / data files are on the new drive, we are going to Nuke that existing EHD, and then set it up for Time Machine only. So get your new drive squared away and report back.

Cool. Since it's a SSD Drive, we will skip the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Partition Type and head straight to Apple's newest Partition Type, call APFS. The first step we need to do is to check how it's setup and the easiest way it to turn on the HDs to be visible on the desktop: Open the Finder. The easiest way is to click the Smiley Face on your DockBar: Then head to the Finder Menu (Next to the Apple Menu) and select Preferences: Once there put check-marks next to these items and change the bottom to "Macintosh HD" if you want: Finally, Click the Red Circle in the Upper Left Corner to save the new changes and close the Preferences box. Now when you insert an External HD or Camera Memory Card into a Card Reader, they will appear on the Mac Desktop. For example: From there, hook up your new HD on your Mac and right-click and select "Get Info." Post a screenshot. Then we will head to step two.