The camera gear thread

[stephenT]

I have a Nikon D610 and a smattering of lens,.. what's my favorite new camera?

iPhone 11pro.

[Daniel Grenier]

After having been heavily into photography and logging very heavy view cameras & gear in the 50 lbs+ range for years, I find it oddly satisfying to be now logging an iPhone 11 and gimbal that weigh a few ounces. The kicker is that the end-product is just as good and oftentimes a lot better. And, I can shoot crazy-good videos to boot. How things have changed!

[Neal Pert]

I have a 10 year old Canon Rebel and a bunch of decent lenses. But when I was getting ready to walk the Camino Santiago de Compostela in 2014 I couldn't bring myself to carry a DSLR with me. I had been reading about the new Sony RX100 and grabbed myself an RX100ii for my trip. It's now become my go-to camera. Would I like an upgrade? Yes, in some ways. But that's sorta become my "thing" now, and I love using it.

[Birdbrain]

Originally Posted by dhodgeh

I'll be the oddball here....

Pentax K1-MkII, with a full complement of prime lenses covering 14mm - 500mm and everything in between.

D

Don't feel too lonely. I have the K-1 and K-3, with lots of old and newer lenses. Use them professionally for real estate, as well as personal stuff. I really couldn't ask for more, since I don't need fast frame rates or tracking autofocus (I shot sports back when it was a real challenge, with film, manual focus and no motor drive!). If I do need those features, I have a Panasonic Lumix GX8 and a few tiny lenses. It's good at doing what the Pentax can't.

For a serious landscape session, my preferred Pentax kit is the K-1 with my 31 Limited, and the K-3 with a 15 Limited and the DA 50-135/2.8. I'm interested in seeing the upcoming K3 lll, but probably won't be an early adopter.

My pro tip of the day- if you want perspective corrections more powerful than Lightroom/Photoshop, mount a full frame DSLR lens on a mirrorless shift adaptor. It's an easy hack that saves you 80% of the cost of a Nikon or Canon tilt/shift lens.

[imwjl]

Did anyone catch my Lightroom post? Anyone here have a good schema for managing my large library within a smaller amount of data? Anyone use Classic and CC?

Thank you.

[Birdbrain]

I just counted up the favorite camera brands mentioned in this thread. We're an eclectic bunch, all right.

- The leading choice is the iPhone (including one Samsung), at seven users.
- Sony follows close behind, at six.
- Next most popular are Lumix and Pentax, with five each. That's a surprise. Together, they almost double the sum of the next two.
- Canon and Nikon trail behind with three users each. Are they really the top dogs anymore?
- Fuji brings up the tail end, along with Sigma: one each. I thought Fuji was widely popular and growing fast.

In the top ranks I'm seeing three brands that excel at video, plus Pentax, which doesn't. Is that a deciding factor?

Let the counting continue...

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by imwjl

Did anyone catch my Lightroom post? Anyone here have a good schema for managing my large library within a smaller amount of data? Anyone use Classic and CC?

Thank you.

I did see your original post, but I don’t use Adobe products if I can possibly avoid it, so I deferred.

As no-one else has responded, though, I though I would. I’m an Apple guy. I use Apple Photos as my DAM. It copes very nicely with multiple sources - 2 iPhones, 4 cameras, 2 users - and easily allows my wife and I to segregate, catalog and manage all those images (some 35,000 at last count). Its editing capabilities are pretty darn good too, and it’s easy to pop out to external tools (such as Affinity Photo, which I’m a huge fan of) when you want more advanced editing capabilities.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

I did see your original post, but I don’t use Adobe products if I can possibly avoid it, so I deferred.

As no-one else has responded, though, I though I would. I’m an Apple guy. I use Apple Photos as my DAM. It copes very nicely with multiple sources - 2 iPhones, 4 cameras, 2 users - and easily allows my wife and I to segregate, catalog and manage all those images (some 35,000 at last count). Its editing capabilities are pretty darn good too, and it’s easy to pop out to external tools (such as Affinity Photo, which I’m a huge fan of) when you want more advanced editing capabilities.

Apple photos is far more capable now and most of why I have that Lightroom library (catalog). I have a slide scanner and Lightroom was good for lots of slides I imported in addition to the RAW files from SLR. I've thought about a project to write out the best in that Adobe catalog to the Apple stuff we share as a family.

It seems like sticking with Classic is best for the slide and negative scans I import.

[Photojeep]

Originally Posted by imwjl

Did anyone catch my Lightroom post? Anyone here have a good schema for managing my large library within a smaller amount of data? Anyone use Classic and CC?

Thank you.

I’m a former Lightroom user. I now use Capture One. We teach it at my college. It tethers perfectly, converts RAW files, and has DAM built in. In my opinion, it’s superior to Lightroom and doesn’t require a subscription as Adobe products do. The option exists for a subscription but it’s not required.

I recommend giving it a try. They have a 30 day full version trial and quite a lot of training on their site.

Best,
PJ

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Photojeep

I’m a former Lightroom user. I now use Capture One. We teach it at my college. It tethers perfectly, converts RAW files, and has DAM built in. In my opinion, it’s superior to Lightroom and doesn’t require a subscription as Adobe products do. The option exists for a subscription but it’s not required.

I recommend giving it a try. They have a 30 day full version trial and quite a lot of training on their site.

Best,
PJ

Thanks. It does have a steep price. I think I'm a year+ since this was last in consideration. At that point I didn't see anything like Adobe's facility to convert for Aperture users.

Even though I moved to Lightroom a while ago I kept my file structure old school and that might help. What's in my brain:

1) What and when for M1 CPUs.
2) Are there better migration options now.
3) A strategy to live within the $10 a month tier.
4) If I move to CC vs Classic will I miss features and especially if I resume using that 35 mm scanner I own.

I am over some mental aspects of computational photography and for now don't see any want or need to chase after anything camera, lens or flash. There are some updates in the system I have but they're marginal for my use. Lenses and flash have been great for a while. I have one body that does video well and a shotgun mic I can use with SLR or an iPhone.

Thank you.

[Photojeep]

imwjl,
I don't know if I'm reading your post correctly so please forgive my misunderstanding but Capture One isn't connected with Aperture.

What I find very useful in Capture One, and something I teach my students, is how it has both "Catalogs" and "Sessions" which are similar but different in many important ways.

In a nutshell, Sessions are smaller project-oriented groups of images that allow the computer to avoid being bogged down by constantly reading and writing to a large catalog. Once you're done, you can simply import the session into your catalog and nothing is lost.

The above is overly simplified for sure but if you're looking for an alternative, I recommend it. And yes, Lightroom catalogs can be imported into Capture One so all previous work is not lost.

Which ever system you use, it's a great time to be a photographer!

Best,
PJ

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Photojeep

imwjl,
I don't know if I'm reading your post correctly so please forgive my misunderstanding but Capture One isn't connected with Aperture.

What I find very useful in Capture One, and something I teach my students, is how it has both "Catalogs" and "Sessions" which are similar but different in many important ways.

In a nutshell, Sessions are smaller project-oriented groups of images that allow the computer to avoid being bogged down by constantly reading and writing to a large catalog. Once you're done, you can simply import the session into your catalog and nothing is lost.

The above is overly simplified for sure but if you're looking for an alternative, I recommend it. And yes, Lightroom catalogs can be imported into Capture One so all previous work is not lost.

Which ever system you use, it's a great time to be a photographer!

Best,
PJ

The Aperture part was remembering Adobe had a mechanism to import it that was more elegant than when I look at moving from Adobe about a year ago.

Regardless, I'm thinking of ways to have s smaller catalog and the idea of copy or write some images to Apple Photos.

I'll revisit this based on your good input.

Thank you.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by Daniel Grenier

After having been heavily into photography and logging very heavy view cameras & gear in the 50 lbs+ range for years, I find it oddly satisfying to be now logging an iPhone 11 and gimbal that weigh a few ounces.

I used to take my view camera and related paraphernalia to Yosemite quite often back in the century, but the last time I was there (1999) I just brought my Rolleiflex E (Zeiss Planar) and Gitzo 224/275. Very enlightening! I had lots of HP5+ and Konica Infrared 750nm with me.