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Everything posted by Brian
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I've got nothing. I'd contact Intous next.
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Here is the thing with 4K screens: The PHYSICAL AREA REMAINS THE SAME. It's either 14" - 17.2" - 15.1" whatever. All the manufacturers have done is cram more pixels into the same physical area. Things are TINY on a 4K display. Then you have to zoom in to make things look "Normal." Know what happens when you zoom in? Things look crappy, especially your photos. I completely agree with Damien: 4K is Poppycock. 5K is complete Bullfeathers. Unfortunately, marketing has taken over and this type of tech is here to stay. Case in point, I have a customer, who is a pediatrican's office. Two of the Doctors got new laptops with fancy 4K screens. Since their Medical Software isn't 4K ready, you have to lower the resolution in order for them to see the TINY icons, LOL!!
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Photo Mechanic is the industry leading software for what you want to do and it works really well. The alternative is paying $9.99 a month (plus applicable taxes) to have PS CC. So let's round that to $12 a month, conversationally speaking. After 12 months at $12, that's $144. So in a sense are paying $150 either way, or close to it, after a year.
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Life is so much easier with a card reader. Trust us.
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The main question should be is, are you doing this professionally or is it just a hobby? If you are shooting professionally, then time is money and I would certainly recommend upgrading to the full version of PS CC for $9.99 a month, which includes Bridge. For a hobby, it's really up to you. If you take lots of photos, wasting hours trying to find things is kinda nuts. The only real way to get around not using Bridge or a similar software (free or otherwise) is to have a rock-solid organizational file structure. Then all you would need is something like Raw Right Away to view the Photos while searching through the hard drive. As far as Canon, they have their own viewer software. Your camera should have came with a CD that had the viewer software that I'm talking about, so look for what it's called and download the current version from Canon's Website.
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Finally, if you own a Mac, the Mac OS is based on a old operating system from the 1970's, called Unix. (Pronounced You-Nicks). The Mac OS treats devices like EHD, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, CF/SD Readers as physical hard-wired devices to the computer. It's like they are all hard drives. Transferring Photos on a Mac almost REQUIRES some sort of reader, unless you enjoy hating life and making things difficult for yourself. If that's the case, have at it. LOL!! But seriously, if you have a Mac, please use a Card Reader.
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Speed. Card Readers are often A LOT faster than any camera, unless you have a fancy $6000+ Pro Grade Body and has an Ethernet Port built in. Possible Battery Failure during transfer. I know, this is rare, but it's plausible. Even though you may not be doing anything, if your camera is hooked up to the computer, it's using the battery. If that dies during transfer, you could have a scrambled card. Bent Pins in a CF slot. One of my famous quotes applies here, "...The First Law of Human Ingenuity: At first it doesn't fit...shove it in harder." Bent pins suck. I know, as time goes on and we move away from CF (Pin-Style Media) this type of failure will eventually go away. While we wait for another 10+ years for that to happen across the board, I will reiterate...BENT PINS SUCK. They cause all sorts of damage to CF cards. You know what's worse? Bent Pins in the CF Slot on the camera! I personally know of one photographer who blew up three cameras due to a bent pin in a slot during a Wedding. Card didn't work in Camera One. Took the CF card from Camera One and put it into Camera Two, which was the backup. Card was shorted from Camera One and blew up Camera Two. Photographer Grabbed 2nd shooter's backup camera and blew that one up. Again, bent pins suck. I hate wasting money, so which would you rather have, a $30 Card Reader Replacement or a $300 repair bill from your camera manufacturer? Now, I understand that lots of folks in here are just "Hobbyists" and only do this for "Fun" and have "...NEVER had a problem..." so I shouldn't be so "Serious" about this topic. I get it. After all, it's just photographs...we aren't curing cancer, or ending world hunger, right? I mean, it's not like photographs are important or anything like that in the grand scheme of things, right? RIGHT? Until they are. Until your luck runs out. Oh, give this article a read. Thom Hogan interviewed the ORIGINAL PROGRAMMER that came up with the idea for data recovery on CF Media. His software is the one that Sandisk uses and he has great insights on how to treat your cards. (Hint: NEVER DELETE IN-CAMERA.) Please read the whole thing. The Data Recovery Interview by Thom Hogan.
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You can use Raw Right Away to view Raw files in the Finder. Photo Mechanic is also a popular and recommended tool, but it costs $150. If you shoot Nikon, you could use their free photo-viewer program, ViewNX. I personally use ViewNX and have for years. It's good for something basic, but as with practically all Nikon Software, it's buggy and is quirky...and it's free. I'm sure there are equivalent software products from the other camera manufacturers.
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How long? Depending on the speed of your internet connection, I'd say roughly 1-2 hours total? Maybe less?
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Re-read my answer above. Specifically... "OSX Mavericks was the last Mac OS that had the LEAST amount of problems with PS!!! If you can upgrade to Mavericks...DO IT!!!" Why not just go straight to Sierra? Because of weird quirky problems with PS. Since you make money from this computer (Remember, you can always upgrade to Sierra, but Mavericks...your situation is unique.) I'm really concerned. Hopefully Apple hasn't pulled the plug. If you can't update to Mavericks and are forced to upgrade to Sierra...guess what? You are going to Sierra. The only way to know is to try and see what happens. You should be able to click "Cancel" to stop the install procedure. I'm hoping you can go to Mavericks, but it's been a LONG time and with Apple, either you play by their rules or you don't play. Oh, Windows Peeps, Microsoft is doing this as well these days, so don't be so smug. Hell, they forced a Windows 10 upgrade on many computers in 2016 which resulted in businesses losing revenue. In fact, a Travel Agency sued Microsoft for screwing up their computers and WON. But I'm digressing here... I am personally running Mavericks 10.9.5 and iTunes 12.5.4.42, which I believe is the latest version of iTunes. My iPhone is running iOS 10.2. So I would upgrade to Mavericks, then update iTunes. Then update your iPhones / iPads to the latest iOS. Yep. You are kinda stuck. You are either going to have to upgrade, or since this machine generates income, purchase a new computer and transfer your iTunes library over to the new one. With a Time Machine Backup, once the TM EHD starts getting full, the Time Machine Software DELETES the oldest backup(s) to make room. Time Machine is not meant to be a complete and forever archival method, it's meant to be there if you accidentally delete something, restore a corrupted file, or to restore your main hard drive in case of failure. It's very good at what it's meant for. If you think Time Machine is to keep files forever...it is not. I'd just leave the TM drive alone and don't mess with it. Let the Time Machine Software handle things.
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Turn off iMac monitor while using external monitor
Brian replied to FidoPhoto's topic in The Macintosh User Group
Nope. Not with a iMac.- 1 reply
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I bought a used D700 a few months back. I added the D3s battery to the grip, so it shoots at 8fps now, which is helpful with my son's Baseball games. I also have the Nikon 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200 VR II to go with it. Those lenses make a BIG difference. Oh, and I'm not humble-bragging. It's taken me several years, more than one tax return, a loan (which is paid off) and several weddings / gigs to purchase the "Nikon Trinity." It was not easy, I had to find a way to make it happen. My next camera purchase is probably a used D3s in decent shape. The skin tones from a D3s are fantastic and it still holds its own for a camera that came out in 2009. If I were to upgrade to a camera body that had 24mp or more, I'd have to upgrade my 2009 iMac. So for the moment, I'm still living in 2009 technology-wise.
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Believe it or not, I'm going to recommend that you use the old Apple Cinema Display! Reasons are as follows: It's an External Display. It stays at the same viewing angle until you change it. An External Display stays in the same area. You won't be editing from the couch, in bed, beside the pool, or the kitchen table...each with different color casts and type/quality of light. When you use a laptop, the angle of the display changes each time you open it. This can shift how you see detail in the shadows as well as in highlights. The Retina Displays tend to have higher resolutions, which make photos look crappy, especially during editing. I know, you can't get anything but a 5K screen these days, but with all that resolution in the same physical area, things appear smaller. So when you enlarge them to see what you are editing, it doesn't look as good. External Displays tend to be easier to Calibrate.
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I found this on the internet, have you given it a try? The solution for this is to disable two settings that are on by default in Win7: "Press and Hold" and "Flicks". Open the Windows Control Panel and type "tablet" into the search field. Or if you have "Small Icons," proceed to step two. Select "Pen and Touch" settings. From the "Pen Options" tab, select "Press and Hold" and click "Settings..." Make sure "Enable press and hold for right-clicking" is unchecked. Click OK. Select the "Flicks" tab Make sure that "Use flicks to perform common actions quickly and easily" is unchecked. Click Apply, and OK.
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Yep, they are the JPEG settings. The camera has built-in settings and does a bit of post-processing with JPEGS AND THE JPEG PREVIEW, which is the image that you see on the Rear LCD. Always remember, that the image on the LCD is not the Raw file, but the embedded JPEG. That is why your camera's rear-lcd is a lying and cheating whore who will sell you down the river if given a chance. It is also the reason why your images goes from #amazeballz to #blah when you import into ACR / LR, etc.
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@Tenille: Look towards the end of Feb. / beginning of March 2017 for any "big" releases / updates. Nikon has a habit of making announcements then. Followed by a August / Sept. release of some sort.
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Let me get my D700. For to shoot in RAW, the easy way is to hold down the QUAL button on the top and rotate the rear dial. Look on the Top LCD and on the left, you will see the various settings as you scroll through them, you want to see the word RAW only. Now hit the Menu Button and head to the Shooting Menu (Little Camera) Icon. The Image Quality should display RAW. Now arrow down to JPEG Compression and set it to Optimal Quality. The reason for doing this, is just in case you fat-finger something and end up on JPEG, it's best to use the highest quality mode. Believe it or not, this setting has saved my arse twice. Now, arrow down to NEF (RAW) Recording. Type should be ON and the NEF (RAW) bit depth should be set to 12-bit. You could set it to 14-bit, but in real-world circumstances, there isn't THAT much different between the two and 14-bit Images take more space. That said, I've created a bank for "Portraits" and one for Landscapes and set it to 14-bit. I figured, what the hell. For EVERYTHING else, Weddings, Sports and Action, normal stuff, I'm using 12-bit Raw. As long as you are good with your exposure the 12-bit / 14-bit becomes a non-issue. Oh, while you are in the shooting menu, make sure your Color Space is set to sRGB. Yes, I know it doesn't make a difference if you are shooting in Raw, but it's another Cover-Your-Ass setting just in case you are accidentally shooting JPEG. To enable Back Button Focusing, head to the Pencil Icon, which is the custom setting menu. Select the A section. A1 - Set it to Focus. A2 - Set it to Focus. These two settings tell the camera to only take the photo if it feels that the subject is in focus. For Back Button Focusing, select A5 - AF Activation and set it to AF-ON only. This tells the camera to NOT use the shutter button to engage auto-focus and only use the AF-ON button. Could you take a photo with your phone and upload it. In other words, "Huh?"
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Creating/updating backup of photo files
Brian replied to Kim Haugen's topic in The Windows & PC Hardware Forum
For Drives that I recommend, I tend to have expensive tastes. What is your budget? Also, do you plan on moving this EHD to various places or will it stay in one spot? -
Creating/updating backup of photo files
Brian replied to Kim Haugen's topic in The Windows & PC Hardware Forum
For this circumstance, yes. It's the same. Pro has some features that Home doesn't, like going above 16GB RAM, being able to join a Windows Domain, stuff like that. But for the backup software that I linked to above, it doesn't matter. I try to avoid the $79 specials at Costco or Best Buy, etc. 3TB external drives are all a crap-shoot. There is still a mix and you might get a 3TB that works for a long time, or one that dies on you. Most of the time, the manufacturers use the cheapest enclosures with the crappiest USB ports, so the drive inside the case might be fine, it's that you can't get to it. As for brands, I like specific models of Western Digital's products, specifically the Caviar Black Drives. I've been burned by Seagates more than once over the years and I personally avoid them. I've even had one Seagate smoke in front of my eyes. Fortunately, I didn't have anything important on that drive when it blew up / smoked. In addition, Seagate bought Maxtor a few years back and Maxtor made the world's crappiest drives. High failure rates on those drives. Dell loved using those drives, since they were so cheap and offered high-capacities. Out of 10 HDs that I replaced way back when, 8 out of 10 were bad Maxtor Hds, One would be a Seagate and one would be WD or another brand. So my point for this story? Since Seagate bought Maxtor, it's not that far of a stretch to think of the "$79 Special at Costco" to be a rebranded Maxtor HDs. Of course this is my opinion, but is based on a real-world personal experience. I've physically replaced those crappy Maxtor HDs on a normal basis, and now Seagate owns them. So to make a long story short, I personally avoid Seagate Hard Drives, no matter how good the deal is. Bottom Line: 4TB Hard Drives are a safer bet vs 3TB Models. -
Switching Windows 10 32-bit to Windows 10 64-bit
Brian replied to NicoleU's topic in The Windows & PC Hardware Forum
I would download the driver from the manufacturer's website to a thumbdrive (from another computer) and Install it locally. Since things are timing out, the windows update isn't helping you. Also, you might have to format 1st and do a fresh install. Is your friend available? -
Creating/updating backup of photo files
Brian replied to Kim Haugen's topic in The Windows & PC Hardware Forum
Here is another one, though it saddened me to learn of this programmer's death. Karen Kentworthy made really good stuff/utilities back in the day, and here is her free backup program. While it's still available, it's not being updated. It should work though. That said, I would try the others first before using Karen's at this point. -
Creating/updating backup of photo files
Brian replied to Kim Haugen's topic in The Windows & PC Hardware Forum
The reason that I recommend purchasing a 4TB EHD over a 3TB, is that when the 3TB drives first hit the scene, Thailand got hit with MAJOR FLOODS. It's Thailand that produces hard drives and even consumer DSLR models. So when factories were under water, the manufacturers had to take drastic measures. For a time, Western Digital Drives were made at the Seagate Plant, and vice-versa. It was a real mess and Quality Control wasn't that great. 3TB Drives had a tendency to have high failure rates. So even though that things seemed to have leveled off, there is still a lot of 3TB HDs that are time-bombs and I would hate for one of the members here to lose all of there photos. 4TB HDs never were affected by the floods, so if it fails, you just got a bad drive, not because things were underwater / all sorts of crazy. Yes. You need special backup software to do it. That type of backup is called an incremental backup. The one I recommend is SyncToy from Microsoft. It's not bullet-proof, but it's free and does a decent job. Second Copy from Centered Systems also comes to mind. That one you'll have to pay for, though $30 isn't too bad. FolderClone is another one, it costs $45 after the trial, but advertises a "set it and forget it" type of mode, which seems to be what you are after. I'd start with one of those programs first and let me know if they do what you want them to do. -
Keep checking NikonRumors.com. In fact, there is a rumor about a D760 on the front page as I type this.
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You might want to invest in a monopod and ball head. That will help out greatly and still be able to give you movement. Then again, that's gonna be an extra $150 or so on top of what you spent already. How about getting rid of the stuff in your bag that collects dust? How about selling this 70-200 and going for the IS version? Make it happen in 2017. Find a way.
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Technique! Technique!! Technique!!! Holding a non IS Zoom lens is a lot like holding a gun. Breathing, how your arms are held, the position of them against your body...you are going to have to develop good technique. That takes time and practice. There are no shortcuts, or "...secret methods taking you to the next level." What you need to do is shoot with your 70-200 only for about a month or more. Shoot EVERYTHING with it. Eat-Sleep-Breathe that lens. Figure out what it can and can't do. Be proactive. Make notes. Find out how the lens behaves at all focal lengths. I know it's easy to get hooked on 200mm, but try it at other focal lengths and pay attention to where you are standing, distance to your subject, how your body is positioned, etc. Figure out your breathing patterns, feel your heart beat, get truly in the moment. All of this stuff will affect your shots. IS / VR helps a lot with these things, but you still need good technique. I can't tell you how many shots I blow just by rushing or being nervous. Even after all these years (started with B&W Film in 1986.) When I get away from the basics, my shots are crappy. This is wax-on / wax-off type of stuff, again no shortcuts. If you want a shortcut, you are paying for the $1899 Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II Lens. Just think, Image Stabilization Tech wasn't available until the early 2000's. People used Monopods, Tripods, and had good technique. So it can be done. As for wasting money, I'd say yes. Only because I have done the same exact thing as you in the past. The "I can't afford _______ and can't be patient. I need it NOW, so I'm gonna settle for _______." I'm a big proponent of "Buy it Right - Buy it Once" mentality. Even if I have to buy it used. So it's very rare for me to not recommend the high-quality stuff. In my honest opinion, the 70-200 f/4L IS lens for $500 more would have been a better buy. This shit is expensive. I get it. I'm right there with you. But throwing money away is not an option either. People, including myself, go after the things they value. They will find a way to make things happen. It's when you go half-assed into something, you settle. Tax refunds, not eating out 3-4 times a week. Skipping the morning trip to the $5 coffee place and divert that money into savings. You'd be surprised on just how quickly you throw money away. Coming up with the extra $500 isn't as hard as it sounds. How about selling things? Plenty of Buy/Sell Groups on FB, yard sales, etc. Don't ever settle. Right now I'm shooting with a D700. I thought I would NEVER be able to shoot with a full frame body. Seriously, I was stuck in DX-Land for a long time. But guess what? I made it happen. Now I have my sights on a used D3s next. I know I'm going after a 80-400mm lens in 2017 and I'm trying to figure out a way to make that happen. I should have that lens by June of 2017, just in time for my trip to Cape Cod. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not being an ass. I just hate seeing people waste good money. I get the fact that this could just be a hobby for you or you are looking to shoot professionally, I don't care...the end-result is the same. Go after what you want and never settle. Don't ever cheap out on lenses. Even if you have to wait a little.