a blog for and by digital imaging specialists
C1 v4 Beta is available for download from phaseone.com
http://www.phaseone.com/Content/Downloads/CO4.aspx
UI looks like Lightroom.. Rating is now via stars..
Seems like they’ve finally trashed the sessions..
Cool “list” view of thumbnails displays exposure, iso, etc..
Full size previews look excellent.
Up to a ton-up to compare images.
Will hammer on it later tonight when I pick up a P30 (non-plus, unfortunately) tomorrows job.
Anyone out there actually using Flexcolor heavily? We did our digital back test with 4.7 and Imacon/Hassy owners on LL are saying that there is a new version 4.7.1 which fixes the extreme buffer problem we encountered.
Unfortunately I can’t seem to access the software on Hassy’s website without being an actual back owner. Lame. Rental place says they’ll get the new software and let me know when its available again for testing.
Yay…just after I reinstalled RC1 on two machines yesterday. Can’t wait to see what improvements are in this one. After almost three weeks on set with LC11 RC1, I’m pretty used to the quirks, most of which Amy mentioned previously.
Any bets on batch rename? I’m thinking not yet.
More to come. Nothing at all against Leaf, as I do feel this is the best capture software they’ve ever released, but I can’t wait to get on an upcoming Phase job next week. Even if it has a French keyboard.
A few more things…be sure to use LC11 RC1’s installer to uninstall LC11 RC1 instead of just deleting the app and related files. Also, read those release notes folks, they’re not just for breakfast anymore…
We just finished a digital back stress test. Details in the below linked PDF file. Its a bit data intensive and its likely easier to digest if you print it out versus reading it on screen..
So I am on a week long job in studio working with a couple of P-backs and capture one on Mac OSX. The problem is that the language is in french. I can probably change it, but even worse is that the keyboard is a French keyboard. Not all that user friendly to an American. Lets just say that today while I was constantly trying to “select all”, I kept quitting out of the software.
There are other pains to this job, most of which I will save for the bar. All I can say is that I’ve worked for French people before and it is usually the same deal. They really don’t want to work with anyone other than the French. I don’t understand it. Personally I loathe having to work with a bunch of Americans. But then again, I guess all french people are cool so it works for them.
Capture one is kind of bugging me. I had to create subnames (which I absoultely hate doing and never do for strict file naming rules that should never be broken) and every time I went to turn it on for a specific processing destination, it turned it on for ALL destinations. I feel like its a bug of the new software, but I do not know because I really have NEVER used subnames before.
PEOPLE, if there is one piece of wisdom that I can pass on to you all, its simply NEVER CHANGE THE NAMES OF YOUR FILES unless:
1.) you’ve never sent them to a client or have them anywhere else where they are named differently
2.) you have never processed anything and need to do a batch rename of everything.
I recently had a client pass along their laundry list of selects to me with all the files renamed. I promptly asked them if they had the original JPG’s and they said they had renamed them all. I then explained to them that it would be $100/hr to find all of these files again and reprocess them and resend them. It took me hours to go through thousands of files and find their finals. They should know better and if they don’t, I am sure they do now.
The other big issue is with the P45+ on a MacBookPro and C1 3.7.7. The back constantly disconnects to a very annoying degree. I think it’s a power issue, but I am not certain. Any thoughts?
that the EOS 1DS Mark III has just been announced and released today. more later…just wanted to be the first to say it!
Is upgradeable by using Flexcolor4.7.1 and a Hassy digital back, so if you have an Imablad back you’re all set. Otherwise your Hasselbald dealer should be able to hook you up with one for an onsite upgrade…if not off to the service center it goes.
I’m in the middle of a two week shoot down in the nether regions of New Jersey when I get news that we’re hopping on a plane for a quick one day shoot down in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday. Umm, ok. I get the laptops ready, gather all my gear and we’re off…to a 3 hour flight delay which means we don’t get to the hotel until 3:30am and we have an 8:15am call time. Up at 7am when we figure out that the rental car isn’t going to hold all the gear that was delivered to the hotel instead of the location. Long story short, we arrived behind schedule with an anxious client. I flew into action and started setting up the laptop capture station, getting camera ready, etc. when the full fledged reality of shooting in Florida in mid-summer hits: Condensation and heat/humidity so bad you just ooze sweat in buckets, even when doing nothing. Luckily, the sensor of the Aptus75 was fine, probably because I let it come up to temp as long as possible before putting it on the camera. Three shots later, the client was happy and things were going well, except for the heat/humidity part, which made me miserable, but the camera, back and computer were doing fine. I kept everything out of the sun as much as I could and when that wasn’t possible, I used an umbrella to cover the gear until we were shooting. Florida has such different flora and fauna and I was tripping out on these little lizards that were everywhere. They had inflatable red throats and were lighting fast. It was kind of like Jurassic Park in miniature. In the afternoon the fashion crew showed up and I had the pleasure of meeting Francis Westfield of Drive Digital, out of NYC, who showed me around what is unarguably the state of the art mobile digital capture solution. Their van has everything one could hope for in a location solution, and Francis very generously let me chill out (literally) in the van which has a spacious editing area. As the shoot wrapped, I had the chance to help drive the van back to NYC in a twenty-four hour blast of fury, and we arrived back in NYC last night. As crazed as the drive was, it was great to drive and talk shop with a very experienced tech/owner who is a consummate pro in every aspect of the business. Francis, thank you again for helping me on location and I’m glad I could do something to return the favor. Techs helping each other is the way it should be and I’m glad others share this view. Remember this the next time you run into another tech on set: yes, they’re your competition, but they’re also your colleague. Being courteous and professional never hurt anyone and you never know where that may lead.
Lately I’ve been making an assumption that if people are using a Canon system that they are using one of the industry standard programs such as Bridge, Lightroom, Aperture or Capture One Pro, the latter being the program that is probably the most industry standard. So you can imagine my surprise when I come on to a job and the photographer is using Photo Mechanic. I’ve heard of others using it and I thought that it was just a rarity that people have incorporated it into their workflow. I’ve tested it out – less than that really – I tried it, didn’t like it and didn’t put any stock into it’s use and set it aside.
There is nothing to say about this job really. Everything went smoothly, no major or minor hiccups. Tech’s should be versatile and should be able to figure out on the fly how to use a program. This is what I did. Reading files, tagging, sorting and backup – these are the key components of the software and unfortunately, this is also where the program falls short.
The program has a contact sheet which shows the files. Double-click the contact sheet and it makes the image bigger, gives you the image info and allows editing, tagging, etc. However, if you load a contact sheet in PM and then you add images to the folder, the contact sheet doesn’t update. The workaround is that you close out the contact sheet and reopen it in PM again. It is as simple as dragging and dropping it back onto the app. icon – A pain in the ass, but effective. Sorting doesn’t work, tagged images did not show up when I chose flagged images only and when you do load new files into a folder, the contact sheet loads two of the and the shifts the rest up to the top, out of your sort order and without a thumbnail or preview image. I tried refresh the contact sheet, but this still didn’t work.
Finally, I tried using Synchronize Pro X to do the periodic backups. However the syncro program doesn’t read any changes to the file when it is tagged (my guess is that the tag is embedded into the file and does not change the file size). While the backup does actually happen, no edits are saved to the backups.
I try not to get alarmed when a photographer has a different workflow than what I am used to. I just try to work with it as best as possible and in most cases, the photographer understands that he has a different workflow and doesn’t expect you to know everything. However, making sure the files are of quality and are secure is the most important thing. Before the day ended I made sure that the backups were identical to the master, that everything was named properly and nothing was missing. Fin, job well done.
I’ve been getting a good workout using the Leaf Capture 11 on set with some fast paced photoshoots in many different environments. I can say without a doubt that I’ve put this version of software to the test and it’s coming through with flying colors, although not unlike many programs it does have a few idiosyncrasies that techs need to know. Let me start by saying that in the last 6 weeks I’ve teched on shoots in-studio with a tower and a laptop, with and without CF cards, on location in hot upstairs rooms, propped on an applebox on the hot sidewalk of Wilshire Blvd, in a blisteringly hot and humid airplane hanger in Austin, TX in the summer, crawling through an open field on my hands and knees and NOT once have I experienced a software crash from Leaf. Seriously.
A few issues I’ve had are known issues from Leaf. For instance, when clicking the browse button to set the shoot folder and the browser comes up blank simply go into Leaf Utilities and Reset Preferences. Occasionally when shooting we were getting a image with a heavy Cyan cast on the thumbnail or the thumb and preview. This is also known by Leaf and if you just process the file normally it will go away. That’s reassuring when the producer is watching over your shoulder and the image comes up blue and they look at you like you did it…
When using CF cards we are back to having to “uncompress” the lossless files before they go into Photoshop because even the latest Camera Raw plug-in won’t open them. Here’s the workaround though:
1. Navigate to the folder and select the images
2. Select all the images and make an adjustment-any adjustment it doesn’t matter
3. Go to the drop down menu and select “revert to saved”
4. Click the key stroke combo “Apple/S”
Then bring them into PS and they will open no problem. You can also use Leaf Converter software, but this will create a 2nd set of images and that can become a pain when having to file manage.
The only other hiccup I have encountered with the Leaf Capture is when it gets low on memory and you get a low memory warning it’s best to restart the whole system and reset preferences or you may have some problems with corrupted files. That only happened once with about 15 images.
Most recently shooting in the heat and awful humidity of Texas the Leaf Aptus tended to slow down considerably with shoot speed (almost 4 seconds per frame-yikes!). Like any computer extreme heat and humidity is not friendly. But the Aptus never stopped working-it just slowed down.
And lastly, Leaf still has 2 different versions of LC11 out right now. One is the Release Candidate for the Aptus and the other is the version for the ‘S’ backs. These are not cross compatible. Leaf tells me they will have 1 version for both backs by the end of the month and they will be calling it LC 11.2. We’ll see.
Now if they would give me the ability to show 2 images side by side…one can still dream!
Amy Goalen
ProDigital Consulting
http://prodigitalconsutling.com
310-590-5844
