Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thursday: More On Canon 7D and Lightroom 3 BETA

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Man, it’s a little tougher to get the blog up during Master Class week, but I’m still giving it a try today. 

The dubious weather cooperated yesterday and we had a great day shooting at the park and the Drees Pavilion overlook.  It was a long day with us beginning at 9 a.m. and wrapping about 8 p.m.  The models were troopers, too, and we got some fantastic images.

DAY 2bLooks for lots of material for upcoming blog posts.  Anyway, let me push on with some more observations about the Canon 7D and Lightroom 3 BETA.

More about Canon 7D

That’s for all the comments on yesterday’s post trying to explain the darkness of the Lightroom 3 BETA previews from the Canon 7D.  I think it’s a Lightroom/Raw issue, too.  The previews on the back of the camera are small JPEG previews that don’t carry over to LR3 Beta – all we get to see is the RAW data.  I’ve found that pushing the Brightness to +75 and reducing the Contrast to 0 helps.

It got pretty dark on us last night and I was impressed that the 7D nailed the FOCUS – thumbs up on that one!

DAY 2aI found a much easier and quicker way to shoot video as well.  While looking through the viewfinder, I focus on the scene I want to video.  As I pull the camera from my eye, I switch the 7D into Video mode and immediately hit the record button. This is much quicker than switching the camera to video mode, finding the focus, and then shooting.  More on that later.

I’m also very satisfied with the low noise performance of the camera. Any noise you see is nice and tight and almost film like.

And Now On With Lightroom 3 BETA

Now on to Lightroom – has anyone else found the cropping to be a little quirky?  The crop rectangle jumps around a bit even when I hold down the ‘Shift’ key.

My biggest gripe about Lightroom 3 BETA is, hands down, the NEW IMPORT procedure.  Under Lightroom 2 you just headed to the image folder, selected the images and hit IMPORT.

It took me 10 minutes last evening just to get 150 images into Lightroom 3 BETA.  The new version wants to load all the file structures, populate the screen with preview images, which take forever, makes me deselect the ones I don’t want to import, an on, and on, and on.  What a time waster! 

Adobe will need to fix this one quick.  I can see trying to load up a 3000 image wedding!!!!

Hey gang, I just checked the clock and I’ve got to fly – class starts in a few.  See ya’ tomorrow.  -David

6 comments:

  1. That issue with light room 3.0 and importing is a killer for me.. I like simple.. Granted for the person with 30-40 family shots preview is good but i import 1000+ images almost anytime I do anything.

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  2. Importing was painful at first, but if you scroll to the bottom there is "uncheck all" and "check all". Once I chose "uncheck all" I then shift-clicked the first and last pics I wanted, that highlighted all pics between those two. Once I "checked" one pic all the highlighted ones were checked. Problem solved.

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  3. The previews and folder tree can easily be hidden by clicking the arrow/triangle button in the lower right corner of the Import dialog. This makes it compact, especially if you import the same way every time. Import presets also speed up the process. The Check All/Uncheck All functions and selecting thumbnails (if shown) are identical to LR2... I'm not sure why it should be painful.

    The crop in LR3 does seem slightly "jerky" compared to LR2. But it's been said everywhere that talks about LR3, it's still Beta and not in the Google "three year long fully functional beta" sense. The code isn't optimized for speed, it's assembled for testing. I fully expect the release candidate to be as fast (hopefully faster) than LR2.

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  4. I am anxious to hear your complete review regarding the 7D since you have used both the 50D and 5D MkII. I currently use a 50D primarily and have toyed from time to time with switching to a 5D MKII. Now that the 7D is out, I am trying to figure out how it compares to both, particularly in the noise category. I have read the basic specs, but am waiting for reviews based on use "in the field".

    Also,for anyone considering attending one of the cities on the last leg of your tour, by all means sign up. In addition to an incredibly educational and entertaining evening, I have already saved more than the program cost in coupons from various sponsors ( and I didn't even win a door prize). It is well worth the investment.

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  5. I agree - the LR3b import really stinks. The old one worked great and allowed me to quickly import just what I wanted. LR3b now goes off trying to load everything it can find. I want to tell it what to import, not have it decide for me. Adobe - please consider having a legacy mode on this!

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