Back to normality, sadly. I say sadly, because Sheffield definitely lacks the sparkle of San Francisco. It also lacks clean streets (which if the signs are accurate, are cleaned at a set time EVERY week!), pedestrian minded drivers and in too many cases, the level of friendliness and service in shops you get everywhere I’ve visited in North America, both above and below the 49th parallel.
Strangely, I’ve yet to receive any editing requests from the publishers, so that’s definitely a conversation to be had. I know I’ve rewritten most of Vol.2 “several” times, some chapters more than others, but it’s bound to have plenty of things they don’t like or still don’t make sense.
Photography wise, it’s been great using the Fuji X-E5, the two Sigma lenses I bought are really impressive as well, while the Sony ZV-1 that was a late addition to the packing, has a few quirks shall we say. Whereas the GoPro is as reliable as ever, but now being able to compare on a large screen, the output off with similar from the Sony, has for me been fascinating. A new entry in Compact Diaries will appear in due course, but having used both to shot video from one of SF’s famous cable cars, and from a vintage fire truck, it’s fairly obvious that the stabilisation on the GoPro is insanely good!
A large box arrived whilst I was away, courtesy eBay and I’ll shortly be renovating what will be my third Yashica FX-D Quartz 35mm camera; I might even keep this one! As ever with old cameras though, if the seller doesn’t know to look for it, and this was from a charity so that’s doubtful, both lenses that it came with have nasty doses of fungus, which isn’t something you can easily get rid of, short of dismantling the lens. PCs, cars, things with wires/electronics in, been there, done that; lenses, no. Too many very small screws, equally small springs, which I’ll guarantee will shoot across the room, never to be seen again as soon as I try moving something and no manual on how to do it. Seeing as a replacement lens that has clean optics is only £30-50, and one has already been ordered, it’s also not really worth the effort (but I might try anyway). I’m tempted to video the renovation process this time as well, all part of a desire to learn how to get more out of either the ZV-1 or the GoPro.
A week or so before our holiday, I again started investigating my options when it comes to continuing paying for Adobe Lightroom. Much as it’s a good bit of software, what basically amounts to forking out £120 a year grates on the Yorkshireman in me. My problem is, it’s good at what it does, I’m used to using it to the level I need and some of the recent updates have been impressive, especially tweaks to AI object removals. Going all-in on Fujifilm hasn’t helped though, as most commentators say Adobe’s support for Fuji’s .RAF raw file format isn’t as good as that for Nikon’s .NFF or Canon’s .CRW. However, the best support is supposed to be Capture One, but £36 a month or £274 a year up front definitely goes against the grain, it might be OK for pro photographers, but I’m not one!
Hence, in addition to Luminar Neo which I’d previously bought and installed, I now have Photomator to see if that will handle the image management side of things in place of Lightroom and I’ve a month to see if Pixelmator Pro does sufficiently more than Photomator can do solo, before it costs me anything.
Apple bought the company which produced the original Pixelmator app a few years back, and that version hasn’t changed a deal since. The Pro version used to be a one-off purchase, but has now been included in Apple’s Creator Studio subscription, alongside Final Cut Pro (FCP), Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, together with enhanced AI version’s (hmm) of Apple’s office apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, all for the princely sum of £12.99 a month. Yes, before you say anything, that’s £3 more than Lightroom, but compared to what Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro were on their own, plus Pixelmator Pro, it’s a huge saving.
Naturally, for me at least, there are limitations to the value of the full suite. Logic Pro I doubt I’ll ever use, much the same as I’ve never used GarageBand bar a few clicks and prods, a musician I’ll never be. Likewise, Final Cut Pro is something I’ve not had a need for, but if I get into using the GoPro ad ZV-1 for video, it would be handy to at least try it. If it’s iMovie on steroids, I stand a chance. Both Motion and Compressor were stand alone apps, at £49 each, the former linked into FCP to do animated titles and other similar workflow (hmm, maybe, maybe not), but after attempting to post a video on here the other month, Compressor may well get used to shrink the files! As for the rest, what used to be called iWork (I discovered my install DVD the other week for v9, dated 2009!) so Pages, Numbers and Keynote, were already my default office tools, MS Word has only returned on a temporary basis as I mentioned before, while Freeform is a brainstorming white board tool that looks really interesting.
Now despite what Apple are currently saying about the old/standard/non-AI versions of most of the above software, that these will remain available, but not get much (if anything probably) in the way of updates, it would seem the original versions for the office apps have already disappeared from the App Store, so you can rather guess what might be coming next; we shall see. But for now, I’ve a month to see if it’s all worth it, will any of it displace Lightroom and can if I get my head round any of it…..
…now if they’d introduce a decent database tool to go with Pages et al, better than Bento if anyone remembers that, but a easier than FileMaker Pro, so like MS Access but with a touch of Apple’s magic, it would definitely be worth it!
Holiday photos…..
