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July 30, 2010 - Well, looks like those long lost, $200 million Ansel Adams glass negatives are a bust. A woman from Fresno has come forward with some pretty compelling evidence that the alleged Adams negatives are actually her Uncle Earl's. Watch the video and you decide.

This follows on some very critical comments by two well-known photographers I follow, Brooks Jensen and Michael Johnston.

First, Brooks Jensen doesn't criticize in suggesting that the negatives are not by Ansel Adams. Rather, he criticizes the gross stupidity of the media and the art world for placing a $200 million figure out of thin air to value the negatives. Brooks figures that he's about 1/32,000 as good a photographer as Adams, thus his collection of negatives should be worth $1 million, which he will gladly sell to anyone willing to pay the price.

Second, Johnston indicates that the alleged Adams negatives have been flogged as such before and this is merely history repeating, except that now that Uncle Earl is a factor, this could be a farcial repeat. Johnston never believed the negatives to be Adams' and after seeing the video about Uncle Earl, I agree.

Rick Norsigian, the holder of the negatives of alleged provenance, is attempting to sell certified darkroom prints for...what for it...USD $7,500! With the ghost of Uncle Earl, when icicles form in hell, maybe.

Thom Hogan has been raising a bit of stink lately. First, he angers the Sony users by suggesting that Sony is about to dump FX sensor development (or is it just FX SLRs?) Now, he annoys Nikon uers (again) with a non-recommendation of Nikon Capture NX.

Frankly, given all that I've heard about Capture NX, I agree with Hogan that it ain't worth the time and effort. Over the years, I've bought a couple of tutorials about Capture NX with a view to learn how to use the NEF converter, but never got around to it after getting into Lightroom.

With Lightroom, you could get going pretty quickly without having consult a manual because the UI is so nicely laid out with clear names and adjustment tools. With Capture NX, it's almost like having to toss out common sense in order to even begin to understand how to start working on an image.

The other night, I got a call from a brother-in-law, asking if I had a camera that could imprint a date stamp on photos. Date stamp? On a photo? Whoa, talk about a Hot Tub Time Machine moment (not that I actually know anything about the movie).

I haven’t heard of date stamps on photographs since the film days of the 1990s. My memory dimly recalled that an almost forgotten about Nikon compact film camera in one of my storage cases, could imprint a date stamp on the negative. My brother-in-law asked if film could even be bought nowadays…after the laughter subsided, we continued the conversation.

With some brief research, it turns out that some digicams can imprint a date stamp on the digital file and as luck had it, my brother-in-law’s Canon digicam is one of those cameras.

We both chuckled at the ridiculousness of some bureaucrat needing an actual photograph with a date stamp on it – the question about having a camera that could do this originates from a city hall form to be filled out and supplemented with before and after photos with the requisite data stamp.

I guess city hall is not aware of metadata or how easy it would be to fake a date stamp, either with Photoshop, or one would assume, by merely changing the date and time setting of the digicam.

Speaking of digicams, I fumbled around with the same brother-in-law’s Canon digicam at his recent birthday party. I was handed the camera to take some quick snaps of the birthday cake moment, but really, I was the wrong guy to hand a digicam, because I can never figure them out.

SLRs are easier because they all share the same basic functionality and ergonomics (although Nikon has the best UI). And, they sure as hell are a lot faster in responding to the release of the shutter.

For one of the shots, I released the shutter and nothing happened for a second, while the camera took its sweet time to decide when to take the photo. Sometimes the flash went off, sometimes it did not and when reviewed on the LCD, it looked like the flash output was too high and the subjects were not in crisp focus.

It was a practical reminder why I despise this class of camera and even a very competent and successful camera maker, Canon, can’t get it right with its mass consumer models. It’s not to say that bigger and more expensive cameras are perfect, far from it, but the UI of the Panasonic GF1 would have allowed me to work faster and dial in a better exposure.

However, the Panasonic M4/3 cameras aren't perfect either when it comes to flash photography. If you're in Auto ISO mode and you're using a fairly wide open aperture, chances are the flash will not fire even though you have it popped up. The Panasonic cameras won't fire the flash unless the exposure setting and/or ambient light conditions warrant a flash photo. If I have the ISO set high I have to stop down the lens to get the flash to fire, or force the flash to fire in the menu settings (I think, it's been a while since I've used the flash on my M4/3 cameras, so forgive my brain freeze).

Of the three brands I have regular experience with, Nikon is still the easiest and most consistent system when it comes to flash photography.

July 29, 2010 - The Way I See It is Dave Black’s new book and in a savvy bit of recognizing the new media world we live in, Black made the book available as an app for Apple’s iPad.

For an app, it’s pricey at $25, since most apps hover in the $10 range. Like it or not, Apple seems to have set a pricing paradigm with songs being sold on iTunes for a buck each (128 kbps) – for those desiring a bit higher quality, you can spend an extra $0.30 and get a 256 kbps version. For good apps, the paradigm is $10 and for an app to cost significantly more than that price, it had better be outstanding.

However, while configured as an app, Black’s offering is not really an app. It doesn’t offer any functionality for the iPad and it’s not a piece of wasteful entertainment like a game. It really is just an electronic version of a printed book with a couple of interactive features to take advantage of the electronic medium. It could have just as easily have been a PDF, which I think would be more suitable for mass distribution. Even if several million iPads have been sold in North America, there are still hundreds of millions of PC users worldwide. However, maybe Black’s book is already available as a PDF?

My surprise about the higher than normal price of the app biased me somewhat when I started reading and looking at Black’s words and photos. If he had called it a book distributed as an app, I probably would not be wasting so much time discussing the price J

Once I got beyond the price, I really enjoyed Black’s photos. For a bit of a backgrounder, Dave Black is one of the preeminent sports photographers in the USA. His name comes up high in the rankings of sports photographers and as a Nikon user for 30 years, his name also pops up amongst the Nikon using royalty of Moose Peterson, Joe McNally, Jay Maisel amongst others.

Black is a pioneer for strobing sports, which is mounting very fast flash units in the rafters of an arena to light the action. Black noticed that one of his clients, Sports Illustrated started to use strobes in a big way for the major games in the late 1980s and Black read the tealeaves correctly by buying his own strobes. He quickly established a reputation for delivering the look that editors demanded. As the competition caught up, Black pushed himself to come up with newer and better ways to photograph to stay a step ahead.

Nowadays, strobing a sporting event is commonplace. Watching NHL or NBA games will see flash pops go off regularly as the pros use their PocketWizard tranceivers to fire off their rafter-mounted strobes. And, when I say strobe, I mean the big and very fast cycling flash heads made by Elinchrome or Speedotron, not your typical Nikon SB900 flash unit.

Black’s been strobing his sports event coverage for about 20 years now and the biggest change and benefit for him over those years is that now he can mount battery-powered strobes instead of having to bring hundreds of feet of extension power cords. The current flash heads also afford the ability to change power output and ratios from camera position instead of having to go up into the rafters to adjust the strobes manually. While I have no such experience with mounting and adjusting ceiling mounted strobes, I can still appreciate the convenience of adjusting power from the camera instead of my current practice of having to use a step stool to adjust the output of my mono lights.

Like many other sports pros, Black makes use of remote controlled cameras also mounted high in the rafters to take photos from a unique perspective. While there is variability to using remote cameras in that you don’t know what you’ll get until you retrieve the camera, Black discusses how he has the photo in his mind and figures out which mounting position will be the best to obtain the photo he wants.

In addition to strobing, Black has done a fair bit light painting in long exposure photographs. While best known for sports, Black has also branched out into other styles and genres.

Black is also a digital pioneer and was one of the first Nikon using pros to adopt the D1 in 1999, when Nikon changed the game with a relatively affordable D-SLR. As you view the photos and the technical details, you can see that Black has used every pro Nikon D-SLR from the D1 to the D3X. I can imagine that it is very expensive for Black to stay on the cutting edge and while many believe that big-name pros get free gear from Nikon, it just ain’t so (unlike Canon). Like Moose, who regularly has to remind people of this, Black buys his own Nikon cameras and lenses.

I’d speculate though that Black benefits from being a tester of new Nikon gear and will be compensated from Nikon using his photos in marketing materials and promotional campaigns. However, my point from all this is that it looks like Black spends a lot of money on cameras to remain competitive and to offer his clients more choices. For example, using the D3X may seem like overkill for most of his assignments, but you never know when you will take a killer photo that will sell well to clients and also be suitable for making poster prints, which will generate additional revenue.

The app has some interactive features through a hiding toolbar that runs along the right side of the book’s pages. An icon that looks like text will pop out a text box that provides some comment about the specific photo and how Black came to take the photo. A camera icon pops out a text box that discusses the technical details of the photo, such as the camera and lenses used and the exposure along with any accessories used.

About my only criticism with the book (other than the price, which is actually okay for a book, just not an “app” J) is that the copy editor seemed to have been asleep through some of the edits. There are a couple of minor instances where the photo commentary do not match up with the technical details, e.g. Nikon F3 discussed as the camera used, but the technical details indicate that the camera was the Nikon F4.

There’s also a curious comment from Black when he discusses using manual focusing technique in the early 1990s, because auto focus was not invented yet. Huh? As I recall, Canon was eating Nikon’s lunch in the early 1990s because the Canon EOS 1 with Canon USM lenses was running circles around the slow focusing Nikon F4 and its screw driven lenses. The first successful auto focus camera was introduced in the mid 1980s by Minolta, which was subsequently sued by Honeywell for patent violations and is considered by some, to have been the catalyst that eventually led to Minolta exiting the photography industry. Some Nikon users may shout out that the short-lived F3AF was auto focus capable in the early 1980s, but it was not a commercial success like the Minolta 7000 SLR.

If you have an iPad and if you’re curious about how one of the best in the business took his photos, you’ll want to get Dave Black’s app…er…ebook.

Another app that is actually a small portfolio of photos, comes from Uwe and Bettina Steinmueller of Digital Outback Photo. Fine Photo Show is a free app and it’s a promotional offering for the Steinmuellers to get their name and photos out into mass distribution. However, as with Black’s app/book, I think a PDF is more appropriate for “real” mass distribution.

Since it’s free, why not. I downloaded the app and spent a few minutes to view the photos. Some of the photos I quite like, especially the industrial looking scene from Alcatraz Island, the former prison made famous by Client Eastwood’s movie – the Steinmeullers live in the greater Bay area of San Francisco and San Jose. Other photos are not quite to my taste, but I see some element of design in their compositions, which is intriguing to discover.

I visit the Steinmueller’s website from time to time and see their photos, but never spent too much time really looking at their photos. Most often, the photos are presented as one offs on the website, so there is no cohesiveness and I quickly move on. However, in a portfolio presentation, I can now see that the Steinmuellers have a consistent way of seeing the world, especially in some of the more abstract photos. It reminds me of Brooks Jensen and his penchant for wanting to view a portfolio of work instead of one offs, because a portfolio about a common theme or subject matter allows the photographer to really develop their vision, commitment and passion for the subject rather than simple look at a “greatest hits” collection from a photographer, in which there may be no consistency and cohesiveness.

You can purchase any of the photos from the app directly from the Steinmuellers.

July 28, 2010 - Sounds like Thom Hogan has raised a stink amongst some Sony users for posting a rumor he heard about Sony dropping the manufacture of the FX sensor. As Hogan has noted the last two days, Sony dropping FX sensor design would impact Nikon, which sources the D3X's sensor from Sony. Nikon would have to find an alternative source for a high resolution FX sensor or design its own and then outsource the fabrication to a chip maker.

Intriguing, and as Hogan also noted, this could be why we haven't seen any D700X variant, however, I'm not convinced of that argument. Hogan makes clear that what he's heard is about NEW FX sensor development by Sony and the D3X sensor is already old, so there should still be supply available if Nikon really wants to put it in a D700 sized SLR. But, I do agree with Hogan that Sony dropping FX would not be good for competition that would leave Nikon and Canon to dictate to the market.

All of this is rather curious because Sony just announced three new lenses for the full frame sensor. Two covering wide and one covering telephoto. While the 35 and 85mm lenses are in the affordable end of the price spectrum, the 24mm f2 is very much a high-end lens that should come in at well over CAD $2,000.

On another note closer to where my desires lie, Hogan continues to espouse a D700 replacement for this fall or winter, whereas a rumor site that shall go unnames (for my own selfish, commercial reason, ahem, cough, NikonLinks) continues to espouse that no D700 replacement will be forthcoming this year. Needless to say, I really hope (for my own selfish, personal reasons) that that rumor is wrong.

We've all heard of stories or dreamt up stories of finding a long forgotten and unknown treasure at a garage sale. Well, it really did happen and the find is significant for the photography world, because a stack of treasured and assumed, long lost glass negative plates have been verified as the early work of Ansel Adams. Yes, that Ansel Adams, the patron saint of B&W landscape photographers and arguably the most important photographer of the 20th Century.

Read more at CNN about this incredible find - my thanks to Pete from Ontario for the tip.

Apple released new iMac and Mac Pro models. Sweet, but me thinks, terribly expensive. Me wants, but me won't buy. New cameras, new lenses, new computers, new audio gear...so much to desire, but only enough spare change to maybe do one. I'm going to continue the holding pattern for a little while longer and see what comes about for Photokina.

Besides which, it's surprising that Apple did not the Mac Pro a bit more future proof with USB 3 and faster SATA ports. It's still a fantastic machine, but it doesn't seem so cutting edge anymore beyond the processors available (dual 6-core CPUs for 12 cores available).

July 27, 2010 - A while back, I posted some long-delayed comments about the Epson Artisan 800 all-in-one printer, scanner and copier. At first glance, this unit looked to be a very well specified unit to replace the Epson CX4800 unit I had been using previously.

The Artisan 800 had an automatic document feeder (ADF), the ability to print on CD/DVDs, and laser printer print speeds. It also had wireless printing capability, although I never used that feature.

While the printer had some nice qualities, such as excellent looking prints on glossy paper and great looking images on printable discs, I was less than thrilled with other aspects of the Artisan 800, such as:

• Soggy feeling plain paper prints due to the amount of ink sprayed out – I’m not talking about printing photos, but text and some graphics
• Very long delays while the printer seemed to go through some self-diagnostic cycle, before I would actually get my print – while the printer itself may be fast once it starts printing, it’s brutal having to wait some five minutes listening to the printer go through its cycle before it will actually spit out the print.

Today, I’m about ready to throw the Artisan 800 out with the garbage. There are two problems that have developed recently:

1. The ADF is no longer functional, as it is unable to grab and move paper from the feeder into the scanner’s path for copying,
2. Scanning and copying results in prints that have a half-inch, blurry looking band running across the top of the paper, which obviously ruins all the prints.

Looking back and forth at the marred prints and the scan bed a few times, I realized that the blurry line is exactly coincident with the location of the scanner’s data/power ribbon cable. The scanner is scanning its own data cable. I don’t know how it ends up doing this since the cable is below the scan head, but there is obviously something amiss with reflections or some other issue that results in the cable’s shadow showing up on my prints. Needless to say, I am not amused.

For now, the Artisan 800 is banished while the CX4800 has been rescued from the clutches of my children’s hands. I sent an email to Epson Canada about the faulty printer, but I don’t expect anything to come of it since the printer is likely no longer under warranty.

It may be the case that my Artisan 800 is a Friday afternoon model* and while I’ve not recommended it to anyone I know before the problems surfaced, it will obviously never be recommended now.

* There’s an adage that if you can help it, you don’t want to buy anything made on Monday mornings when workers return from weekend frivolity, or anything made on Friday afternoon when workers are looking forward to weekend frivolity.

July 26, 2010 - I'm a bit behind in posting some comments about some photography-related apps for the iPad. Will do so in the coming days.

As hinted at last week, I finally received the Camera Connection Kit for the iPad and although I will comment on how well it works for downloading files from a camera, in all honesty, I didn't buy the kit for this fuction. I bought it so that I might be able to use it to connect a USB DAC direct to the iPad, specifically, the HeadRoom Portable Amp with its built-in DAC (with mini USB input).

I'm very happy to report that the Camera Connection Kit's USB adapter does output audio to the USB DAC. Now, hopefully, there will be other good uses that the USB adapter will allow for now that we can get a functional USB port with the iPad.

This week's homepage photo comes to us by way of China. Vivian sent along some comments too about a recent post where I suggested that I felt naked and cheated at times if I'm not using the high resolution Canon 5D2. Vivian provided a gentle reminder that the photographer's enthusiasm and skill matter more than gear and while Vivian loves her Nikon gear, she's very thankful for the size and weight of her Panasonic G1, which allows her to travel more comfortably, while still obtaining high quality images.

Yes, it's good to be brought down to earth and remember what photography is about. Thanks Vivian!

Taking some inspiration from Terry White, who writes about many far-flung topics and gadgets, but all connected to technology, let me post some comments about my recent switch of internet service providers.

I'm one of those coveted consumers who will order a full bundle of services for TV, telephone and internet service. In Western Canada, the big players are Shaw and Telus. It used to be that Shaw was the cable company and Telus was the telephone company, but with the advent of the internet and deregulation of the telecommunications industry in Canada, all the major players are encroaching on services that were never traditional to them.

Now we have cable companies offering internet and telephone and telephone companies offering TV and internet services. There's talk that there may be further consolidation in Canada's already small market with a possible merger of Telus and Bell, which would create a huge company historically based on telephony.

I used to be with Shaw until last week, when I finally had my TV and internet access swtiched over to Telus (the telephone was switched over a bit earlier). Shaw uses the coaxial cable network to provide its services with telephone being on the VOIP protocal. Telus uses the telephone cable network, so internet connection is via an ADSL modem. Telus recently launched an improved TV service using a fibre optic network and because of this big launch, some good deals are available to switch over.

In the first year, I'll save 50% of the cost of my regular Shaw bill and then in the second year, the Telus package will be competitive to what I paid for my Shaw bundle. The 50% savings alone is worth the while to switch, but there's an additional sweetner in that I get ten HD channels with the package. I also added a sports package, which will give me some key sports channels, also in HD, which means that come the fall, when football and hockey start up again, I'll be in armchair heaven watching the games in HD. Guess who's going to have to host the family SuperBowl party in 2011...

Now, I could certainly have ordered HD channels from Shaw, but I would have to spend extra to get the channels and an HD compatible cable box. Switching to Telus was the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get HD quality.

However, the switchover was not without some glitches, as Telus didn't get the order right from the salesperson who signed me up. It took several calls and bouncing around from department to department to finally get my TV order correct for the channels I wanted at the price quoted by the salesperson. There were also technical issues too with the telephone service going down the day after the TV and internet service were installed. I also did not get both my TVs setup properly due to the technician arriving so late in the afternoon, he could not get a registration code for the second cable box due to Telus support shutting down for the evening. Apparently, a technician was supposed to have arrived much earlier in the day to do the work, but for whatever reason, the service call was missed, resulting in this technician arriving so late.

Finally getting my extra channels ordered resulted in another annoyance when the person on the phone advised me that the channels would come on line the next morning. Next morning and all day, no new channels. Call back Telus and was advised that they were doing an upgrade to the system and that it may be a few days before I get the new channels. Oh, gee, thanks for nothing.

Out of curiosity, I asked when the billing starts for the new channels and was advised that billing starts the day I ordered the channels. Um, even though I don't have access to the new channels due to your system problems...Well, we'll have an agent call you back to discuss next week. Gee, thanks for double nothing.

As it turned out, I was supposed to have had the new channels on Saturday and they came on line on Sunday, so it ain't a big deal since I ordered the channels on Friday, but there's a principle thing involved and the thought that Telus support doesn't know what's going on. On the Saturday, with no promised channels, I was fuming that Telus made Shaw look like an awesomely run company with clear and easy to use self-services compared to the constantly down Telus web-based services.

I just have to keep thinking about that big first year discount and that finally, the service issues have been settled so that I can enjoy the HD quality.

July 22, 2010 - If you're a Nikon user then you have probably heard of Grays of Westminster, perhaps the best known Nikon photography store in the UK. Given how well known Grays is and how it seems to have very good stock of all things Nikon, I figure that it must be a decent sized store, but not so.

Reader, David Chan, visited London recently and took the photos shown below and described the famous Grays this way:

While I was in London, I took the time to visit one of my favourite places in the world.  No, not Westminster Abbey, not the Tower Bridge, not Harrods and not Trafalgar Square.  I visited Grays of Westminster, arguably the most famous Nikon shop in the world, tucked away on Churton Street, in the Pimlico area, about a 10 minute stroll from the Victoria Underground Station.  This was my third visit to that venerable place, but the last time I was there was 12 years ago.
 
If you've ever visited B&H in New York City, you know how massive the B&H store is, but Grays of Westminster couldn't be any more different.  It's a tiny (and I mean tiny) little shop on two levels, with dark wood inside, and glass cabinets displaying the Nikon equipment.  It's as if china cabinets are protecting the most important family heirlooms.  It's like walking into an antique store.
 
The main floor displays current inventory while the lower floor houses used equipment, and their storehouse of used equipment is amazing. Nothing well used there - everything looks practically new, from old rangefinders, F2's all the way to current era digital equipment.  They even had a white 500mm Nikon lens.  Nothing here except Nikon though.

If you're not prepared (and Grays' own description is a "charming period shop"), you might even feel disappointed but the shop is deceptive because it's full of nothing but Nikon and Think Tank equipment.  A long while ago, at least 12 years ago, I recall they used to have a Nikon museum on an upper floor but they don't seem to have that anymore.

July 21, 2010 - Some quick snippets:

• As of this typing (9 pm July 20, my PC is still chugging away with processing the 1:1 previews in Lightroom 3. I started it on Sunday, but had to stop it after about six hours and 15% completion. I restarted the process Monday night and after 24 hours, I'm at 97%...whew!
• Was reading the Lenswork Tech blog and came across this cool device in one of the comments: a portable, bus powered RAID 1 box offering Firewire 800, USB 2 and eSATA - a very sweet looking package!
• My Camera Connection Kit for the iPad has finally shipped and should be delivered by the end of the week - only two weeks later than Apple told me it would take
• Work is killing me right now with all work and no down time, causing late nights and weekend work, but I'm going to try and discuss some interesting photography iPad apps next week along with an ebook on Lightroom 3 workflow
• Lens and Shutter, a local photography store chain in Vancouver has opened up a store in downtown Vancouver again. It's very close to where I work so it makes for a convenient stop for dropping off rolls of film to be processed at the related CustomColor lab - yes, you read right, film! Gasp! Can Edwin really be serious about shooting film again after all but calling himself Digital Boy for the last 8 years? Well, maybe since it's convenient to have 120 format film processed again and I still have several rolls in the fridge.
• Speaking of film, I've always loved the look and feel of a Nikon F4. It's probably my favorite F series SLR and I've lusted after one as badly as an F5 in the glory days of film. There's just something about the F4 and I don't know if I can hold back this itch...

July 19, 2010 - As mentioned last week, I spent the weekend upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 on my main PC system. A clean break to ready the computer for the upgrade to CS5.
It's a fair bit of work to prepare and then do the actual upgrade. I backed up all the files I would need with the new OS and then after installing, I started the usual updating process to get the OS to current specs. By the time everything is done, an entire day will have gone by, but I split the task over Saturday and Sunday.

A clean install of everything gives me a chance to re-evaluate the apps that I need and actually use and discard the ones that I haven't touched since the wedding photography days. Other than MS Office, the only non-photographic (or digital darkroom) apps that I've installed are:

• Diskeeper to defragment the hard drives
• ViceVersa to backup my files to the Drobo
• Firefox for web browsing
• Kaspersky for virus protection
• Terrapin FTP for uploading my website files

The photography-related apps are:

• CS5 for Photoshop, Bridge and Dreamweaver
• Lightroom 3
• X-Rite ColorChecker Passport to create custom camera profiles for use in Lightroom
• X-Rite Match for monitor and printer calibration and profiling
• Nik ColorEfex 3 set of filters for Photoshop (32-bit only at this time)
• Pixel Genius Photokit automations for Photoshop (64-bit version of Photoshop)

There are other apps that I may eventually install, but I'll do so when the need arises instead of just installing the older versions of the apps, e.g. ProShow Gold to create DVD slideshows. Others like Qimage and Show-It Web likely won't be used again, so I won't bother even though I paid for these apps. The idea is to try and keep the PC as lean as possible and only install what I actually need and use.

This idea of leanness (something I wish I could something about for my fat self) also dissuaded me from downloading iTunes/Quicktime for the PC. Windows Media Player seems able to handle all the video formats I have kicking around, so I may not even need VLC either and since all my iPods are formatted to work with the Mac, I don't really "need" iTunes. We'll see how this goes, because iTunes is so simple and functional to use compared to WMP.

An annoying aspect of doing a big OS upgrade is that apps that I paid for (not cheap either) may have to bought again, because the older versions will not work with Windows 7. The version of Diskeeper I bought worked just fine with 64-bit Vista and since Windows 7 is not "that" much different than Vista, I was ticked when a window popped up advising me that the software is not compatible with Windows 7. Diskeeper does offer an upgrade price from the old to the current version, but stupidly needs the old app to be installed before you can upgrade to the new version. Uh, hello, you got me in a catch-22 where I can't upgrade without having installed it, but I can't install it because of the new OS. Dumb and dumber!

Adobe gets it right so that all you need to do to unlock an upgrade version of Lightroom on a new install, is to type in the older serial number along with the new serial number. Adobe also gets it right that if you install the new version while the old one is still installed, it will automatically find the old serial number for you, thus only needing to type in the new serial number.

I also hate companies that nickel and dime you to death for upgrades. I don't have a problem with paying an upgrade price for a significant, generational upgrade, such as the $99 Adobe charges to upgrade from LR2 to LR3. However, I'm cheesed that some companies charge for a 2.1 to 2.4, incremental upgrade. Software engineers don't come cheap and you need to pay well to keep talented people, but the kind of cheapness and stupidity seen in some companies makes me understand why there is such a thriving black market for cracked software (one of those chicken and egg arguments).

Anyway, enough ranting on my part (I seem to be getting crankier the older I get).

Windows 7...well, the taskbar is changed. The icons are bigger, but the amount of space used by an open app is (usually, but not always) restricted to the same space as the icon, e.g. when you click on a taskbar shortcut, the app does not create a larger tab in the taskbar. The icon gets highlighted to indicate that its open. It's pretty slick and not unlike the Mac's Dock, but even less cluttered than the Mac's Dock. Speaking of clutter, the right side of the taskbar is much better than it's ever been with Vista or XP.

My whole computing life, in a nutshell, er, Taskbar - note the two Photoshop icons, one for the 64-bit version and one for the 32-bit version, which I will still use to create the web galleries for my websites. Dreamweaver is a work in progress to determine if I can live with it or whether I reinstall the CS3 version (old habits die hard).

I always hated seeing just about everything under the sun of start-up apps and notices clustered on the right side of the taskbar. Now, the clutter is kept to a minimum and less used icons are hidden unless called for with the up pointing triangle icon. My office computer (at work, not home) is awful with all the crap that has to start up and show up on the right side of the taskbar. It's no wonder that it takes a long time to boot with the systems involved - so many office workers complain about Windows and PCs, but few probably realize that the IT department is responsible with so many systems running in the background of their computers.

The Windows Explorer is also changed slightly, but not so much that you can't easily navigate to where everything is. Overall, Windows 7 is just not that much different than Vista and it doesn't require as much of a transition compared to moving up from XP to Vista.

Windows 7 is supposed to be more efficient and boot-up and shut-down times are improved over Vista. One of the annoyances I had with Vista is that there would be occasions when an OS update would occur and require a re-boot. I'd shut down normally and not use the computer until the next day and forget that an update had occurred (or not realize that an update had occurred automatically) and then wait for a long time for the computer to boot-up with nothing but a black screen in front of me.

After many long minutes the Vista screen comes up telling me that it's finishing some updates and to not shut off the computer. Oh, okay, thanks for giving me a black screen of ignorance instead of immediately telling me that something was happening and to just wait it out. Other times, I'd click on the Start button to shut down the computer. Things look okay, screen goes black, but the computer does not shut down. I once waited to see how long it would take, but gave up after an hour and manually turned off the computer. These are relatively infrequent occurrences, but the fact that they do happen is annoying and adds fodder to the anti-PC vitriol.

Another annoyance that had many howling at the moon is the User Account Control warnings. Under Vista, it was an all or nothing deal where you either had the User Account Control on or off. I ended up turning it off, because I can control the risks associated with using my computer and plus, it had the potential of disrupting my monitor profiling.

With Vista, the UAC warnings would dim the monitor, which when dealt with and dismissed, would, on some computers, blow out the custom monitor profile. This was especially apparent on a cheap Sony notebook I've since given to the kids to use.

With Windows 7, you can select from four different levels of warnings, from the always on and dimming the screen to completely off. I selected the level above completely off to still warn me, but not dim the screen. This way, I can still monitor if any apps are misbehaving without risking losing my monitor's profile.

These are very early days, but hopefully, Windows 7 will be as stable and efficient as many are claiming it is.

While I did try CS4 on the MacBook Pro for a short while, I never really dived into it. One, the MBP is not my primary editing machine and two, I still find the Mac versions to be "just" different enough to keep wanting to go back to the PC, where things are as comfortable as a broken -in baseball glove.  Doing significant OS upgrades doesn't change that comfort level, because the Windows OS has kept the core features consistent over all the years. I still lust for a Mac Pro, but one of the first things I will do if and when I finally get one, is install the current version of Windows. Mac Pros are such beautiful computers that they make for the ideal PC 8^)

Back to CS5...I read a comment a little while back in a Nikon list that gave me a chuckle. Someone was asking about upgrading to CS5 and mentioned that he was using CS3. A response came in that chided the OP, because CS3 is circa 2008 and is obsolete given that we're now at the CS5 generation. But, but, what if we really don't need all the fancy-schmancy upgrades that every generational change to Photoshop brings? We aren't all Scott Kelby or Vincent Versace, i.e., gurus that have forgotten more about Photoshop than I'll ever know (Versace used that line in describing Adobe's Julianna Kost's knowledge of Photoshop).

Maybe, some of us could get even get by with the first version of CS...okay, maybe not; we all have our limits. While I did laud Adobe on how it handles upgrade installs, Adobe is also annoying for the planned obsolescence of Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw for being able to preview and convert the RAW files for current cameras.

With CS3, I was stuck partying like it was 2008. Unfortunately, the camera makers keep cursing us with new models, each with its own proprietary RAW file that requires software makers such as Adobe, to keep updating Lightroom and ACR regularly. With ACR being tied to Photoshop, Adobe stops upgrading the old version after a certain date, because the new generational version of Photoshop and ACR will be coming out. Adobe, being a good and successful capitalist company, would prefer that you continue sending it money to upgrade so that you can continue to use Bridge and ACR to preview and render the most recent RAW files.

Nikon D2X, D300 and Canon 40D, no problem with CS3. Canon 5D2, 7D and Panasonic GH-1 and GF1, sorry, no abla, no comprende the RAW formats. Since, I'm not as flush as I used to be when I only had one or two kids (dental work is bloody expensive, even with a dental plan), I made do in other ways. One of those ways has been to import all the RAW files into Lightroom, which thankfully, continued to be updated even if its ACR brother stopped.

The annoyance with this is that Lightroom would get cluttered up with demos and one-offs that I only wanted to illustrate an article or post and then would discard. With ACR, I can open up those types of photos in a temp folder, process, use as necessary and then discard and keep Lightroom clean and reserved only for photos I want to keep. With CS5, I'm back to that happy place again.

To prepare for the OS upgrade, I exported the Lightroom catalogue to a backup disk. After the OS upgrade and after getting the PC updated with everything I could think of, I fired up Lightroom to import the catalogue. After the import I had to point Lightroom to the proper location of the physical folders and once that was done, all the previews started appearing.

Navigating to the most recent folder worked on, I had a bit of a nervous moment when the photos looked like the original, pre-edit. I wondered if I had messed up and lost all the edits with the exporting and importing process, however, I breathed more easily when I clicked on one of the files and it suddenly showed the cropping and edit I had applied when running Vista. Whew!

With that out of the way, I set LR3 to create 1:1 previews of every image. This is a long and tedious task for LR to complete, especially with over 28,000 photos to process, however, you only need to do it once and it makes it more convenient to export the catalogue to a notebook computer and still be able to view images at full size without needing the physical file stored on the notebook's hard drive.

It feels good to be current again, software wise, even if the PC itself is a bit dated hardware wise. While the hardware does just fine with circa 2008 resolution RAW files (12 MP), it loses its zip when processing files from the 5D2.

July 15, 2010 - Reader's comment:

I read the comments by Thom Hogan on his blog and found that his basic notion is “they don’t need these additional features, they just want them, and so they can’t have them.”

Well, the whole thing about marketing is … you want to market to a set of customers who “want” your products, not just “need your product.” It is a bigger market and more profitable that way. After all, who absolutely needs Pyrex cookwares, Apple iPad, and any version of Ferrari…?

It is about want, not need.

Hogan can come across as a smug and arrogant know-it-all. I mean, who is he to suggest that those that want Nikon to produce better cameras and lenses don't really know what it is they really need or want? However, Hogan does ask pertinent questions that sometimes we don't want to face when considering what it is that we really need.

Take resolution for example. For the vast majority of people, anything beyond 6 MP is unnecessary. Actually, if we consider that most photos taken that actually end up being printed (and the vast majority of digital photos probably are not printed anymore in this age of Facebook, PBase, Flikr, et all) at 4x6 size, no one needs more thant 2 MP of resolution.

But, as Hogan points out, the marketing departments of camera companies have now ingrained into our minds that more resolution is better. Hell, even I have to admit that when I want to photograph something even somewhat seriously, that I feel a little naked and cheated if I'm not using the Canon 5D2, simply because the full frame resolution available comforts me over say, the 12 MP M4/3 cameras I have. And, you'd think that I should know better than to use resolution as a crutch 8^)

However, I'm also a little weird and obsessed with keeping interpolation to a minimum for those times that I want to print a 16x20 with the Epson 4800. Hearing about my buddy Oleg in Shanghai using the 39 MP digital backs with his Hasselblad makes me very jealous, because 39 MP allows for printing a 16x20 at native Epson resolution of 360 dpi. That's the ideal for me and my current printer and obviously, even 21 or 24 MP falls well short of that lofty standard. Like I said, I'm just odd that way 8^)

Taking high ISO into consideration, I disagree that we all should not be able to have access to the best quality available, which at this time is the D3S. The plethora of horrible flash photos posted left, right and centre all over the net is nauseating. Why shouldn't the masses enjoy the ability to use good, not just "usable," ISO 6400 quality. Hell, don't the masses need that quality more with all those f5.6 kit lenses sold?

Giving Hogan some due though, his basic message has always been to learn how to use your current gear to the fullest extent possible and then and only then, if the gear still falls short, to upgrade. Never mind that Hogan seems to have the latest and greatest Nikon gear around, but then that's one of his revenue streams, to sell Nikon instruction books and he can't very well do that if he doesn't actually buy and use the latest and greatest.

Ultimately though, I'm with the reader in wanting choice and selection. If I decide that I want two SLRs, one offering state-of-the-art high ISO and another offering high resolution, it's my money to spend. I don't begrudge the guy wearing a Brioni suit and a Patek Philippe watch, driving around in a Ferrari even if a Men's Warehouse suit, a Timex and a Corolla will still clothe you, give you the time of day and get you to your destination "almost" as well.

Put another way, even though I'm not into the whole Leica mystique, I much rather that Leica exist and that there are legions of Leica fans and users passionate about the brand. The price is crazy high and there are certain shortcomings with that $8,000 M9 (weather sealing) and maybe many users won't ever utlize the full potential of the system, but it's good that those that want it, can buy it.

For some of us Nikon users, we definitely want particular cameras that Nikon can very easily produce, but we can't buy them and, seriously, I "need" them too. While the D700 is still available, given the improvement that the D3S offers over the D3/D700, why should I pay Nikon top dollar for technology that they have already obsoleted? This is a key reason why I hold myself back from just saying to hell with it and just buy a D700 instead of waiting Nikon out.

I also don't buy that a D700S or a D700X will hurt the sales of the pro level cameras. There will always be users that demand the very best and won't bother with the smaller and lower cost option. However, the market for a D700S and D700X is significantly larger than for the pro camera, which will allow Nikon to make it with greater volume.

July 14, 2010 - I've decided to finally make the leap to Windows 7 this weekend. Since I'm planning to move on up to CS5, might as well make it a nice, clean upgrade to the current version of Windows too.

There were some thoughts of wondering if I really need to move up to Windows 7. Vista has its issues with some (okay, many) users and there are some aspects of what it does that do annoy me, but for the most part, I've been okay with it as an OS.

Pretty much every app and piece of hardware that I want to use on the PC has worked fine with Vista (64-bit Ultimate) and with the system humming along, do I really need to disrupt that and risk heading into the unknown? Okay, maybe too much overwrought drama for an OS upgrade. If Windows 7 can get rid of the few annoying aspects of Vista then it would be worthwhile.

Another consideration is improving the big PC. Should I spend some good coin on doing what I can to spruce it up and give it another 2-3 soild years of use, or am I better off socking it away for the replacement?

The significant upgrades would be replacing the 150 GB Raptor drives for the OS and scratch disk for newer and faster Raptor drives, or really going all out and getting solid state drives. After that then a doubling of RAM from 8 to 16 GB would be the next most obvious improvement. Beyond those two upgrades, I can't see it being worthwhile to do anymore, such as the CPUs, the mobo or GPU.

While getting a current version of the Raptor as the new OS drive is within reason, going solid state may not be given how pricey SSDs remain. A 256 GB drive from a brand name company is going to cost around CAD $800 and at that kind of price, I have to question the price/performance ratio for an older PC.

What I'll probably end up doing is just installing Windows 7 on the old Raptors and bide my time and my money for that future Apple Mac Pro. Lord knows I'll need every cent I can scrounge to afford the Apple premium ;^)

Thom Hogan is doing his regular commentary about how most users don't need more resolution than what we already have. He also posits that while Nikon is likely to increase resolution in the D4, that may come at the cost of the state of the art high ISO quality from the current D3S. Conversely, the D4's higher resolution is not likely to equal the D3X, unless of course, Nikon continues the dual-camera split to carry the flag.

A D4 with 14-16 MP and a D4X with 28-32 MP seems reasonable to me and would continue the tradition going back to the D1H and D1X. Nice to speculate, but as I've whinged many times before, it ain't where I wanna play.

A D700S and D700X are still what I pine away for. It's just unfortunate that whereas Canon has the 5D2, it does not have a D700 equivalent just as Nikon does not have a 5D2 equivalent.

While Canon's 7D tries to make up for the missing D700 equivalent, 18 MP crammed onto a DX sensor just ain't gonna cut it when you need to shoot at ISO 3200 or especially at ISO 6400. However, I think it's tougher for Canon to eventually come out with a D700 equivalent than it is for Nikon to come out with a 5D2 equivalent. Canon's flagship speed camera is a 1.3x crop factor camera and I can't see Canon offering a cheaper, full frame speed camera while the $5,000 pro camera is not full frame.

For that reason, I like where Nikon is situated with the options it can offer. It's just that it's getting insufferable having to wait for Nikon to actually offer something.

I had a beer with a gentleman from New Mexico. It was a social drink based on professional matters, i.e., what we do for a living. However, as we started to banter about other things, we got onto talking about photography...oh, boy, don't get me started, especially after a beer 8^)

He told me he has a neighbor who used to be a professional photographer, the one who just happen to take the famous photo of Farah Fawcett in the red swimsuit. The poster version of the photo adorned the walls of a great many teenage boys in the 1970s.

Anyway, the photographer is apparently disillusioned with the manner in which photography has evolved and the constant use of Photoshop to "perfect" a photo.

I'm always amazed at what Photoshop gurus can do to polish a piece of turd of a photo, but whatever happened to getting the shot right in the field or studio? Maybe, I'm just jealous because I don't have any skills with Photoshop.

July 12, 2010 - A reader (thanks Ken) sent this link to a video of Jeff Zwart speeding up Pikes Peak in Porsche GT3. Zwart set a record with his drive up and the video is from the perspective of a middle seat inside the Porsche.

While watching nearly 12 minutes of a performance car zipping up a hill is not necessarily the most exciting, what intrigued me were a few things observed in the video (also pointed by Ken):

• spectators are seen along most of the drive up, some right up to the edge of the road, which doesn't seem like the most sensible thing to be doing when a car is speeding up a hill and the driver is on the edge of control in order to shave seconds off his time
• the road is quite winding and Zwart has to slow down quite a bit to take some of the curves, even so, in some of the turns, Zwart looks like he's way overcompensating with the steering wheel - to the point of almost losing control
• Zwart looks like he gets way too close to the edge of the road at times - when there's a shoulder, no big deal, but some of the too close turns have nothing but a cliff drop on the other side, which in some cases have those darned spectators
• Much of the road has no side barriers so if you do lose control, it looks like certain death going off the side

The video was taken with a Canon 5D2 and I always love the driver's perspective (or pilot's if talking about airplanes). It gives you an almost 3-D sense of being right in the action and almost driving off the cliff...without taking the actual risk 8^)

July 9, 2010 - Check out some of the crazy lenses at PopPhoto. I've seen and heard about all them through my travels on the net, and some of them are still hard to comprehend, especially that 1700mm f4 Zeiss lens made for an oil-rich sheik.

July 8, 2010 - Reader's question:

A further comment on the hard disk issue. What is your view/opinion about using external drives for data storage. Is USB 2.0 fast enough for Lightroom and Photoshop? Seems to be more economical to plug in an external than to take the machine apart to install new internal drives for data storage.

If you have the patience of Job, then USB 2 "could" work, but I think at minimum, you want Firewire 800 speed to attach an external drive to the computer and use it as an actual working drive. However, since I know you're on a PC, I also know from my own experience that Firewire 800 add-on cards are never as fast as Firewire 800 that is native to the motherboard, such as with Macs.

What is probably a better option for PS is go with eSATA. Unfortunately, I don't have experience with eSATA, but there are a number of external drive cases that offer this connection, which is even faster than Firewire 800.

The best solution? Open up that PC and install a new, large capacity drive if you have the space and spare SATA port, or backup all the data and then replace an existing drive with a 2 TB unit. If you get one of those docks we discussed last week, you could use that to copy back the data from the old drive to the new drive.

Seriously, the job should only take about 15 minutes to remove an old drive and install a new one.

Your July 5th comment was very timely. Have been thinking and discussing the issue of archiving photos with a few photographer friends lately. Most articles tell you how you might want to best do it, and that hard drive space is cheap these days, so don't worry about it. Not many tell you about what to catalog.

Well, I agree that I don't necessarily want to be archiving thousands of photos I'll never use. I also don't want to rent storage space for my external drives, and create an archiving system for them so I can know which drive has the archives and photos I'm looking for. 

I also agree with a comment you made a while back about depending on a piece of software to archive and catalog all your photos. You indicated you used a hierarchical directory structure, as do I. What if I don't want to use Lightroom anymore, or heaven forbid, I move my files without using LR. I'm not looking forward to that massive re-cataloging process.

I was just wondering if your readers have any thoughts on these questions, and any great ideas or solutions they are using.

I'm not sure anyone is going to send in any comments about this, so I'll throw in some more thoughts about file structure and backing up.

I think Tim Grey, a noted photographer and writer from Seattle who publishes various things, espoused the idea of managing your photos on the hard drive first, before you import files into Lightroom or other RAW converter.

If something dire happens to the Lightroom catalog, which can happen, I still have a very good idea of where all the different types of photos are, because I organized and sorted them with the OS' file structure. To me, it makes perfect sense that I should have organization at the OS level instead of merely dumping them into a database such as the Lightroom Library and then rely on collections or other ways of sorting the mass of files.

If ever I should decide to move away from Lightroom, I can import the files into the new converter and still have the same organization.

For your other question of moving files around outside of Lightroom, this is not as bad as it seems, because when you see the little red circle with the question mark inside beside a Lightroom folder, you point Lightroom to where you have moved the file and then Lightroom will do the rest to catalog it again with the new location. Heck, I've got to do this still, because I haven't had time to update Lightroom 3 yet - work is killing me at the moment with late nights and having to take work home on the weekends.

What's important to keep in mind is come up with a system that works for you. It's good to get ideas from others, but ain't no way that I'm going to be copying Chase Jarvis' system anytime soon. Even Seth Resnick's lower scale system is more than I need. The key is, have a system in place to backup your files and maintain that system as religiously as possible.

July 6, 2010 - Yesterday is the first Monday of the summer that my regular newspaper, the National Post, takes an extra day off until after Labour Day. Operating newspapers is an expensive business and not having to publish on Mondays is lame, but I accept it, because the National Post is the only newspaper worth reading in Canada.

Anyway, I had to slum it and snag a freebie copy of Monday's Globe and Mail from the lobby of my office tower to get my daily news fix - yes, the Globe and Mail is given away, but I still insist on paying for the National Post. Flipping to the sports section, I had to suffer through what the Globe and Mail considers to be interesting British Columbia based news stories, however, one story did pique my interest.

For those of you that have an interest in the world of finance, you have probably heard of Nassim Taleb's Black Swan Theory, but let's not get into that here. Instead let's talk very briefly about the term "black swan" and the actual birds themselves.

In the late Renaissance, the term "black swan" was used to describe an impossibility, because until the 17th Century, no one had ever seen a swan that was not white. Then in the 17th Century, actual black swans were discovered in Australia and the term "black swan" evolved to mean something that is thought to be an impossibility, but later turns out to be real.

Now, consider ravens. These birds, resembling crows, are common throughout the Pacific Northwest and figure heavily in aboriginal folklore. Ravens are black...or are they? Well, it turns out that just as all swans were once thought to be white, not all ravens are black and there have been sightings on Vancouver Island of white ravens.

The Globe and Mail article interviewed a photographer from Vancouver Island who went in search of the white raven and found it, a few in fact. When I read the photographer's name, Mike Yip, I recognized it instantly as someone who had emailed me a few times in the past.

The article also mentions Mike Yip's self-publication of a book of bird photography and how he financed the $25,000 cost for a run of 3,000 books. His first run sold out and now he is reprinting the book in addition to coming out with another book of bird photography.

Kudos to Mike for being so bold and for being so intrigued with birds that he sought out and photographed the white raven.

White ravens have Vancouver Island birders atwitter - Globe and Mail

Vancouver Island Birds - Mike Yip's website

July 5, 2010 - What is it with Windows and really awful performance when trying to empty the Recycle Bin?

After doing some re-jigging of my folders to more easily manage my photos, I started to backup the new structure to the Drobo. I use ViceVersa software to ensure that I have an exact duplicate of folders and files on the Drobo as my source drives. ViceVersa does a comparison and then starts deleting old files and folders from the Drobo before copying over new files and folders from the source drive - often, it's the same files as was deleted, but now in a different folder. Those deleted files end up in the Recycle Bin.

In between the ViceVersa backup process (I run it twice for my two internal hard drives), I like to empty out the Recycle Bin so that I'm not using up a massive amount of capacity on the Drobo - on occasion and depending on how many changes I've made, there can be some 70-80 GB of data to delete.

The backwards nature of how the Recycle Bin seems to work is that a huge amount of data, such as 70-80 GB is faster to delete than a much smaller amount of overall data, such as 5 GB. The key difference seems to be that while overall small, I had a very large number of files to delete within the 5 GB amount - over 73,000. This is what seems to choke the Recycle Bin to take an inordinate amount of time (15 minutes?!) to process, calculate and the get on with the actual task of deleting the files. Madness!

Macs are much more efficient with the way they just delete the damn files from the Trash Bin when you want to empty it.

On the topic of reorganizing my photo files, I found that it made perfect sense to reorganize my personal photos into years and then create thematic collections within Lightroom so that I could still organize according to landscapes, plants, bugs, etc. However, for other types of photos, such as the family snaps and hockey photos, to me, it still makes sense to keep those segregated into their own folders and then sub-categorized into year folders.

With this renewed look at how I've organized my files and what the Lightroom library contains and does not contain, I belatedly realized that Lightroom does not have any of my digital wedding files. I kept all those files segregated on a different drive and while sorted into years and then couples folders, I also kept all the working files created with each job.

These would include the original RAW files, the JPEG files I would give to the couple, the TIFF copies I used for printing purposes, the web gallery files (color and B&W versions), digital album files, slideshow files, etc. Yes, the whole enchilada for every wedding job. Looking at one of those old jobs, I had over 18,000 files and folders and over 100 GB of data. Looking at some other jobs, the files were more reasonable at less than 10,000 files, but were still over 100 GB of data. Cripes! It's a good thing for my storage sanity that I don't do weddings anymore.

I decided to keep all those weddings folders in tact, but did copy over the RAW files to my photography hard drive and will import those into the Lightroom library. It was interesting to see all the Bibble sidecar files still kicking around in the folders containing the original RAW files, which just notes how things can change dramatically within a short period. From Nikon Capture 4.x, to Bibble 4.x, to Lightroom 1 to 3 in the space of four years.

What may not be fun though is having to point Lightroom to where all the files have been moved and changed around since my reorganization - something that I should not be doing, so as to keep the Lightroom Library sacrosanct, according to Seth Resnick, the master of file organization.

With all this reorganization, once I have the Lightroom Library updated with where all the files are, I'm going to do some culling to keep the library as lean as possible. This is something Terry White mentioned on his tech blog some time ago.

When you do a shoot, you can end up with hundreds and hundreds of files - and why not, it's all "free" ain't it? Well, no, not really, because you have to store those files and eventually, you'll run out of storage space. Terry talked about how he would shoot hundreds of photos on a job and the end up only using a handful of those files. Even if it were a professional job, he only rarely ever received a request for the files down the road and never, ever receive any interest in any of the dozens or hundreds of other photos taken. He realized and wondered why he should keep all those extra files when all he needed were the prime selects.

I've done the same for some projects, e.g. family photo shoots where I end taking a few hundred photos, especially of bored kids who can only give you their attention for short periods of time and won't smile when you're quickly losing the natural light.

Out of a few hundred, only about ten or so might be usable and printed out, but I would keep all those extras, just in case. Well, just in case of what? It's time to ditch those hard driving chewing files.

This is where using a rating system in Lightroom is really useful, because it may be that the selects get lost in the crowd, but if you rated them with stars or colors, you can easily sort to bring the selects back to the front of the line and then easily cull the rest.

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