For those of you out there that I have been assisting with getting Aperture 3 up and running on your broken libraries – you know where I have been. Also – it will not be long for the eBook updates – very soon.

I have also decided to test a couple of new products based on a lot of my One On One Aperture consultations. There are many things that I cover in my eBooks that people just “get it” however after talking with a good number of you and seeing the difference between the written words and actually walking you through some of the things visually there seems to be a need for both. So…

I will be putting together a couple of screencasts. My intent is to mirror a lot of the things in the eBooks but broken down in to very short – sweet – easily digestible 5 or 10 minute bits. for like 99 cents or something like that. Maybe like 10 minutes a piece to act as a companion to the eBooks or for those that do not like to read to operate stand-alone. Let me know if you thing this will or won’t be helpful.

RB

Give people the magic solution they are looking for + a couple bucks + bullshit = income. I should just give up on this and go over to the dark side. I am absolutely sure I could publish a preset every day and get at least $1000 in sales out of it. I am sure – so are other people. Here is the question – should I?

For my own soul’s sake my answer is no. I tried to warn you guys/gals but it seems to be of no avail.

RB

Ps. I have been busy doing things that actually help people – yes I charge money to do it. I have been helping a lot of friends and customers with Aperture 3 conversions. Only one person made the decision to go back to Aperture 2 so far. As soon as I can compose myself I will offer my observations on conversions and doing real intensive work with Aperture 3.

For your enjoyment and amusement.

RB

Okay – I am done with that. WB is still wrong and the WB “presets” included with Aperture 3 are even worse yet. I have no idea why the Daylight WB preset adds a bunch of magenta. Do you? Doesn’t seem to work for any of my files – Nikon or not. Hmmmm. Maybe they got that one confused with the “Make this look like an old Agfa chrome that has laid around for 50 years” preset. I am still trying to figure the rest of them out and what kind of crack the Apple dude that made them was on.

Moving on to Non-Apple white balance topics one of the things that surprised me when discussing color rendition with a lot of readers out there was a really basic understanding of color temperatures in general. Yea everyone knows what WB is and everyone has bought those stupid little overpriced targets that they can waste time screwing with while missing the shot. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a very basic understanding of the color temperature of light that they are actually shooting in and what settings they “should use”.

This is not a creative use of white balance discussion. This is the opposite. There are plenty of other “creative use” and practical WB tips that I have posted – look them up. This is a couple of things that are NEED TO KNOW.

First off – When you use studio strobes it is NOT daylight WB. When you use little Nikon flashes it is NOT the same color temp as most studio strobes. The “flash” setting on Nikon cameras has nothing to do with studio strobe color temperature. Further more the “5400K” that Nikon lists as the color temp for that setting might be correct but they don’t mention that it also ratchets the entire thing way toward magenta as well.

Okay so now you know all the stuff you thought was the same is entirely different. What is what? Let’s start with Daylight. Nikon defines daylight WB as 5200K – this is an okay setting but reality is that Daylight has a range of color temps depending on the time of the year, time of the day, and atmospheric conditions. Does this mean you shouldn’t use that setting? No – in fact using it will ensure that you capture the color of the light relative to that setting. This might be a fantastic thing depending on the light vs. Auto WB neutralizing it. Depends on the image – if you are shooting RAW I would rather shoot at one setting in one lighting condition rather than have WB all over the map by a few point here and there.

Studio strobes – the vast majority of studio strobes are 5500K or 5600K. They are different. If you buy really good strobes the tubes will be matched on color – this is important. If you shoot with your camera on daylight when using studio strobes your images will be too blue. If you adjust them after the fact and set them to “Daylight” they will be too blue. If you use the Nikon “Flash” setting they will be a tiny bit too blue and way too magenta/pink. Only use the Nikon “Flash” setting with SB’s and then it is not usually the best thing to do.

Hope that clears a few things up for Nikon shooters. Oh – the numbers displayed in Aperture are way way way wrong no matter what setting you used in your camera – that is really funny since if you shoot using a “setting” the EXIF tells you in plain english what the numbers were. Just to illustrate some differences here the image at the top of the post was shot at 6300K using 5500K lights. The next image down is the same one rendered as “Daylight”. The one after that is at the correct color temperature of 5500K – that one is dead neutral. The next one is using the Nikon “Flash” WB setting and finally we have what Apple thinks things should look like from a WB perspective as “daylight”

RB

As for the Nikon D300 – this is a camera I do not own and I have received very few NEF files so my test images are rather limited. Consider these two picture controls a draft – Standard and Landscape. I really would like some feedback from those of you that try them as they are definitely work in progress. The really funny thing is that Apple seems to get the colors wrong consistently but swings wildly on the amounts wrong as well as huge differences in default contrast with cameras – I guess too many Nikon shooters were complaining the defaults were too flat so Apple went the reverse on the D300 – from the samples I have it looks like the default Apple conversion for the D300 is really juiced up compared to the NX2 picture controls.

Anyway – here they are. The more feedback I get and the more files the better they will be. I have found that a lot of people are using my D200 presets for various Nikon cameras with some degree of “success” – I can tell you for a fact that they are WRONG for just about every other popular Nikon. Not as wrong as Aperture defaults but wrong. Also note that I did not include the yellow correction for the D200 presets because of a nasty Yellow – Green cross over. I will put a modified version or both versions out there soon.

On another note – I have test some other presets for Nikon picture control settings that are being sold on the market – I am unimpressed. I took a look at these and there is nothing in there that is remotely correct (for any NEF files). If any of you know of anything actually decent point us all that way. They do things like boost the saturation on the default blue and default green – that’s it. (Really – you are going to charge money for that? You’re kidding right?)

RB

Ps. I know these are way wrong – I want some examples that are way off so I can correct them. I have like 4 different scenes for the D300 right now.

It’s a little thing but a big time saver for me. If you haven’t used it yet you should definitely check out the new “Show In Project” function that Aperture 3 has added. It shows up in the right click context menu and the File menu when you are looking at an image anywhere but in the project where it lives.

It saves me so much time that I made a shortcut key for it. Even if I know what project an image belongs to it is so much quicker jumping to that project with “Show In Project” that this is probably becoming one of my favorite new things. The biggest issue is remembering it is there. Just force yourself to use it for a couple of days – even if you don’t need it and it will become one of those things you just can’t live without. Like when they added two finger scrolling to laptop track pads.

“Show In Project works no matter what you are looking at – smart albums, searches, albums, books. Anywhere that an image shows up except in a project where it lives.

RB

One of the side conversations that I had surrounded Nikon color, the “beater camera” post that I put up a few  days ago, and believe it or not conversations about one of my personal “beater” cameras. The Nikon D2H – The beast. There are a lot of shooters out there that are not super familiar with this camera except that they know it is “only” 4.1 megapixels. Some new found buddies wanted to know if I really still shoot it and why I would ever shoot it when doing workshops, etc. etc.

Well at the risk of repeating myself I will give you a random bunch of thoughts on this camera and why I still shoot it. Not as my main camera but just for the heck of it. All of the photos in this post are 100% crops of images that I shot very quickly – I was shooting on the same days and shooting freehand full length and 3/4 length shots. These are NOT tripod shots of head shots they are really small portions of the 4 megapixel frame. So the lighting is optimized for 3/4 length and full length shots and is a bit “off” for a head shot.

The D2H was and still is one of the most responsive cameras ever made. It feels so close to my D3 you cannot tell. You turn it on and shoot. Shoot shoot shoot and shoot some more. It takes the same batteries as my D3’s. I dare you to wear out the battery on the D2H – there is a good chance it will wear you out first. The focusing is fantastic. Even if you shoot wide open at large apertures. Fast – Fast – Fast.

The files are small – even RAW files – JPGs are tiny. When I tether the camera via wireless the images show up almost as fast as I shoot on a giant monitor that I use for demos. Why the heck would I want bigger files to do that – they are already 2x as big as HD anyway. Oh and the files look fantastic – “tonality” is awesome. Color is awesome. They look fantastic at ISO 200 and I rarely need more – actually never – in a lighting workshop. I could actually use less. Especially when I mix flash with full sun. The only place this camera “fails” is at high ISO or when you need a big big file.

This is the very first digital camera that I ever owned that I took seriously. When I bought it Iwas shooting mostly medium and large format film for my commercial work. The imagesfrom this camera looked like film. Really. I actually used this camera for some commercial work that was not destined for larger print sizes. Yep no kidding. I shot film and I shot the D2H on most occasions. I really didn’t care too too much about the 4 megapixels I cared much more about the ability to differentiate tones and capture color that was out of the realm of possibility for digital at the time. Some cameras still have issues with certain colors and differentiating subtle hues within troublesome ranges. When I shoot color I care about color.

These crops are from the out of Camera JPGs with NOTHING done to them. The camera settings were “flat”. Normal, normal, normal, normal – across the board. 80% were color mode I and the other 20% were color mode III. You can tell which ones where which as they are night and day different color. The reason they look warm is because my lights are 5500K  - my camera was set to 6300K. That is the equivalent of somewhere between an 81 and 85 series warming filter in sunlight. No problem If I want neutral color – I shot RAW+JPG.

The biggest thing about this camera was the color and the ability to differentiate tones – a year or two later I bought a Hasselblad H1D with a Leaf back it had great color as well. It was not nearly as fast – sometimes that is way more important. The biggest workshop mistake I ever made was using that camera when it was brand new – nobody wanted to talk about topics that mattered. Everyone wanted to talk about that camera. That is another reason that I use the D2H – nobody gives a crap about that beater. The other fantastic thing about the D2H was and is how it handled highlights – sort of “film like” – yes you can still blow highlights – but it looked a whole lot like slide film. No funky strange colors and even when the highlights went through the roof the transitions did not look at all “digital”. Some of the colors and the values they are rendered at in these photos used to throw other digital cameras into fits and looked horrible – not the D2H. Yes the D2x is just as good, so is the D3. But hey this was way back in 2004. That is like ancient times in digital.

The funny part is that the D2 cameras handle and feel exactly like the D3 cameras. Except the D2H is a tad lighter – another reason it is one of my favorite beater cameras. I know what you are thinking – it is not a light camera – no it isn’t but… If you stick a vertical grip on other cameras it is just as heavy and they are not nearly as comfortable as the D2H. Comfort, speed, good color. decent dynamic range, sharp, did I mention fast. Why wouldn’t I shoot this camera in workshops.

This is probably my favorite beater camera – you don’t have a beater camera that you can use to train yourself not to be so worried about your camera. Get one of these. You can probably get them for like 200 bucks. I doubt used ones are broken – even if they are ugly. These things are like hammers. As a bonus for your 200 bucks you will get to see what kind of difference shooting a pro body is like vs. a not pro body. I am serious on this point. If you have a D5000 or a D80 or something like that and have ever wondered why people pay a lot more money for a camera that cannot really do a whole lot “more” technically you will know after shooting a $200 beat up D2H. This thing is so much faster and more responsive – so much more comfortable and the controls are so much better there will not be any doubt in your mind as to “why”. Of course that may make no difference in your images. Then again it might make a world of difference and suddenly you will find yourself in the market for a used D2x – also a song or a used D3 in a year instead of the next biggest baddest D5002 with 25 megapixels and HD video.

Well – there you have it. I know that is a bunch of strange stuff but maybe it will be some food for thought for a couple of folks out there one way or another. It may also give you an idea of why I am such a crazed lunatic when it comes to the perfect work-flow tool (Aperture) that screws up the perfect colors on my perfect camera (Nikons). Sane folks just accept things – I do not and cannot accept things. I must change reality and bend it to my will.

Any other D2H questions?

RB

While taking in all of the new Aperture 3 juicy goodness – and there is a lot of it – there are a few things that some of you might be scratching your heads about. Not in confusion of how it works – that is easy – but more like “why bother”.

One of the new features – the search box in the project inspector is fantastic and the “why” is obvious if you have more than a couple of projects. Some of the other “little” features by comparison are not so self evident as to their value. Let’s take the new Aperture metadata items available for searches and smart albums. Specifically let’s take one like “album name”. Why would you want to search images by album name – you can do that in the project inspector and go there, or if you know that then why are you searching – etc.

One of the great features of Aperture has always been that the functionality works together in very useful ways to support what YOU do in your work-flow. Just to connect a couple of dots that you might not have yourself and to get you thinking along the right lines of evaluating the new Aperture 3 features let’s look at searching by “album name” in conjunction with the new project “Duplicate project structure” function. Hypothetically let’s say you always product projects that have a couple standard albums in them – one being an album called “published”.

Putting that together with a smart album at the top of your library that searches for all images that are in an album name called published is a really really simple way to consolidate all of those images across all of your projects. You may do something completely different than that but I just wanted to get you thinking about some of the new Aperture 3 features in that kind of light so you can make the most out of it in your own personal work-flow.

RB

First of all if you have been reading my posts for more than a week you have probably picked up on my own personal frustration with this situation. Actually frustration is not the word – maybe bewilderment, rage, disdain, hopelessness, anger, despair  on and on. Over the last few months I have been taking a “glass is half full point of view” on it and trying to work through it as I have done in the past. Hence screwing with the NEF presets for Aperture 3.

There are a lot of people that feel that NX2 produces sharper, snappier files – I am not on board with this thought process – my personal opinion is overall contrast, definition, and sharpness are idiotically easy to deal with. This is really not the source of my frustration – my amazement is how the hell Apple can possibly get the color so very very very WRONG. If it were a simple fix for the color I would not complain – really. I am not talking about all of the color being skewed one way nor am I talking about saturation. I am talking about the color hue values being so far wrong in seemingly random ways it is impossible to believe that it is not on purpose.

I used to give Apple a pass on this when every other RAW converter out there had similar issues with NEF files. Seems just about everyone including Adobe has cracked the code on this about 2 years ago. Apple is a very very rich company with a ton of cash in reserve – why the hell can’t they hire two or three decent engineers and on color expert to fix this once and for all. The funny thing is almost all NEF files have the same exact issues. Five year old cameras have similar issues (just worse) than brand new ones. Brand new ones vary from one model to the next in the specific wrong-ness values. They play with the overall tone curve a little here and a little there – randomly but they seem clueless about the color issue.

So my official position on this is…

WTF

RB

With Aperture 3 the best bet is just to make a few presets for the lenses you use – not a big deal since you can search by lens and batch apply the preset. No need to do it manually all the time. Check out the screenshot at the top – on the left is with the correction. On the right w/o. If you do not know what to look for look at the edge of the hull against the sky and the chrome against the sky – it is well hidden because it is the cyan variety but I think it is a night and day difference.

RB