The random chat thread for throwing out things that don't matter

 This is one of the most fascinating Youtube  documentaries I have seen.  Just about half way though it gets pretty amazing. They have a real life  Chinese William Wallace .  Someone should make a movie on Xu. It's really sad that some exploit the richness of eastern culture to make money though fakery. 

 This is exactly some kind of the culture you find on most hobby forums. When you expose well regarded personalities that give you complicated explanations by asking a question they just lose it and so do their followers. 

That was a good watch. I feel so bad for that man. He has too much pride. 

On another note, I had a hard drive die. All my memories and data from high school. From my first computer, though the drive is not nearly that old. At first the hard drive was only recognized as "RAW", or no known file system. Now it won't even initiate. 1.5TB of space, and probably a terabyte of actual data. I'm heartbroken. 

Posted by: @haloruler64

That was a good watch. I feel so bad for that man. He has too much pride. 

 

On another note, I had a hard drive die. All my memories and data from high school. From my first computer, though the drive is not nearly that old. At first the hard drive was only recognized as "RAW", or no known file system. Now it won't even initiate. 1.5TB of space, and probably a terabyte of actual data. I'm heartbroken. 

   I would send that hard drive to someone that can access the data and retrieve your photos.   

 I had a hard drive failure around 2009 where I lost a good number of photos. It was devastating and in the process I learned that magnetic hard drives cannot be trusted. You should have a back up and they need to be replaced every five years.  
 I just finished doing a data dump last weekend because Im moving away from Lightroom to Capture One  and I plan to buy a set of archival Blueray disks since they are suppose to be the best way to store your photos.  

 I was under the impression that SSD might be better than traditional hard drives for storage but that is not the case at all as they need to be powered up once in a while and cant be depended on for longterm storage. 

Got an estimate from one company, $400-1400. Pixel8 charges a flat fee of $700. That's a LOT LOT LOT of money. 

Yeah I'm already in the process of buying the parts for a dual bay RAID enclosure. Gonna RAID1 mirror two 4TB NAS drives. No SSDs for this. 

 That sounds good but I would still invest in archival Blueray disks for the long haul and never worry about it. 

 I also have a subscription to Smugmug where they give me unlimited storage for Jpegs that is mirrored on many servers just incase my house burns down. 

Posted by: @dev

 

 You should have a back up and they need to be replaced every five years.  
 

I put a NAS in the basement a few years ago, but when there is a connectivity issue it has been a pain to deal with.  It's still online and I use it for time machine and an occasional manual backup. RAID opens up another can of worms.  My photo computer uses SSD drives and I do incremental backups to a 8TB USB drive every 3 days. I have 2 additional 8TB externals I use to take a snapshot every few months, then store away.   After a few years of service I replace and store the old ones in the basement, its not that expensive as 8TB externals are around 100 bucks.

I'd like to hear about your Capture 1 thoughts as you get deeper in to it.  I'm on LR Classic at this point. 

Posted by: @dave

Posted by: @dev

 

 You should have a back up and they need to be replaced every five years.  
 

I put a NAS in the basement a few years ago, but when there is a connectivity issue it has been a pain to deal with.  It's still online and I use it for time machine and an occasional manual backup. RAID opens up another can of worms.  My photo computer uses SSD drives and I do incremental backups to a 8TB USB drive every 3 days. I have 2 additional 8TB externals I use to take a snapshot every few months, then store away.   After a few years of service I replace and store the old ones in the basement, its not that expensive as 8TB externals are around 100 bucks.

 

I'd like to hear about your Capture 1 thoughts as you get deeper in to it.  I'm on LR Classic at this point. 

In regards to Capture 1 its very hard to describe but I will try because its just flat out weird and very different than LR.  The layout and tabs are completely different and if you are a LR user it will frustrate you trying to find your way though the UI.  I have a feeling they did that so they would not be copying LR.  

  The first day of using it I felt like ditching it immediately because it was so alien to any development module I have used before.  The only reason I made the effort is primarily because the Fuji guys worked closely with Phase 1 to properly tune the raw conversions.   

 This gets back to why I like Fuji over Canon or even Nikon because they understand color science and most of all photography. Fuji had the old film engineers tune their profiles to actual film simulation for the various films that they manufacture. Its not just software its also hardware.  When I compared the raw file conversion from both LR and C1 it was obvious that the C1 jpeg was more organic and less artificial. 

 Although Im struggling with C1 Im finding my way around and its not so bad now that I warmed up to it.  There are some advantages like customization of the various controls which I thought was nice and the spot healing is way better then LR. The zoom is much better than LR which is what I use the most. 

 Although it is not as nice as LR as far as UI it doesn't matter to me. The reason why I switched is primarily because Capture one does something that I cant get in LR and that is absolute perfection with their profiles. With LR or Canon their profiles suck and I never use them. LR auto correction is a joke.  I even made my own profile in LR using a color checker passport and my custom settings, even that doesn't work well because each photo is different and requires work on my part and even then I have to pull back because it starts to cook the photo. With the Fuji the raw image preview looks close to a developed photo and once I apply one of their profiles it ends up better then I can do spending an hour or more in LR for one photo and thats what makes it  worth it because its a major time saver and Im blown away with the result. The images are bold but not cooked. When I try to move the sliders I end up going back to 0 because the photo is the best that it can be.  

So to sum it up, Capture one seems like its more of a boutique pro development module not meant for the general user. Its like a combination of LR and Photoshop. I have gotten use to it but unless you are using a Fuji, Phase 1 or Sony its not worth migrating from LR. 

@dev I'm late to the game on this thread, but i've been in photo/video work for about 5 years now. Shoot on sony cameras(APSC/S35), Primary RAW editor is CaptureOne, and for video I use Davinci Resolve Studio. Done a few weddings, lots of portrait shoots, family shoots, newborn, engagement, tons of personal stuff. Most of my lenses are vintage Minolta lenses with the exception of a 50f1.8 and 18-105f4 zoom lens.

My wife prefers LR as she has created a few "Looks", or presets for herself and she uses them. I prefer CaptureOne because I just kinda go all in on every photo and will copy the changes from one photo to another if I so desire. I prefer the layout of Lightroom, but the feature set in Capture One. 
I have stepped away from photography a lot, recently though, and prefer Video work from an enjoyment standpoint. Soon, in the next month or so i'm going to be starting some commercial work so that'll be fun.

Posted by: @pattielipp

@dev I'm late to the game on this thread, but i've been in photo/video work for about 5 years now. Shoot on sony cameras(APSC/S35), Primary RAW editor is CaptureOne, and for video I use Davinci Resolve Studio. Done a few weddings, lots of portrait shoots, family shoots, newborn, engagement, tons of personal stuff. Most of my lenses are vintage Minolta lenses with the exception of a 50f1.8 and 18-105f4 zoom lens.

My wife prefers LR as she has created a few "Looks", or presets for herself and she uses them. I prefer CaptureOne because I just kinda go all in on every photo and will copy the changes from one photo to another if I so desire. I prefer the layout of Lightroom, but the feature set in Capture One. 
I have stepped away from photography a lot, recently though, and prefer Video work from an enjoyment standpoint. Soon, in the next month or so i'm going to be starting some commercial work so that'll be fun.

 

  Good to hear.  I have an adapted vintage Minolta lens as well which is the 58 f1.2  that is magical. Its not the sharpest lens or will it compare to any modern lens as far as performance goes on any chart but its output is impactful especially with B&W and geometric shapes.  This is the version with the radioactive thorium and its thought that is partially responsible for the kind of output you get from it which is gritty. 

 LR is always improving since the first version I have used in beta in 2007 which changed the game. Im still discovering the feature set in Capture one and can see some advantage like choosing the quick change buttons to crop and spot heal at the top instead of changing the sub tabs. I think if given a chance I would eventually prefer Capture one because it might be more efficient but after a steep learning curve. I can also see it taking 1/4 of LRs customer base.  I did do some video work in the past like tennis requirement and promotional stuff but it was just too much work for so little pay. The editing in premier pro was hell and it was certainly not where my strengths were so I decided to just stick to photography.  

I'll probably stick with Lightroom, but there seems to always be chatter about C1 so thought I'd ask.  Adobe has a pretty good grip on the educational market, every class I've taken at the local school required it.  Eventually I'll probably get off the subscription service. I resisted the subscription services for 5 years but gave in to get the newer updates plus try the integration of LR on a tablet and their cloud service.  For the amount of photos I'm taking these days, it is a waste but for me its a form of entertainment in retirement.

Posted by: @dave

I'll probably stick with Lightroom, but there seems to always be chatter about C1 so thought I'd ask.  Adobe has a pretty good grip on the educational market, every class I've taken at the local school required it.  Eventually I'll probably get off the subscription service. I resisted the subscription services for 5 years but gave in to get the newer updates plus try the integration of LR on a tablet and their cloud service.  For the amount of photos I'm taking these days, it is a waste but for me its a form of entertainment in retirement.

There have been other photo development software over the years that were not trying to compete with LR because they simply cant. I also herd the rumblings of Capture one and was curious also. I believe what is driving the curiosity and the migration for some users is the raw conversions being superior to LR for some systems. After that people are willing to put up with learning curve of how to navigate and learn something new. I think thats C1s hook and its working. LR has some catching up to do in this area. 

Dave if you have a Sony or Fuji camera you can get the free version of Capture one express.  My free pro trail ended today so I decided to try the free version for awhile and save a few bucks until I purchase my new camera. This version looks more like LR in its layout with the previews on the bottom but simple, maybe too simple because it lacks some important features like exposure brushes and spot healing.  The monthly subscription for the paid version  is about the same as LR being $9 a month so it looks like they are going after LRs customer base but unfortunately the all camera version subscription is double that.  They also do give you the option to buy outright. There is a charm with free software.  

@dev - Thanks for the heads up on the express version. It sounds like they are in the game all the way with those tactics. More choices definitely better.  I have a mix of gear, Canon, Olympus, and Sony.  You got me thinking about this...probably makes sense to stick with LR since it handles them all, and I can accept any minor shortcomings. But, I'm going to give express a whirl.

Posted by: @dave

@dev - Thanks for the heads up on the express version. It sounds like they are in the game all the way with those tactics. More choices definitely better.  I have a mix of gear, Canon, Olympus, and Sony.  You got me thinking about this...probably makes sense to stick with LR since it handles them all, and I can accept any minor shortcomings. But, I'm going to give express a whirl.

 

 

I found the express a lot easier to use. The paid version layout is very different.  
I think I miss the paid version since I can’t get my Fuji profiles to work and I need the spot heal features.  However if I wanted to save money over a Lightroom subscription and only needed some basic corrections this would be ideal especially for people starting out. This is the way LR originally was until it wasn’t. 

Looks like I also had a hard drive failure. This was on my Seagate cloud drive that I use for movies. Luckily I have a back up so I purchased a new NAS unit that you can add your own hard drive. This new unit has the processor and the ram to handle 4k movies much easier and it does a pretty good job of it.

 I think this is the future of computers where you will no longer have physical media. You will just pay for a subscription off site for the computing and storage.  Its actually back to the way it was in the beginning with terminals and a mainframe.  

 With 5G around the corner this is probably how its going to be which can be troubling if they employ some kind of social score like they do in China.