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Nikon D4 workflow

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enigmeow

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Right now, I use a Wolverine Data unit when I am on the road to copy the images off my CF card so that I can start fresh every new day. One of the huge advantages of units like this (to me) is that you can pull the battery from the camera and have it on the charger at the same time you are copying the images off cards (I tend to get to my hotel, drop everything on the chargers, start copying the images off, and go to bed)

I am thinking, given the new card format (XQD), i don't have a way of doing this unless I bring a USB XQD card reader, plug it into a laptop, and then copy the resulting images to a external drive (unless I have a laptop with a huge amount of disk) while somehow leaving the D4 on power while charging its battery

thoughts?

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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I sure do have thoughts.... notice from B & H confirming the delay is extended on D4.

Not a techie, I always drop the images into my Macbook Pro with a 750 Gb hard drive. Then viciously edit. Also will pull thousands off to an external drive such as a G-Raid 2Tb. Hooked up with a Firewire to the Macbook Pro, which has Lightroom 3, I can access these just as though they were on the Macbook and fiddle with them to final product. I rarely take my cards out of my camera, maybe a not so good idea, but once the images are in the computer I reformat the camera card.

A second battery for the camera is the charging solution. I do understand this gets a bit expensive, but the D4 is not cheap.

And the ability to read the cards out of the camera is for a pro almost a must have. My experience from years ago is the client has some wishes and I am the magic fairy princess who performs..... ahh... well gets the photos done at least.

So, this thread may get me some info on these new things. Thanks for getting it started....

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Gosh, I do not know if this is common knowledge, but the NIKON Digitutor is active at http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d4/index.html

This is a super tutorial on the D4 which I found after the D800 Digitutor was posted.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Maybe this thread needs renaming to Where do you put your big image files from your D4 or D800?

enigmeow said:

I am thinking, given the new card format (XQD), i don't have a way of doing this unless I bring a USB XQD card reader, plug it into a laptop, and then copy the resulting images to a external drive (unless I have a laptop with a huge amount of disk) while somehow leaving the D4 on power while charging its battery

thoughts?

And then we can talk about the issue of using the XQD reader and an external hard drive or something like that, hooked into a laptop or iPad or whatever works. So, cat lover.... enigmeow, you may start the thread or search for one which covers this subject.

Posted 1 year ago #
enigmeow

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msmoto said:
So, cat lover.... enigmeow, you may start the thread or search for one which covers this subject.

Yeah, ended up picking up a USB hub and a 500G portable to glue it all to my wife's Macbook Air laptop when we are on the road

A bit more bulky then previously but I guess it has the advantage of being a bit more flexible.. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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I like the idea of the hard drive attached to the laptop. Just saw this at the local camera club. And, I had to purchase a 1 TB hard drive for a surveillance system which later I could not use, so, I guess I will drop it on my Macbook. I am learning from you NRF folks.

Thanks

Posted 1 year ago #
Ade Barkah

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If the pictures are important, it's good to always keep two copies for backup.

I carry two external data drives for images. I sync the drives using a backup/replication software for the Mac called ChronoSync. I also carry a third drive to backup the MacBook itself (via Apple's Time Machine).

I don't delete (re-format) a memory card until its images are safely copied to both data drives.

Since I use Aperture, the vaults are also backed up to both data drives. I imagine the process would be similar for Lightroom users.

I've been "on the road" continuously for almost 9-months now and so far this system is working very well for me. I've had to upgrade the size of the data drives about mid-point in Costa Rica... I now use LaCie "rugged" 1.5TB external drives (up from 1 TB each previously).

Chase Jarvis has a popular video about his workflow:

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(there's also a longer video, about 90-minutes in length where he discusses various aspects of his workflow in more detail).

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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This is going to be interesting. My first shots with the D4, RAW, 14 Bit Lossless, Compressed, would not process in either Lightroom 3 nor Aperture. So, exported to desktop in TIFF, reimported into Lightroom 3 and worked on the photos. But the 20-22 MP files in RAW, 14 Bit Lossless, Compressed, were now 90-100MP TIFF files.... YIKES! ALthough the MacBookPro handled these quickly, the storage capacity is going to be enormous unless I can use the RAW, 14 Bit Lossless, Compressed,

S, I guess I will get Lightroom 4, and update. Does this make sense to anyone here?

Posted 1 year ago #
Pierre

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You are a true pioneer, among the first to have a D4 in their hand. As they say, you recognize the pioneer by the arrows on their back :-)

Companies may use the new cameras to force a major and costly upgrade of their apps.

I will have to see what upgrades my new D800 will force me into.

Posted 1 year ago #
enigmeow

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msmoto said:
This is going to be interesting. My first shots with the D4, RAW, 14 Bit Lossless, Compressed, would not process in either Lightroom 3 nor Aperture. So, exported to ...

So, when I got my D700, I installed TransferNX (at the same time I installed CaptureNX and ViewNX) and basically have not touched it since. Along the way, I had upgraded to CaptureNX2 and ViewNX2 but the TransferNX remained unchanged.

So, when the D4 came, i was REALLY REALLY disappointed in the quality of the raw images (jpg was fine). Everything seemed soft.. lacking in resolution.. etc . Very pixelated

Last night I discovered that TransferNX is corrupting the raw images during the transfer. If I copy the files directly, they are perfect. If I allowed TransferNX to copy the raw images, it was messing up the headers so that they had 1/9th the resolution and various other flags were wrong. File size is untouched

I uninstalled TransferNX, used TransferNX2 from inside ViewNX2, and the problem went away... Niccceee... only a few days of photography with the files ruined. I am hoping to write some software over the weekend that can identify the damage done with hopes of recovering my ice show photography from the weekend..

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Pierre said:
You are a true pioneer, among the first to have a D4 in their hand. As they say, you recognize the pioneer by the arrows on their back :-)

Companies may use the new cameras to force a major and costly upgrade of their apps.

I suppose, you are correct. I have this D4 as a result of deciding a year ago to get a D3s, then after it was stated the D4 would be out in Fall 2011, waiting. As my career in photography has ben characterized by the gifts of using some of the very best equipment early on in the 1960's, when I returned in the 2000's to fully becoming active again, I had a lot of catching up to do. Now, if I only had the full deck of fifty two cards to play with things would be great. Somehow, at nearly 70, I seem to have dropped some along the way, ha, ha, ha. So, this pioneer stuff......well, it requires reading the manual. Ug!

I will plug along and report to the best of my abilities the interesting pathways I end up exploring. I suspect without NRF, I would be completely lost, so once again, thanks to the moderators, wherever you are...

In a few days I will no doubt update to the Lightroom4, but may try shooting JPEG on the D4 and see what that looks like. I try to follow a simple rule that suggests "Don't take yourself too seriously". Thus, I hope I do not ever think anything I do is really that important. I certainly appreciate all the help from you wise folks here at NRF.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Oh, BTW, I tried NIKON software a few years ago and lost the images in cyberspace.... could not capture them or even find them in the computer. So, I do not ever use the NIKON software. I think we are all going to be in a very steep learning curve.... exciting.... I will have my ears and eyes open wide!!!

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

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msmoto said:
Oh, BTW, I tried NIKON software a few years ago and lost the images in cyberspace.... could not capture them or even find them in the computer. So, I do not ever use the NIKON software. I think we are all going to be in a very steep learning curve.... exciting.... I will have my ears and eyes open wide!!!

Ms.M,

I can't comment about using it on a Mac but on my Windows/7 PC, I have NX2 set up to transfer all my images to a directory under c:\Users\UserName\Pictures\Nikon Transfer 2\NNNN (where NNNN is an incrementing number so it goes up by one on each transfer). Works flawlessly.

I have also heard about the corruption thing with the initial releases of NX but transfer 2 does not seem to do any of that at all! I also (personally) prefer the contrast and color rendition on the images in NX2 over Adobe raw. Once my images are processed in NX, I use Photoshop to do things like "spotting" out any dust etc and I also happen to like the crop tool in CS5 too, and am looking forward to CS6 with the smart tools they are introducing...

New cameras (and possibly) lenses too? My credit card is going to take BIG hit this year... [SIGH].

No Wait!

I am covered by my work site license for this software [WOOOOOO].

No Wait!

Adobe are being pigs and insisting we pay way too much for a CS6 site license [BOOOOOOO].

As they say in political circles: "Negotiations are still under way".

Posted 1 year ago #
bjrichus

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msmoto said:
I will plug along and report to the best of my abilities the interesting pathways I end up exploring. I suspect without NRF, I would be completely lost, so once again, thanks to the moderators, wherever you are...

Mrs.M,

I started out taking pictures as a 9 year old in 1964 and also returned to photography as part of my work in the early 2000's. So I suspect you have 15 years or so of experience on me... LOL!

I am looking forward to reading all about the D4 workflows and results from those who have them (same for D800) and what works best. At work we have a D4 that is supposed to arrive today, but I am not 'supposed' to be using it for a while yet. ;(

There is a chance I just MIGHT get 5 minutes with it next week sometime, but my employer (a university) has changed the amount of time we staffers all get with uni owned gear and on assignment this year to allow more student access to it all, which is after all, why we are there.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Mmm... in 1964, I think I was using a Minolta SR-3 and a Zenza Bronica with Nikkor lenses. And was 22 years old, ha, ha, ha. Plus-X, D-76 1:1, 80% time, ASA of 80, captured a wide dynamic range in the negs and when printed on #3 contrast would reproduce well in B & W with good offset. All this stuff is just a matter of trial and error at first. I have just loaded some JPEG Fine from the D4 to Lightroom3 and this seems to give a nice quality image, although I will eventually go back to the larger files to gain the full depth of the color and tones.

We will all just keep adding experience to the pot and get this stuff figured out. Incidentally, updating the Macbook Pro with the "RAW photo update" did nothing to either Lightroom3 nor Aperture. The Aperture is an older version, however.

Talk later...

Posted 1 year ago #
Ade Barkah

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Support for D4 / D800 requires Aperture 3.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Ade Barkah said:
Support for D4 / D800 requires Aperture 3.

I suspected that, but have moved to Lightroom3 and will go to Lightroom4 if 3 does not support the D4. Aperture is very limited in its editing abilities and Lightroom seems to do what I need. This after about 20,000 images in Aperture.

But, I appreciate the info. Maybe if I just wait a few days some more info re" Lightroom4 and the D4 will magically appear.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Just an observation, most of which I do not understand.... But, I have been shooting JPEG fine, so I can process the images in Lightroom3. The image size as downloaded is about 7.7MB. If I export this to my Desktop as a DNG, it becomes an 18MB file and if I use TIFF, I then have 97MB file. These are unedited, uncorrected files.

I will continue to use the JPEG fine until I can get the RAW, 14 Bit Lossless, compressed to work. The quality seems fairly good as seen in PAD today.

Posted 1 year ago #
Ade Barkah

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There's no advantage of exporting from LR3 to the Desktop as DNG or TIFF unless the file is to be further processed (e.g., to be imported into PhotoShop).

One can however convert the RAW file into DNG _before_ importing into LR3. This preserves the maximum quality and more importantly allows better RAW processing than can be done in-camera. The downside is processing time and space consumed.

But it seems that in this case, it's best to simply upgrade to LR4? Just $79 and all problems solved.

Posted 1 year ago #
msmoto

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Relighting the post....

How to use the two cards in the D4... Primary QXD, secondary CF, overflow CF, or just how do you use the cards and what format do you record the image in, RAW, JPEG, etc.?

Posted 1 year ago #
enigmeow

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everything in raw. Primary to 32GB QXD. Overflow to 64GB CF. I keep the 16GB QXD handy. If I notice I am using the CF, I swap in the 16GB.

When I get back to hotel room, I plug the cards into readers and then drag/drop them to the two external drives (two copies of everything) and go to bed... :)

Posted 1 year ago #

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Nikon D4 workflow

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