The long-awaited Nikon feature request list - part one

The 14th button may be ISO.

I wondered, but I also thought the lens button might be cheating. It arguably makes sense for all three top left buttons to be equally programmable - but having had the thought for the "Df2", maybe moving the whole cluster to the right and moving the LCD to the left would have been better still - even if the index finger would still be off the shutter (why I like the front buttons). Being able to access Qual, WB and exposure mode on a D5 while shooting just requires portrait orientation and a dislocated thumb; the top left cluster needs prehensile eyebrows.

Ok, thanks, I'll document that re. Program mode.

 

To be clear, what's your definition of f/4 in these circumstances? Average diameter at the entrance aperture divided by focal length? Anything without a perfectly circular aperture has a funny definition. Do you still want Nikon's traditional thing of varying the reported aperture by focus distance, compared with Canon's traditional fixed aperture value? (Nikon reporting a typical f/2 macro lens at 1:1 as being f/4?)

 

Perhaps I should ask what kind of "not f/4" you're seeing? If it's just a matter of consistency, that's likely more to do with the slop in the lens aperture mechanics than the aperture lever movement on the camera, and E aperture should, I think, have fixed it.

I would like aperture display to be opening diameter divided by focal length for non macro lenses. For micro lenses I would like the choice of aperture divided either by focal length or rear nodal point to sensor plane. It would be useful when I don't use the built in meter. I think the E lenses are accurate enough now.

I'll second Mike's and BeBu's suggestions on flexible focus limit and DOF display. I'll add that I wish Nikon would tweak their focusing algorithm to fine-fune what happens when focus is lost on a moving target. It's an old issue of mine when using the relatively slow-focusing AF-S 300 and AF-D 80-400: when focus is lost, those searched out to infinity and back to the closest focus distance (or the limiter-set distance) rather than doing the more sensible thing to look "close to" to original distance in either direction repeatedly but use the additional AF areas (even if not activated in the current setting) to search laterally. Chances are the subject is still close to the original distance and hasn't disappeared to infinity or landed on the camera. I haven't had this issue to the same extent with newer, faster-focusing lenses, but it's still something Nikon could do better with. Call it an "intelligent" search algorithm that utilizes what the camera is capable off even if the current AF area mode choice is less than ideal. Seems to fit with "AF - user specified focus limiting: give me the option to limit a focus range around the distance of the acquired target. For example, a few meters to either side. May require a bit more distance coding in the lenses though (aka AF precise distance info).

In general, Nikon needs to reveal a lot more about the inner workings of the various AF modes as well as how VR is supposed to work (and how it actually works).

With regard to 3D tracking - why not have the option between "closest focus priority", color bias, and absolutely no bias whatsoever?

Multiple point AF fine tuning - yes, yes, and yes.

contrast-detect AF: I assume that's using contrast-detect points on the actual imaging sensor? Appears impossible to implement with a mechanical shutter that at faster than sync speed only reveals portions of the sensor at a time. Can't be done with the AF sensor either as "immediately before exposure" the mirror is already up. Is an option for mirrorless though.

AF focus bracketing: very often the AF misses by just a little - and a common trick is to slightly defocus manually and have the AF re-acquire. I wish there was an option to do this automatically. Acquire focus - take image - slightly defocus lens - reacquire focus - take image. Naturally, this is only useful when the subject is static.

AF configurable precisions: yes, yes, and yes. At the very least, provide some more info.

ETTR: requires a RAW histogram. Or at least a very specific JPEG setting where the "distance to blow highlights" is well-established.

Exposure - JPEG-only auto-ISO. No opinion from my side - don't shoot JPEG.

limit ISO values: I can see why it made the list but am not sure how useful it really would be. I now only use M with AutoISO (and agree with Mary that it could and should be a separate MODE setting so that M stays a true M). SPA could go the way of the doo-doo bird as far as I am concerned. There are too many limitations using either and allowing finer control with either just complicates matters beyond the reasonable.

safety exposure: try black bird in the sky with the sun up - no way you get a proper exposure of either at the same time.

Exact shutter speed and aperture: fairly certain that if 200 is selected (1/3-step setting), the actual value used by the camera is 188. Or that 320 is actually 300. In other words, the actual shutter speed settings are accurate but the display provides rounded numbers for convenience. 1/3 steps seem sufficient for me, 1/6 is probably the limit of what's (a) practical, (b) doable, and © has a significant-enough effect on exposure (or doesn't it?). How precisely are even electronically controlled speeds on a mechanical shutter anyway? Does 1/10 of a stop in aperture really make a difference? f-stop is a rather meaningless value anyway, t-stop is what the meter sees.

EFCS - you totally lost me there.

configurable exposure modulation - just use M with AutoISO, nothing more is needed and just complicates matters. With all those options listed, chances are you are in the wrong one at any given moment.

Ai-S: isn't that how it worked on the F4? Wouldn't expect a high level of precision and repeatability though. Most certainly worse than using the aperture ring and having a hard stop. Or just don't use SPA but only M with AutoISO (did I say that already?)

shutter speed boost on motion - yes, yes, and yes

toggle VR based on shutter speed - yes, yes and yes. Though one reason to have VR on at fast speeds is to provide a stable viewfinder especially with long focal lengths.

spot meter independent: appears complicated. Personally, I don't see the need.

focal-length variable program - yeah, for those who actually use P. Did I already mention M with AutoISO?

drop bit depth at higher ISO - why is that desirable? Is there any discernible difference at all?

variable aperture STF - ???

Rename M with AutoISO - yes. Just don't call it TAv - and I guess SA is out too. How about M*?

Easy ISO - I used it for a while and gave up after repeatedly screwing up exposure by turning the "wrong dial". No longer an issue for me (M with AutoISO - might have mentioned it a few times already).

joystick: the option might be useful. I rather have Nikon work on getting the stick less sensitive to lateral movement when pressed.

image area and raw: personally don't see a need for either - can barely imagine a situation where I would want to use either.

button configuration: Nikon's assignment restrictions often make little sense - Sony allows a much wider range of configurability.

the D6 more than one change per button: will have to see how that works. One thing I would love to see made "assignable" is that AF area mode switch that currently resides in an inaccessible position (at least when handholding long lenses).

chording: I see a general trend in your suggestions to make things more configurable - which in turn makes things more complicated. There would definitely need to be a better option than the current "banks or the U1, U2 etc. settings" for setting up (and saving) the camera for different scenarios.

touchscreen af selection: sure, why not?

flash exposure compensation: sure, why not? I hardly ever use flash - but aren't there more settings that need to be considered and made accessible without digging into the menu?

Preset focus distance: sure, why not?

independently reversed dials: sure, some more ways to get confused. I made one or two "logical" changes over the years - with the result that I am still turning dials the wrong way. Using a Sony alongside a Nikon certainly doesn't help matters here.

menu simplification: have you looked at Sony? Nikon is a marvel by comparison. But with all the configurability you request, the menu will get longer and a lot more complicated.

dial acceleration: oh. hell. no. At least not for me.

show blown highlights in viewfinder: there's no indication currently in the viewfinder - except what the eye can see? Dark bird in sunlit sky means sky will be over-exposed. Dark shadows in the image - chances are they are going to be blocked. On a DSLR, I doubt the AF area density is large enough to provide meaningful info. On mirrorless - zebras already do the job (and even they are often too coarse).

all-points and meter or horizon digital rangefinder: sure

RGB metering: more viewfinder info to ignore. Might be useful for some, I don't see the need.

null viewfinder: that's something that's missing in the Z6/Z7

continuous capture: sure

quadrant display: sure

raw histogram: seems like a good idea. Wonder why it hasn't been implemented (at all?) so far. There must be a reason for it. RAW doesn't have colors - but for each pixel it is known whether it is reading red, green, or blue.

any channel highlight: good idea - though in most cases, it'll be obvious without the additional info anyway.

pair raw and jpeg: agree. Though I hardly ever delete in-camera. And on the computer at least my software deletes both (on the rare occasion I actually shoot both).

I have yet to find a situation where focus peaking is precise enough to be useful. I have learned from bad experience that relying on it can lead to poor results.

RGB histogram in live view: good idea, wonder why this isn't provided already.

rotated menus: seems like a solution in search of a problem

aperture read-out: why? 1/3 stop increments isn't sufficient as display?

API: not something I would ever want to get into. Others might or certainly will. Not sure Nikon would want to expose inner workings to the extent needed.

more front buttons: sure

I will never purchase another Nikon flash - so whatever Nikon does with flashes from now on will be of no consequence to me.

Integrated flash: keep it away - even when I owned cameras that had it, I usually forgot it was there. And when I did use it, I lost a D200 when the internal flash fried itself and took half the camera electronics with it. If you need flash flash on your camera, buy one.

push dials: I have them on one camera - useful but also error prone.

sensor-shift super resolution: useless under most realistic shooting conditions. A gimmick.

hybrid EVF: seems like a good idea - not sure I would want to pay the price though.

integrated storage: I see a whole list of problems

Dieter - wow. Thank you - I'll reply when not on a phone, and try to incorporate a few tweaks based on your comments.

BeBu - thanks for clarifying. So the accuracy thing was mostly about driving the aperture with the stop-down lever? I can suggest a desire to engineer it more precisely, although I'm worried the problem is in the lenses. Oops - I'd meant to add the choice of including focus distance in the aperture; I'll add that.

I'll clarify on the distance that you'd like a numerical value (although it sounds like Dieter would like DoF). I'm a bit concerned that the limiting factor will be the accuracy of the depth encoder on the lenses - I added a suggestion to try interpolating between reported values to improve things (although I don't know when the distance encoding is actually sent to the camera). No harm in being easier to read, though. I'll update in a bit - thanks for the feedback.

Thinking about it, I like the idea of a separate setting for M with Auto ISO, presuming that in other modes (including pure M) Auto ISO would be off, so it would come on only in that mode. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

On the issue of focus limiting, I have also had the problem Dieter mentions, especially with the DX 55-300. If a subject is just a little behind the current focus point, it's not so bad, but if it's just a little in front, or just lost, it will rack out to infinity and back. If you're aimed at a moving target, it's gone. But I think some of this has to do with lens design, and it seems along with faster AF some newer lenses just don't do that anyway.

I agree also that easy ISO makes errors quite possible, but I like it anyway, at least as the buttons on my D7100 are currently set up. But I think it would be a different matter if the ISO button were easier to find in a hurry. The button setup makes it all too easy to change the wrong thing. If the buttons were staggered or differed in some way easy ISO wouldn't be such an issue.

By the way, although the F4 does have an AIS detector, it does not allow any non-CPU lenses to be used for P and S modes. It still reverts to A mode.

Dieter - wow. Thank you - I'll reply when not on a phone, and try to incorporate a few tweaks based on your comments.

 

BeBu - thanks for clarifying. So the accuracy thing was mostly about driving the aperture with the stop-down lever? I can suggest a desire to engineer it more precisely, although I'm worried the problem is in the lenses. Oops - I'd meant to add the choice of including focus distance in the aperture; I'll add that.

 

I'll clarify on the distance that you'd like a numerical value (although it sounds like Dieter would like DoF). I'm a bit concerned that the limiting factor will be the accuracy of the depth encoder on the lenses - I added a suggestion to try interpolating between reported values to improve things (although I don't know when the distance encoding is actually sent to the camera). No harm in being easier to read, though. I'll update in a bit - thanks for the feedback.

You're right that I don't really want anything new just more accuracy. I feel that with all the advances accuracy takes the back seat.

Not if you need it, BeBu!

The focus confirmation step I was considering assumed "focus close with phase detect, mirror up, shutter open, CDAF, close shutter, reopen shutter for exposure, close shutter and restore mirror". Absolutely causing a delay, but my issue with CDAF is the time it takes to get to a very out of focus target - viewfinder focus would let you hop between static subjects quickly, but this mode would improve accuracy for static subjects. I believe one of the A7R variants for this, although obviously without the mirror.

I usually shoot in manual, but the problem I have losing easy ISO is that your finger is off the shutter if it's on the ISO button, so you might miss a shot. That's a regression.

I do use auto ISO in modes other than manual; more if I had access to minimum shutter speed and shift without going into menus. That's my biggest concern with just having a TAv mode: it makes M a special case.

I'll take a stab at the rest when I'm back at a keyboard. :-)

2Oceans: is slide 42 what you want? Can I tweak it for you?

Andrew, slide 42 was not what I was thinking. I was looking for a feature that begins recording/buffering image files when the shutter release is half way depressed. When you press the shutter release halfway, image files will be recorded, and when you fully press the shutter release, future images will be saved along with the previous 30-40 images. Still when going over your work there are imagined changes like autofocus fine tune to cover the range of a zoom lens that I certainly hope will be implemented and are not just nice to have. I hope someone upstairs is taking notice. Stay frosty.

Andrew, slide 42 was not what I was thinking. I was looking for a feature that begins recording/buffering image files when the shutter release is half way depressed. When you press the shutter release halfway, image files will be recorded, and when you fully press the shutter release, future images will be saved along with the previous 30-40 images. Still when going over your work there are imagined changes like autofocus fine tune to cover the range of a zoom lens that I certainly hope will be implemented and are not just nice to have. I hope someone upstairs is taking notice. Stay frosty.

Well, it's not slide 42 any more because I've been incorporating other suggestions... it's the slide called "Live view/image review - continuous capture". If there's a difference from what you're requesting, could you elaborate please?

I may hit the size limit, but I've done some more updates...

I'll second Mike's and BeBu's suggestions on flexible focus limit and DOF display. I'll add that I wish Nikon would tweak their focusing algorithm to fine-fune what happens when focus is lost on a moving target.

Added and added.

With regard to 3D tracking - why not have the option between "closest focus priority", color bias, and absolutely no bias whatsoever?

...and added.

contrast-detect AF: I assume that's using contrast-detect points on the actual imaging sensor? Appears impossible to implement with a mechanical shutter that at faster than sync speed only reveals portions of the sensor at a time. Can't be done with the AF sensor either as "immediately before exposure" the mirror is already up. Is an option for mirrorless though.

I assumed cycling the shutter - as mirrorless bodies do for mechanical shutter modes. Absolutely slower and not for action shooting, but PDAF isn't only for action.

AF focus bracketing: very often the AF misses by just a little - and a common trick is to slightly defocus manually and have the AF re-acquire. I wish there was an option to do this automatically.

Is this different from bracketing?

Exposure - JPEG-only auto-ISO. No opinion from my side - don't shoot JPEG.

I shoot raw, but occasionally want to get at an image in a hurry. Also you won't really be able to chimp if the exposure is a mile off due to ETTR.

limit ISO values: I can see why it made the list but am not sure how useful it really would be.

This is a Thom Hogan one. Given the two-step amplifier on the D850 (et al.) and relative ISO-insensitivity, there's an argument for shooting at 64 or 400 and using digital scaling above that.

safety exposure: try black bird in the sky with the sun up - no way you get a proper exposure of either at the same time.

I usually ETTR (manually) and try to push shadows - but also wait for the bird to turn into the sun. Nothing works everywhere, but this was for things like blown reflections on skin.

Does 1/10 of a stop in aperture really make a difference?

Aperture? No, I was channelling BeBu. Not being able to see what you've changed in power aperture is an issue though.

EFCS - you totally lost me there.

Discussed here (and in DPReview's 85mm f/1.2 review). That said, I couldn't reproduce it with my Sigma 85mm at f/1.4 when I just tried.

configurable exposure modulation - just use M with AutoISO, nothing more is needed and just complicates matters. With all those options listed, chances are you are in the wrong one at any given moment.

Example: Shooting the cheetah run at SDZSP. (Huh, could have sworn I posted that image. Oh well.) Light fur, in and out of direct sun, high shutter speed needed. I hit minimum ISO in sunlight and run out of aperture at the required shutter speed in shadow. The meter might keep up in the sequence; I can't.

Ai-S: isn't that how it worked on the F4? Wouldn't expect a high level of precision and repeatability though. Most certainly worse than using the aperture ring and having a hard stop. Or just don't use SPA but only M with AutoISO (did I say that already?)

Exact precision? No. If the camera can set aperture, it would be great if it could. (Remote shooting, shutter priority, comfort...)

Though one reason to have VR on at fast speeds is to provide a stable viewfinder especially with long focal lengths.

Agreed. So configurable.

spot meter independent: appears complicated. Personally, I don't see the need.

Another one of my "white mats in direct sunlight in dark rooms, offset from the subject" cases.

drop bit depth at higher ISO - why is that desirable? Is there any discernible difference at all?

Another Thom Hogan suggestion. Makes sense if you're buffer/storage limited. (More a D850 thing than a D5 problem!)

variable aperture STF - ???

Images rendering to explain that.

joystick: the option might be useful. I rather have Nikon work on getting the stick less sensitive to lateral movement when pressed.

Added.

image area and raw: personally don't see a need for either - can barely imagine a situation where I would want to use either.

The D810 is really limited by buffer at full size/raw, especially with cheap media. Crop gives you 6 or 7fps instead of 5. On a D850 it's mostly a buffer and wasted space thing, assuming you don't have an infinite zoom lens.

the D6 more than one change per button: will have to see how that works. One thing I would love to see made "assignable" is that AF area mode switch that currently resides in an inaccessible position (at least when handholding long lenses).

Agreed, but offset a bit by the "mode + AF-on" buttons on modern bodies. The AF button position is a PITA (the D700 had it somewhere useful); I assume designed by someone who only uses tripods.

show blown highlights in viewfinder: there's no indication currently in the viewfinder - except what the eye can see? Dark bird in sunlit sky means sky will be over-exposed. Dark shadows in the image - chances are they are going to be blocked. On a DSLR, I doubt the AF area density is large enough to provide meaningful info. On mirrorless - zebras already do the job (and even they are often too coarse).

Dark frame with a bright bit, highlight priority - did it blow? The eye adapts, but doesn't show what the meter captures (nor does an EVF). The AF points are there - we could use them.

rotated menus: seems like a solution in search of a problem

I don't care strongly, but if I shot in portrait a lot I'd be cursing that phones have no problem with this.

aperture read-out: why? 1/3 stop increments isn't sufficient as display?

Power aperture. It changes, allegedly, in 1/8 stop steps - but you can't see them.

API: not something I would ever want to get into. Others might or certainly will. Not sure Nikon would want to expose inner workings to the extent needed.

Historically, no. I think the secret sauce could stay hidden. Mostly a nudge that doing all this is an even bigger resource sink, and exposing some handles would let the community do it for free.

Integrated flash: keep it away - even when I owned cameras that had it, I usually forgot it was there. And when I did use it, I lost a D200 when the internal flash fried itself and took half the camera electronics with it. If you need flash flash on your camera, buy one.

But going to a D850 I had to buy some triggers for flashes I could trigger with the integrated one on my D810, and I've often just wanted some light while sight seeing and spotting something dark, and cursed that even my tiny ancient Nissin flash wasn't with me. Sometimes even expensive dSLRs get used for quick snaps.

sensor-shift super resolution: useless under most realistic shooting conditions. A gimmick.

Not enough for me to move to Sony (especially with manual stacking of images). Mike and his art history stuff might disagree.

integrated storage: I see a whole list of problems

Absolutely. I think it's a terrible idea, but one that Thom Hogan is set on. (I also strongly doubt as many people need to get photos from a D5 to Instagram as he seems to think.) Still, I could be in the minority, so it's on the list!

any channel highlight: good idea - though in most cases, it'll be obvious without the additional info anyway.

Nikon's 'RGB' histogram is almost certainly a luminance histogram and it's possible for blue or red (green is unlikely) to blow without the luminance histogram or blinkies showing anything wrong. To check you need to look at blue and red in turn to ensure that neither has blown highlights. If you have red OR green OR blue blinkies rather than luminance then you can check in one step that nothing has blown out. (R or G or B) could be an option on both the highlight screen and on the histogram screen. If something has blown out then it's easy to check which channel is responsible, but the idea is that one can ensure all is well in just one step.

You can see the RGB histograms all three at once but in bright light I find the blinkies easier to spot than a spike at the extreme RHS of a rather small histogram

Slide 52 - Live view/image review - raw histogram/highlights

Perhaps the background could put things rather more strongly. AFAIK the JPEG histograms don't really tell you very much at all about how near saturation the sensor is do they? JPEG settings for white balance, contrast and saturation all have no affect on saturation but can affect the histograms.

Mike and his art history stuff might disagree

I do! Truly static objects only need apply...!

I can envisage a pixel shift to effectively remove noise. Whether this is nearest neighbour or a more aggressive kinda 9 x 9 matrix pixel area, not sure.

Equally, if you take multiples of the same image with no shift and average them, noise is further reduced.

If both were done together it might mean effectively taking/recording >30 or so images per picture, Not sure whether in-camera processing can handle such tasks?

If the D850's replacement has the Sony 60 or 100 MPix sensor that could be a lot of work...:D

"TAv" mode (Mary) is described on slide 30.

Thanks. It's actually more than "renaming" Manual. It includes activating Auto ISO limit from lowest to highest - leaving it for the user to fine-tune if such is needed. Currenly, many people are used to setting a specified ISO value; thus "Manual" has no attached auto-exposure control.

Well, it's not slide 42 any more because I've been incorporating other suggestions... it's the slide called "Live view/image review - continuous capture". If there's a difference from what you're requesting, could you elaborate please?

Looks like what I was looking for. Thanks

Mary - I think my wording caused confusion. I was suggesting renaming "manual plus auto-ISO", not "renaming manual" plus "renaming auto-ISO". I've had a go at clarifying (currently slide 30). Is it better, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

2Oceans - phew. :-)

Mike - there are cameras that do this processing (including recent cell phones), but I don't want Nikon to have the excuse not to implement it because of the software overhead. I've slightly updated to talk about outlier removal denoising.

cameras that do this processing

I'm not sure if processing can happen within RAW?

I'm not sure if processing can happen within RAW?

Well, there's the existing small/medium raw modes. You could always output as TIFF. (Or there's the data format spec I was involved with if Nikon wants a way of describing different sample patterns including RGB at each site - though it doesn't distinguish overlapping sensor sites...)

I was vaguely thinking of adding 14-bit simply binned small raw to the list (I want the dynamic range, I may not need the pixels), but I gather that for aliasing reasons it may be worse than what we've got. Or maybe the Phase One IIQ Sensor+ patent gets in the way somehow (though I find the reorientation thing a bit obvious).

Slide 52 - Live view/image review - raw histogram/highlights

Perhaps the background could put things rather more strongly. AFAIK the JPEG histograms don't really tell you very much at all about how near saturation the sensor is do they? JPEG settings for white balance, contrast and saturation all have no affect on saturation but can affect the histograms.

Agreed. I've tweaked a little - is this better?

if Nikon wants a way

I was always a bit surprised that Nikon DSLR's now 'do' focus stacking in camera, but not software wise within NX-D...

To be clear that when I say accuracy I meant that and not precision. That is I really don't need to be able to set or display aperture and shutter speed in more than 1/3 stop increment. But I want the display value is at least no more than 1/10 stop different than the display value.

Well, you made me write a program to check. :-)

For all obvious values in 1/3 and 1/2-stop steps, the difference between the actual f-stop (assuming sqrt(2) raised to the power of the exposure difference) is within 1/10 of a stop of the value if you round it to two significant figures. It's not always true that it's the nearest 1/10 stop power to that value. For example, if we start with f/1 at offset 0, 2 1/3 stops smaller is f/2.245-ish, rendered in the viewfinder as f/2.2. Actual f/2.2 is 2.275 stops up from f/1, an error of 0.058 stops.7.5 stops from f/1 we get to f/13.454, rendered as f/13. Actual f/13 would be 7.401 stops from f/1 - as near as we get to missing the "1/10 stop" rule.

This does come back to the old oddity that I think we've discussed here before:

• 5 stops after f/1 is f/5.657, which most would render f/5.7. Nikon calls it f/5.6.
  
• 3 2/3 stops after f/1 is f/3.564, which most would call f/3.6. Nikon calls it f/3.5.
  
• 3 1/2 stops after f/1 is f/3.364, which most would call f/3.4. Nikon calls it f/3.3.
  

The lens I have to hand can't confirm, but I suspect 9 stops after f/1, f/22.626, gets called f/22 by Nikon.

I don't really care enough to put that on the feature list, but I'm curious why these are mathematical oddities. They wouldn't be more than 1/10 of a stop wrong either way.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with BeBu's request. I'll be pleasantly surprised if an AI lens with the aperture set using the aperture ring is correct within 1/10 of a stop - by which I include that the difference between stops is that accurate. It's more likely that repeated exposures at a single aperture ring position would be accurate to that level. Once you're down to 1/10 of a stop, the focus distance adjustment thing that Nikon does in the macro range will probably start messing with the nominal value.

I was always a bit surprised that Nikon DSLR's now 'do' focus stacking in camera, but not software wise within NX-D...

Everything I've heard has indicated that letting Nikon (or Canon) software anywhere near my computers has always been a bad idea - the last camera software I used would probably have been from Agfa, therefore. If I cared about matching the JPEG output from the camera, that may be different.