Reading the discussions about this video on Digital Photo Review led me to this:
Wildlife Photo Review with MOOSE PETERSON!
His person rule - no post processing, no cropping, get it right in the camera.
And more processing speed. when you have a image which needs much Local Adjustments you can tranfer the raw to DNG and re-import in the same folder.
Why in the same folder?
Well wen you completely done you can copy paste all corrections back on the rawfile. (Remember the CA colorshift isue in the dark streetlight which i pulled from yellow foilage to green?)
because Demoisiacing is done and fixed the CA correction is that too.
By copy past back to the rawfile you enable DxO to adjust.
Both Helen and I thought this was such an interesting and insightful video. We stopped it before the final choice to see if we could predict the “winner” and ended up with one of us choosing one of the last two and the other choosing the other 
Thank you so much for having contributed to our 50+ years of knowledge
…which “proves” that, after eliminating technically bad shots, the rest is all a matter of intentions - and personal taste.
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DarkTable doesn’t have the lens calibration modules that PL5 has and that you can’t even begin to hazard a guess at if you were trying to correct the lens faults manually.
Why when it’s such a simple matter to get PL5 to recognise the files?
I have just downloaded and installed DarkTable 
It has to be one of the worst user interfaces I have yet to find. What is more, it created an XMP file for every image file in the “imported” folder. Truly awful!
Then I tried to do something simple like adjusting the tonality on one of my NEF files from the D810…
I couldn’t even have two tools open at the same time and the Levels tool was so difficult to use, especially when I couldn’t use both that and the Tone Curve tool at the same time.
No local adjustments that I could work out how to use and no noise reduction available for either the D810 or the Leica M8.
I just tried to achieve the same result in PL5 (a simple tone curve) and the only things I needed to do where the tone curve and some fine contrast.
Mike, I implore you, for the sake of your sanity, and the quality of your images, never use DarkTable again 
Rather change the model in your RAW files and use PL5 than degrade your images like that.
You might find it quicker to go to the Presets palette on the left panel and simply double-click on the “Optical Corrections only” preset there.
The optical corrections only preset doesn’t normally change perspective, that usually has to be done on an image by image basis.
Believe me Mike, with DarkTable, it’ll be the software that drags your images down.
Why not? Images from a compatible Leica will be just as easy to edit in PL5 as any from other make.
PL5 does nothing for you automatically, apart from applying lens corrections. All the rest is up to you as to what corrections you want to make. There is no reason why you can’t be equally as proficient if you were to concentrate on one camera and PL5 alone. At our age, the brain gets easily overloaded and having to remember which software does what can lead to brain farts. Did I just mention about brain farts? What’s a brain fart and why did I mention it? Did I mention brain farts?
Absolute and complete rubbish! 
the results I get are from years of learning how to leverage PL5 - you don’t get one without the other.
You could also export the finished image to Preview and flip it there.
I’m sorry but that is nowhere near the truth. A computer is known as an “adaptable machine”. A piece of software is an adaptation - in this case, PL5 adapts the computer to be an image processor.
Software can’t create a mood or feeling but you can use that software to do the calculations that change an ordinary rendering into a true work of art that touches people’s souls. Agreed - without vision an image will end up being a simple record of what the camera was pointed at. But, with your vision, you can use the tools you have to hand: camera and software, to recreate the vision that you had before you pressed the shutter and evoke that that mood or feeling.
So, he chose the image that he had a vision for, not forgetting that his triage started with getting rid of the dross: exposure-wise, composition-wise, etc. But, after all the technical stuff, which has to be right, he chose what he wanted to convey.
My personal rule - get it as right in the camera as is possible. But how can I do that when I want a square image and my camera only take 3:2 images?
He decided to shoot RAW, but to limit his exposure range to 5-6 stops. This is essentially what we do when we shoot LF with Fuji Velvia colour transparency film. If you do that, you certainly don’t need post-processing. However, if you want to capture a scene that has a larger dynamic range, then you have two choices: use graduated filters on the lens or expose for the highlights and recover the shadows in post-processing. Or the third option, that he mentioned, simply don’t take the shot.
Personally, if my camera is capable of recording 14 stops of range, I’m going to use it and I’m going to use PL5 as the tool for doing it. Maybe Moose just isn’t comfortable or knowledgeable with post-processing? Nevertheless, he knows how to do his job and he could do it with film or JPEG files - he doesn’t even need RAW.
I could shoot JPEG for landscape if I wanted to use all the LF techniques, using colour correction and graduated neutral density filters. Truth is, it’s harder work and I can achieve the same, if not better, results using RAW and PL5.
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Yes, that’s what Moose explained straight at the beginning (3:xx … didn’t watch that much further), when Mr.Northrup asked him about post processing …
And yes, the better the in-camera pic, the less work in post – simple as that.
I thought I already explained - now that I can, all my editing will be done in PhotoLab. DarkTable is now just a backup, if I ever need to use it, which may never happen.
You did better than me - I couldn’t even open an image in DT until I watched a YouTube video.
I was overwhelmingly confused, but no less confused than the first time I opened PhotoLab3, or any of the Adobe software. I was lost, out on the water in a canoe, with no paddle. Like someone who never drove a stick-shift car before, and suddenly has to do so.
If you don’t watch enough of the videos, the whole concept of how to use DT will be lost, as you’ll be trying to do things as you do in PL. I watched a video on how to click on the histogram itself, and slide things around - fascinating, but at that moment I didn’t know yet how it would be useful. It took me about a month before I could use PL or DT somewhat effectively, and as I quickly learned in this forum, I was doing things incorrectly.
It’s like my being told to shoot an event with a Canon set-up, when all I knew was Nikon. Everything was in the wrong place, and initially I flat-out hated it. By the end of the four-day event, I made the camera work my way, and/or vice versa, and the photos eventually came out like what I expected. Similarly, every time I’m forced to use PhotoShop, I realize that I have no idea what I’m doing at first.
Can’t do that. If I don’t use it a little, I’ll forget how to use it completely, and I might be stuck on a computer that doesn’t have DxO software. I definitely plan to use PhotoLab for the overwhelming majority of my photo work, and I certainly prefer it over DarkTable. I expect to be using the M8 much less, meaning I’ll be using the M10 when not shooting with Nikon.
What I’d prefer to believe, is that I can get acceptable results from any of the editors I have access to, even Adobe software. At Aravind Eye Hospital, where I volunteer, the license to get Adobe software for all their computers is astronomical, and DT is available at no charge. I expect them to change from Adobe to DarkTable. Regarding the last thing you wrote, I firmly believe that what drags MY images down is ME, not the camera, not the lenses, not the software, but ME.
Then there are people such as Moose, who insist on getting it right in the camera, and do no editing. Then my priorities would be very different I guess…
I agree with you, that the editing would be just as easy, but capturing the best possible image, as I see it, is far easier in a Nikon DSLR than a Leica RF. Focusing in a DSLR is effortless and instant; with a RF it’s never that easy. Shooting with a Leica is more like shooting film.
That’s what I mean - this is something you know so well, you probably don’t need to think about it most of the time, unlike me, when I stare at an image and try to figure out what to do to/with it.
Tools are important, but the person using the tools is FAR MORE important. …in my opinion.
I disagree. Computers, and automated tools, can only do what they’re programmed to do. You, with a trained eye, already know what you want, and you can then get the computer to do it more easily than if you did it by hand.
(If I was sitting there, chances are I wouldn’t know what to do as well as what you understand, and it won’t be the tools holding me back, it will be ME.)
You are an artist. An experienced artist. No matter what tools you do or don’t have, you’ll get things done beautifully, and better than most of us could.
Meanwhile, we’re way off-topic in this thread…
I still hope that someone at DxO will read the posts and collect the crumbs and gold flakes that we’ve shed.
Ah, now that couldn’t happen in the UK. You have to learn to drive on a manual gearbox unless you have an exceptional reason like disability; otherwise you get a restricted licence which only allows you to drive automatics.
I learned to drive buses (double decker) in my early twenties and we had to learn on what is known as a crash box, where there is no synchromesh to ease the gear changes and we had to press the clutch once to disengage the current gear, adjust the revs on the engine to match the new gear, then press the clutch again to engage the new gear. And on the final test, we were only allow to “crunch” the gears twice or we failed.
Indeed. Your priority then is to remember how you used to take colour transparency film shots, change your camera to JPEG and, if they aren’t right when viewed in Finder, you got it wrong - go back and take it again 
It’s all down to knowing the capabilities and limitations of the camera you are using. The only real difference in ease of use is how familiar you are with the camera you are holding. If working with a Leica is what you do every day, with no other camera to compare it with, you soon get used to always focusing manually, using its peculiar metering, etc.
I still reckon that LF photography is easier than anything that requires a battery in the camera. Helen once took a shot in less than ten minutes from seeing the view and stopping the car. Yes, it took three of us to unload the gear and set the camera up but, to actually read, calculate and set up the exposure, it only took a couple of minutes of that time. Because at that time, we were shooting almost exclusively LF and the process had become automatic.
If you want to use the same technique with all cameras, set them all to manual focus, manual exposure, JPEG mode and treat them all as film cameras. Then all you’ve got to remember is:
- how to adjust the focus
- how to adjust the aperture
- how to adjust the shutter speed
The ISO is really the only extra thing you might want to change but that can usually be set in much the same way you would have chosen a particular film for its speed and not changed during a session.
That’s very flattering and thank you for your kind words. But what you see in my posts is the culmination of years of experience and mistakes:
- learning how to use a given camera to the point where it becomes automatic
- learning the capabilities and limitations of that camera
- for LF
- learning how to use the Zone System and movements
- learning how to create the best possible negative in preparation for printing
- for digital
- learning how to make the best RAW files in preparation for PhotoLab
- learning how to use one image editor well enough that it becomes automatic
If I want to change that workflow, it becomes really, really hard. My recommendation to you is to concentrate on one workflow, so that you are not continually having to make so many decisions, which are distracting from producing an image that matches your vision.
You need three tools to fix things: hammer, duct-tape, WD-40
- If it moves and it shouldn’t: use duct-tape
- It it doesn’t move but it should: use WD-40
- For everything else: use the hammer
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Sheer genius! Thank you for bringing a smile to an otherwise dull, wet day 
UK, yep, many things are different. From a search I just did: “…buying a new car in the US virtually costs the same for manual or automatic transmission. Additionally, younger generations of Americans rarely learn how to drive in a manual transmission car. For them, there is really no economic reason to do so since automatics are far more widely available.”
Almost - Moose said he always shoots in RAW, not jpg. To me, that means he is doing post processing even when he thinks he isn’t, but I think he’s mostly talking about exposure and cropping.
I suspect you’re right, but I wouldn’t know, as I use whatever I have at hand, depending on what I plan on shooting, and I can make either do what I need, but like I said, my D750 DSLR is “easier” than my M10 RF for most things. It’s almost certainly due to my own limitations, but for example, RF cameras were not made for use with long focal length lenses - that’s why Leica introduced the old Visoflex systems. My D750 has no such limitations - press the focus button, and it is done, perfectly, and accurately. Much easier than my struggling with a tiny thing in the viewfinder (no magnification) and trying to superimpose one image over the other. The Nikon system is better than the Visoflex if “action” is involved. …but in college, none of this prevented me from taking football photographs for the college newspaper using my Nikon SP rangefinder camera with a 135mm lens. You do what you need to do. I suspect this was easier with “younger eyes”.
Other than for learning, why would I want to create the same limitations for say, my D750, when the camera does so much of the detail work for me, leaving me to concentrate on composition and timing, not those details? I agree with you that one should learn all that “stuff”.
Can I ask how long you think it would have taken Helen to take her D850 out, mount it on a tripod, frame the scene, and capture the image?
In the past, I would have expected the LF camera to capture a better image, but the D850 is so capable, I’m no longer sure of that. I had a desire until recently to start using LF again, but the expense, and the work, and the diminishing benefits as digital improved so much, make me wonder about this… which leads me to a digital back on a LF style camera, so I would have all the adjustments. It’s a nice dream for me, but it will never happen. I’m also not strong enough to lug all that gear around, and any goal of capturing a LF negative would be to scan it into my computer… which sort of defeats the whole concept as I see it.
That could be said of any wonderful artist, or musician, and I’m sure it is true, but you TODAY are what you are, which is what I meant by what I wrote.
I understand what you wrote about all the things that led up to who you are today, but that doesn’t change who you ARE today. Nobody is “perfect”, but I suspect you are at the top of the perfection list for anyone I know.
I don’t see you “changing” your workflow, but I could easily see you “expanding” your workflow. As far as I know, you haven’t yet bought a filter that blocks visible light, allowing infrared light to come through, placed your D750 on a tripod, and captured some scenes like what I recently did in infrared. You would then find lots of new things you need to learn (such as where do you focus the lens for infrared light, which is not where it would be for visible light). No reason you couldn’t take this as a challenge, and try it out. You might find it as fascinating as I do, maybe even more so! But you can’t take the “easy way” and use DxO FilmPack, as that creates fake images that sort of look like infrared.
That’s a challenge for you - something new, that I don’t think you’ve yet done.
Think of me as a guy with a “photographer” sign out in front of my house, and different people come to me with different requests for photos. I then have to use the tools I have at hand, and/or buy new ones, and learn how to capture the photos that have been requested. I never know ahead of time what might come up, but my job is to do the best I can, read, learn, buy, practice, and create a perfect photo. Every day is something new.
The difference here in France is not so marked nowadays as the price premium for automatics isn’t as big as it used to be. We just got a Škoda Octavia and, being part of the VW/Audi group, it came with their 7-speed DSG gearbox, which means I can leave it in automatic, choose between “normal” and sport mode, or switch to manual (semi-automatic) mode, where you briefly push forwards to change up and briefly pull towards you to change down. I have driven automatics for many years, wondering why anyone would want to voluntarily choose a manual, but this box means, with all the hills and vales we have around here, I can always be in full control of which gear I am in.
My guess is Moose shoots in RAW because someone told him it is better, without realising that, unless you do use post processing, you really don’t get much improvement, apart from what he can do in ACR, which he doesn’t realise is post-processing
You’ve hit the nail on the head there. LF focusing is so much easier when you’ve got a 5" x 4" ground glass screen and a 7x magnification loupe that you can move around to check the whole image area.
The main thought was that, if you have to do the same thing, regardless of camera, it means you don’t have to keep on thinking “which camera am I using today?” Or, as you say, stick with the most flexible camera that does the most for you for the job you are doing.
She reckons about half the time, because she would still have had to set up the tripod, level the camera, frame the shot, meter the scene, etc. And she wouldn’t have needed me and our friend to help set up the Ebony on its tripod whilst she was calculating the exposure
Neither are we. Which is why our Ebony cameras have been “resting” in their bags for a few years now, occasionally whispering “use me, use me”.
Better is a subjective term. The D850 is capable of producing stonking images up to 24" x 16" or even 32" x 24", that can be viewed at arm’s length without batting an eyelid. But when you want a 5ft by 4ft print that you can walk up to and inspect from close quarters, you’re never going to beat an LF camera.
I am sat in a room with two of our LF images, framed, on the wall, with an image size of 30" x 24" and they are a pure joy to look at and “walk around” with our eyes. At the time we took these images, our only digital cameras were D200s with only 10Mpx, so very difficult to get the same resolution with taking multiple shots and stitching them. Now, with the D850 at 45Mpx, we wouldn’t think twice of printing one of those images to the same size.
Although we are relatively younger, we can already appreciate all that, which is why it’s going to take something like a commission or an exhibition to kick our butts into gear and put the LF bags into the car.
Well, I am a perfectionist, some would say possibly a bit OCD, but I am only too well aware that I still have so much to learn and that I could do things so much better. Not forgetting that this forum never gets to see all the mistakes I still make.
Excuse me…
It might not be a Miami skyline, but it was taken with a total IR filter, with the D810, ISO 100, 4 minutes @ f/10, converted to Ilford Delta 100 film in PL4. Please excuse the flare - I forgot to shield the back of the square filter in its slide-in holder. 
I don’t see anything in this image that would imply it was shot using only infrared. I can’t tell what I’m seeing at the top right is - if it’s trees, captured in white, then I’m wrong. I read that the new Nikons, when fitted with an IR filter, and given a long enough exposure, will capture an image, but that the cameras do an excellent job of filtering out the infrared before the light hits the sensor. I can’t tell from this photo. If you (or I) shoot some trees with a Nikon, using the “black” filter, we’ll find out. I think I read about this somewhere, but never got to try it - my infrared filter isn’t large enough for the new Nikon lenses.
About the other things you wrote, I mostly agree.
Maybe the choice should be “type of camera”, not “which camera”? Rangefinder cameras, LF cameras, and DSLR cameras are “better” or “worser” for different tasks. The DSLR is probably the most flexible, and able to do just about everything.
As to Mirrorless, I’m not sure I want to be staring at an electronic view all the time. I think it might lead to eyestrain. Remember all those old warnings about not staring at electronic screens too much? That doesn’t apply to the DSLR or RF, or the LF, but Mirrorless - I’ve never enjoyed watching electronic screens more than I have to.
I wonder if using a mirrorless camera will eventually degrade our images, because we can’t see correctly, and PL7 will be designed to compensate for that.
If that was my goal, “to make full use of PL’s splendid capabilities”, this would make sense, but it isn’t. As a photographer, I have lots of cameras, and lots of lenses, and they are in many types, formats, sizes, etc. When I’m going out to take photos of an event, or whatever, I usually pick what I think would be best for that particular project. It’s usually a compromise of size, weight, type of camera, film/digital, and shooting conditions, and it is greatly influenced by what I actually have available for me to use at the time.
Once the photo is taken, I’ve then got around seven image processors, more if we include film. My familiarity with the software has a lot to do with which one I select - they are all “tools”, and currently PhotoLab is at the top of my list. If for some reason I don’t have access to PhotoLab, I’ve got a long list to choose from.
I usually don’t know long ahead of time where I’ll be going, or what I’ll be photographing. Even if I do, sometimes I select cameras based on totally different factors, such as “size” and “weight”, and “special features”, and how conspicuous the camera will be as I’m using it.
Sometimes I guess well, and other times, not so well.
On the other hand, if I was planning a trip to Africa to photograph wildlife, I would select the best gear I own for that purpose. If it worked well with my favorite editor, PL, great, but if not, oh well. Like if I couldn’t get there on American Airlines, my favorite, there are many more choices.
In no way am I suggesting I am “right”; I’m just explaining how I deal with these choices.
I don’t envy the DxO-person who gets the task to evaluate “features/improvements” as this thread is occasionally miles off course. I understand, some features need explanations. But I also see lengthy posts without any “improvements I like to see in PL”. Is that the reason, the product is missing so many features or the desired ones need years and still no decision “will come in the next release” or “will not come, because…” available?
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Off topic, so apologies, but might help people with cars 
A DSG transmission is not actually an automatic transmission. It is actually a manual gearbox with automatic gear shifting. Something to bear in mind if you are ever doing a lot of low speed manoeuvring/towing just remember you are using a manual gearbox and just slipping the clutch. Easy to cause excessive wear. I think Ford in Australia got into a lot of trouble with their PowerShift (= DSG) transmission.
Here is the same shot taken without the IR filter…
I used this Lee Filters 87 IR filter which is visually opaque and only transmits above 730nm.
What you can see in the distance is the headland on the other side of the bay, which is primarily green stuff of one sort or another. There is also grass in the foreground just in front of the car.
In my much younger years, I worked as a car mechanic and am well aware that DSG is not a fluid transmission, which I wasn’t so keen on, but I always drive it in “sport” mode, not for fast acceleration but because it gives me far more concise and definite changes, virtually at the speeds I would expect if I were changing manually, as opposed to “drive” mode, which always seems to want the highest gear possible, even if it’s not suitable.
Anyhoo, back to the subject in hand.
Now that I’ve seen the color shot, I understand. The gray “stuff” in front of the car was green grass, which turned to a light gray as expected. The right rear of your car I am guessing is “plastic”, not painted metal, which explains the difference in tone in the IR photo. Sky turned very dark as expected.
I assume the reason why your exposure was so long, is because the camera has a built-in filter that mostly blocks the IR light? With this setup, you could replicate the infrared photos I captured at my brother’s home.
Is the filter “plastic” or glass? …and what caused the reflection at the top left? Did you have a lens shade on?
Correct. You wouldn’t believe paying as much as we did and only getting a part metal car 
Right again
Polyester - flare from the back of the filter - no.
Here’s what the filter looks like mounted in its holder on the lens…
You can just about see there is a slightest of gaps between the back of the filter and the holder.
I just put the D850 on a tripod outside our house and took this…
Now, that’s what I call flare!
So, I wrapped an old dark hair scrunchie around the filter and holder…
… which improves things considerably…
The sky was cloudy to the east in the background and the mottled grass and hedge is due to the shade of a clump of Silver Birch trees in our garden.
Disclaimer - this was not an artistic shot and I even forgot to focus 