Mike – seriously, concentrate on the cam you are using …
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Wolfgang - agreed. Everything but the D750 is put away. I left my 50mm f/1.8 on it, and don’t plan to change unless necessary. My new “walkabout zoom” is put away in my drawer. Camera is in (M)anual mode. I’m tempted to put in my 4GB memory card, so it will be like shooting film, only so many exposures until I’m “empty”.
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It has been several months since we were talking about this, and during that time I’ve narrowed things down to two camera types, Nikon DSLR and Leica.
Both my D750 Nikons, and my Df are configured the same. As I found things on one that were different, I changed them. It doesn’t matter which one I pick up, I go through the same motions, and other than a smaller file size on the Df, it no longer matters which I use.
I sold most of my old Nikon lenses that were cluttering up my lens collection, many of which were pre Ai. The non Ai lenses would work on my Df, but I never used them. Over the past several months, with rare exceptions, I’ve been using my 24, my 50, and my 80-200. Since then, I have replaced the 80-200 with my new 70-300 which seems to be just as sharp, and is far lighter. I thought I would sell the 80-200 as well, but I’m still thinking about this. The last lens I expected to use most of the time is my 24-85, but I seem to usually use my prime lenses. All the adjustments on all three cameras are set the same way. The only real difference is that the Df is smaller and lighter.
The Leica of course is different, but it’s SO different that it doesn’t confuse me, any more than getting into a car with an automatic or manual transmission did. For my photography, the Nikons can replace the Leica most of the time. Of course there are actually two Leicas, my M8.2 and my M10, but the 8.2 is now mostly for infrared photography.
The routine I use for PhotoLab is the same no matter which camera the images came from. PhotoMechanic ingests the images into the computer in a standard file system organized by year, then month. I edit all of them the same. I thought I was all set with PL5, but thanks to you, having searched your edits very carefully, now I’ve learned new things I look for when editing.
I’m planning on visiting Colorado in a month or so, and India this summer. For each trip I plan to take one main camera and a backup.
Every so often I dust off one of my other cameras, use it a bit, then put it away again. My Fuji X100f is so “different” I’m tempted to sell it. Ditto for my Canon G7X Pro Mk II. They mostly just sit around getting dusty.
So, regarding your comment, everything has more or less stabilized, and I usually take similar types of photos most of the time. That leaves other things I would like to learn, such as infrared photography, bird photography, focus stacking, film, and HDR - not sure when/how these will happen.
Finally, regarding PhotoLab, every time I think I’m all set, you, @Joanna , @platypus , or @PhotoJoseph teach me something new. As a matter of fact, PhotoJoseph has another webinar tomorrow that I will watch - and I have planned to re-watch his older Webinars.
Concentrate on the cam you are using… I think the cam I use depends on what I’m about to photograph. I’m posting so many of my different types of photos here, you may have a better understanding of what I do, and when, than I do.
Long ago, when I got home after shooting photos, I had hundreds of images to go through. Now I rarely take more than 50, sometimes just 10. I think I’m shooting digital as if it was film, trying to get every shot perfect the first time.
Interesting - when I think about what you wrote, every so often, I start to think I should do what you said, but put the old glass on a film camera. That’s not as simple as it sounds, as I’ve forgotten much about shooting film. I shot one roll of film a week for a couple of months, but stopped doing that when I got more serious about what @Wolfgang wrote. I sent off my LEICA M3 for a full overhaul, and it’s ready and loaded - one of these days, I need to get back to my weekly film shoot, followed by scanning…
I did that, calling them “Mike Myers - date”, and replacing them as I found the need to. I’ve finally got a Preset that I use for just about everything. I can see the benefit from doing what you suggest, but my world seems more “stable” when PhotoLab starts up the same way every time. Ditto for my Workspace. I think I’m now ready to do what you suggest, but I’m trying to use your “all in one” system. That way I remember where everything is!!! :-).
I did, this past Saturday, at Pitman Photo in Miami. I flat out hated it. I’d rather use my iPhone.
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I just realized I’ve had this backwards for a very long time now. I thought the Mirrorless camera has been introduced as a possible replacement for the DSLR, but in reality, my first Mirrorless camera was introduced at about the same time. In 2004 Canon released this professional Mirrorless camera:
Canon Powershot Pro 1
I could look through the viewfinder, or look at the fold-out screen, and see the digital view of the image. It had what I thought was a reasonably sharp lens, but unfortunately was “focus by wire”. Never mind any of my thoughts or opinions - you can read the DPReview camera review online yourself.
The Canon is what I took with me to India on my twice-a-year trips. It was small, light, portable, and 100% reliable. At the time, none of what I now consider negative attributes bothered me - it was a tool, and did pretty much what I wanted. I carried it all over India as it was so small and light and unobtrusive, and quiet, and I had no complaints about the results. Actually, I liked it so much that I still have this camera, the manual, and all the stuff that came with it - except the batteries don’t seem to last very long if they’re not used. I ordered another battery this morning - will charge it fully, and when not in use, I’ll remove it from the camera. Replacement batteries are only $10.
For my next visit to India, I bought an Olympus E-1.
(The Olympus E-1 , introduced in 2003, was the first DSLR system camera designed from the ground up for digital photography[1] This contrasts with its contemporaries which offered systems based on reused parts from previous 135 film systems, modified to fit with a sensor size of APS-C.) …I enjoyed this camera, but gave or sold it to someone in India before returning to the US, as I planned to buy a Nikon DSLR. All my memories of the E-1 are excellent - it had a huge lens, and I didn’t understand how I could capture such wonderful images with only 4 megapixels. I guess the were very good pixels…
My first DSLR was the Nikon D2h introduced in 2001. I knew they were coming, and called B&H and got onto the waiting list, and of the first group of cameras that arrived at B&H, one went to me. There turned out to be a “small” detail that after a few hours of use, it would die, and be sent back to Nikon. This happened four time, and each time I sent back the body, and received a full new camera kit with a new battery. After the last time, I called Michael Ansatt at Nikon, and asked him to replace it with a D2x that Nikon already had in-house, and was using as a test camera - they did, and that camera worked fine. It still works fine - I gave it to my brother.
Nikon’s D70 came out shortly afterwards, and I (stupidly) ordered one of the first cameras to arrive in the USA, and took it on a trip to Italy, where it died after less than an hour of use. Lesson learned - again. Anyway, for all my Indian trips from then on, I took the D70, and the Powershot Pro1 was put away in a cabinet, where it mostly just sat.
It wouldn’t be fair to compare the Pro1 to the Nikon’s new consumer Z cameras, but the same issues remain. The viewfinder was adequate, but not what I was used to from my SLR, and now dSLR cameras, and the focus by wire never appealed to me. For viewfinders, I used to open the fold-out screen on the Pro1 and use that instead of looking through the camera viewfinder. Using it that way, it was pretty good.
Enough of this, and sorry for maybe wasting everyone’s time. It’s just that for me, the viewfinder is an extremely important part of a camera, as it is the real connection between “the world” and “my eye”. If I don’t have a good viewfinder to look through, my second preference is a good-enough digital screen that I can look “at”.
Nowadays, I find myself already thinking of PhotoLab when I’m first taking a photo, as in trying to make it easy for myself later that day to turn the picture into a saved image that I can share. In that way, the advice I get in this PhotoLab forum is already being applied to any photo I want to capture, before pressing the shutter release button. If my viewfinder is “annoying”, it disturbs that connection. Plan “B” is to use Live View and look at the camera’s rear display but I prefer not to do that.
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OUPS ! didn’t see that subject was so long I responded to very old post !
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OUPS ! didn’t see that subject was so long I responded to very old post !
BTW, PhotoLab does NOT care about what kind of viewfinder you used when you took the Photo.
Maybe that will change, when we can also download raw image files from the EVF… 
Of course . That’s for me ? Never thought that. Just thought being reading a new post and responded to it. Didn’t see this topic was so long and they are very old posts.
There were some interrogations about this in the beginning of this topic … several monthes ago 