NL,
Very quickly my kit is becom...
Anonymous on
Camera Bags – They Are Always Too Small
Aperture Users – We Have A Converted Lightroom2 Guy
In case you have not seen this before, I wanted to share some links to a pair of professional wedding photographers that switched from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 2. Now here is the punch line – THEY ARE NIKON SHOOTERS. Yep, that is right Nikon wedding photographers that switched from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 2.
I know I complain about a couple of nagging things, including NEF conversion and WB handling in Aperture but trust me, if Aperture was not the best tool for workflow and organization and… I would have switched a long time ago. I own both, I know both inside and out. I know how to convert just about everything I care about. One of the things that is becoming more and more clear to me is that photographers that want a really better way of interacting with their libraries as a whole and are very demanding of the environment in which they spend their time prefer Aperture. Especially photographers that have a general bent towards “strait” photography. Photographers that spend lots of time manipulating their images and are satisfied with the file system facilities to organize their images and the work associated with those images seem to prefer Lightroom.
To me Lightroom seems like a smarted up version of Bridge or Bridge a dumbed down version of Lightroom. They have become even closer with CS4.
On to the videos – check them out if you have time.
The other thing that is pretty amazing is that this guy makes his money shooting weddings – not selling Aperture add-ons or education. Aperture users that have seen the light are pretty enthusiastic folks.
RB
Oh well, it comes strange for someone claiming to be a Nikon shooter to make video on Aperture with files from Canon EOS 5D (well, check for yourself in RAW fine tuning adjustment in first video – just pause the replay at the moment he adjusts the WB to make it warmer and check the Camera type in the adjustment above).
I would be very happy to have such vivid out of the camera previews from my D700 in Aperture… But, now way it can be achieved out of the camera…. hardly at all.
RB,
As you know, My Wife & Daughter shoot Weddings & Events with both Canon & Nikon crop sensor cameras. I do the edits for all of my Wife’s take, and some of my Daughter’s. At an event 2 weeks ago my Wife’s 40D was damaged. My local dealer had just received his first shipment of the new 7D.
So I bought one for her. She shot a wedding last night, and they have another each of the next 3 weeks.
Apple has noy gotten around to updating Aperture for the 7D.
I have just finished culling 400 files from 1000 and editing them in Lightroom. It worked, I’m grateful that it worked, the edits look good (7D is a nice camera) but I hated using it.
The file managment/library function seems backwards.
When you edit wedding stuff in aperture, I will sometimes make 3 or 4 versions–a color, a B&W, a detail crop, a 1×3 crop , to give my daughter choices when she assembles an album or slide show.
I couldn’tfind an easy way to do that in LR.
Also, the shadow/highlight tools in Aperture seem to be far more powerful.
I did like the ability to create user presets across all tools.
I created 4 for different types of images,& it made things go quickly.
I think I’ll make an Ansel Adams Preset & Sell it, I hear there’s a market for that.
APPLE, if you’re listening I need a 7D raw update by friday, thanks.
I’ve said before that Aperture works the way a Photographer Thinks.
Lightroom is a competant program, but it seems to work, well, the way a software engineer thinks.
Michael
Aperture has been quite good about getting camera updates out as of late. Hopefully, by Friday…….
Apple can best LR by simply fixing what’s wrong with the current version especially where Nikon shooters are concerned. As RB has mentioned, there are only a few things about Aperture that are actually broken or wrong. Apple need not reinvent the wheel when coming out with the next version of Aperture.
Sure there are bells and whistles that we would all like added (just buy Nik already!) but if Apple just fixed the few broken items and implemented the powerful potential of Snow Leopard, you would have world-class photo software that would send Adobe back to the drawing board. If not a clean sheet, it would require Adobe to rethink the entire interface of LR. The 3rd parties have done a fine job of adding functional bells and whistles to Aperture and it was reassuring that nearly all plug-ins for LR are also available to Aperture.
In my digital photography class we work with Photoshop on a daily basis. I’m reminded on that same basis how good Aperture is for 98% of what I shoot.
Son,
I know that those were canon shots – I could tell without even looking at the adjustment pane. The maker stated several times that the demo was not using his shots but someone else’s shots.
I do not think that he was trying to be deceitful or had any agenda but to share his thoughts and the decisions that he has made for his business.
RB
Michael,
I agree that the camera RAW release timeframes from Apple are an issue for some people but… It really doesn’t usually take a long time. I doubt you would have HAD to get the 7D up and running right now! If you hadn’t had an equipment failure. (I usually have two of everything I use myself)
For most working pro photographer’s shooting with the latest camera releases the day or week they are available is not a giant concern.
RB
Jason,
Well said. As I have mentioned before – I am not the kind of guy that sticks with things just because I don’t feel like learning something new. I really love using Aperture, I just want it perfect.
RB
RB,
My point here was more directed to the bad NEF interpretation by Aperture.
I am an active user of Aperture and while it is doing reasonably good job with import of Pentax raw files (and, obviously Canon), I can only dream of the day it will come with NEFs anywhere near to (let’s take NX2 out of the equation as it is proprietary software thus capable of utilizing some features that others can’t or won’t) for example Capture One.
You don’t make video to present on a blog in such ad-hoc way that you just take anyones files and work on them. The fact is that it would take him considerable more time and effort to make Nikon files look good in Aperture. Argumenting how good Aperture is while using NEF files as example is a lost case at the present state of affairs. This guy was smart enough to choose files other than NEF for his video.
In the end, I would subscribe to the last sentence from you post above where you say “I love using Aperture, I just want it perfect”. In my case, it is that I like Aperture as a complete package more than other programs but at present I spend more time fixing bad raw interpretations than on anything else.
Incidentally, everyone is complaining about it, everyone is looking for cure but I have yet to see a worthwhile solution.
One more thing – I don’t think it is about learning new things, as you state in reply to Jason. Here it is much more with investing yourself in one workflow or the other. Switching back and forth from LR and Aperture is a nightmare. I have been through one nightmare going from LR to Aperture and even the thought of switching back makes me sick.
I have tried LR with X-Rite ColorChecker Passport custom created camera profiles and it is superior to Aperture NEF defaults by light years…. but to have to rework over 15k photos in LR again…
If I had D700 at the time I was choosing my DAM, I would not choose Aperture.
RB
The point I was attempting to make, was that my (admittedly self imposed) excursion into Lightroom made me realize how much is right with Aperture . I had tried Lightroom to be sure that I could muddle through to results we could be proud of, and my wife had tested the camera at a small event, and brought my 1Ds III as backup.
My Wife liked the 7D and looked forward to using it.
I also thought it prudent to become passably competant with LR for 2 reasons; my daughter uses it and in a pinch I could be helpful, and “just in case”
What I found was that Lightroom works, and I’m prepared to
use it for as long as necessary, but I’d much prefer not to.
And, that while I have no reason to expect a faster than usual
raw update from Apple, it would be nice.
Michael
Michael,
Yea okay forget all that – I was just being a contrarian. More importantly – YOUR DAUGHTER USES LR?
What kind of upbringing caused that? What’s next? I hope this is just a rebellious phase
RB
Yes RB, a wayward child,(and a Nikon shooter) maybe you could start a 12 step program to get her on the straight and narrow.
And she’s a Princeton grad, oh well.
Actually, she was very proficient with Bridge, and Photoshop, so Lightroom was an improvement and she is comfortable and thinks it would be a hassle to learn a new one.
What’s more she has taken to converting everything in DXO!
Can you say TERRABYTES ?
Film is looking better & better.
Everything in DXO? I think it’s time to take a hard look at what kind of crowd she’s running with and make some decisions.
While DXO gives great results, the interface is abysmal and has various bugs.
At least she’s a Nikon shooter. There’s hope yet if you act quickly and firmly.
On a serious note, I’ve thought several times about buying a copy of LR with my student discount to familiarize myself. My main reason for doing so would be as Michael stated, “just in case”. It would not be out of character for Apple to drop Aperture entirely for no reason other than a “iPhoto is better, because we said so.”
The continuing eternity that the current version of Aperture has been out coupled with the lack of any kind of news when the other “pro apps” were updated last month caused me to very nearly part with money and hard drive space out of desperation.
However, these new Aperture X rumors have slightly renewed my patience so I’ll hold off (for now).
Yes, everything in DXO with All of it’s interface faults, and she does it for 2000 files.
She also stayed up for 72 hours reprinting everything the night before her thesis show at Princeton in an analog color darkroom because she thought she could make a tiny improvement.
I keep hoping Apple will buy DXO, then you would really have something.
So, I have finally converted from film to digital. Just purchased a D700 and went off to Kenya for a shoot. I left the old film cameras home in their bags — the Leicas, Nikons, Hasselblads, and Mamiyas. I thought I was the last of the film photographers, and had quite a niche until the “recession / depression” hit and then clients, who loved film, stopped calling.
So my question, in desperation, is – What is the best way to import NEF’s into Aperture. Should I use P1C1, LR or Adobe CS instead or as a first step??? Or should I use the Nikon software that comes with the D700 and then import them into Aperture??? Help…….. and thanks…..
Desperate on the Hudson
David,
Sorry I missed this I have been working on a bunch of other stuff lately.
At the end of the day if you do not like the Aperture rendition of your RAW NEF files and cannot find a simple combination of adjustments that get you to where you want to be then you may be better off with NX2. Someone somewhere makes an Aperture plug-in that shoots an Aperture RAW to NX2 and brings the 16bit TIFF right back in.
Having said that LR2 and CS4 both use ACR 5.1 – if you use the camera profiles you can make the NEF’s match really close to the picture controls built into the camera if that is what you want.
RB