stevenseelig

Switching camera systems is a costly endeavor and one can do all the calculations and theoritical considerations one can think of AND still make the wrong decision. Once you have the lead candidate system, I would encourage you to rent it and shoot with it aggressively for a few days to a week. You may find the paper considerations failed to reveal your real needs/desires. Not sure why you have rejected the Sony system. I have slowly moved from my NIKON D800 and the best Nikkor zoom lenses to the Sony a7RII body with the following lenses: 28mm f2.0, 21mm converter, 55mm f1.8. I also use 70-200mm f4. I would not hesitate to print at 24x36 or even larger. And I love the size/weight and IQ that my Sony system gives me to the point that I have not touched my NIKON system for quite some time. I did not particularly like the a7R, but the a7RII is an excellent tool. But my point is decide and your top 1 or 2 systems and then test drive them using rentals

<p>I have transitioned from Nikon (D800 and their best lenses f2.8 24-70 and 70-200) to Sony a7RII and the Sony is lighter and smaller, BUT if you include comparable lenses, the weight/size advantage is pretty insignificant. Fundamentally, glass is glass so the only way to really achieve a weight/size advantage is to use slower lenses. Sony does have f4 24-70 and 70-200 that are ok, but not great. They have come out with their G-master f2.8 24-70-70-200 that are suppose to be excellent.<br> Somewhat to my surprise, I have switched from shooting zooms, I have gone with primes (28 f2.0 and its 21mm converter, f2.8, 55mm f1.8, and the 85mm f1.8) on the Sony body. With these lenses, and the a7RII, I believe I can easily capture pictures of better IQ then my Nikon system. In fact, I have not picked up my Nikon bodies in 6 months, and not sure what would motivate me to do so</p>

<p>Western Digital Passport drives are about the size of a deck of cards and are available up to 4TB. A small computer with a couple of USB 3 ports and a card reader. I take two drives, one for originals and one for backup and I try to keep at least one card as well.</p>

<p>When I traveled to South Africa, I carried my MacBook Pro, 2 western digital passport drives (2 TB) and lots of CF and SD multiple cards.<br> My workflow was simple<br> At the end of the day, I would transfer all of the pictures into an Aperture Library (now it would be a lightroom catalog) on passport drive #1. During transfer, I would number the pictures and add general keywords. Immediately following transfer, I would backup passport drive #1 on to passport drive #2. When out and about, I would carry cards and extra batteries. When I card filled up I put in a new card into the camera. I tried not to reuse cards. I figured this model gave me three copies of the pictures and two different media. When on the move, I carried one drive and my wife carried the second drive. <br> Internet connectivity can be very very spotty to non-existent so reliance on cloud storage is not a great idea.<br> The weight a cable is very minor and I would not rely on WiFi transfer to a drive (simply not enough of an advantage)<br> While weighting a bit more than other solutions and perhaps a bit more costly, the digital asset harvesting and backup solution was a very very tiny fraction of the total cost of the trip. <br> I would also encourage you to take a second body (rent one is an inexpensive solution) and take long, fast lenses. I took a tripod, but did not use it.<br> These model has worked well on several international trips.</p>

<p>I have long hoped Nikon would come out with a high end mirrorless camera, but I gave up waiting about 2 years ago and have slowing been transitioning over to the Sony a7 series. The a7RII, in terms of image quality and performance, readily competes with the best of Nikon (with the caveat there are functional capabilities that Sony does not match Nikon) at least for my needs. Not sure what Nikon could offer that would attract me back.<br> Off camera lighting limitations with Sony was a major deficit, but solutions and options are improving. <br> On my most desired list are 24-70 and 70-200 f4 lens that match the reported quality of the new G series lenses. I have moved almost entirely over to Sony primes as the current f4 24-70 and 70-200 zooms fall noticeably short with the higher pixel resolution sensors. </p>

<p>a7 series sensors including the a7RII.... I am more comfortable in changing lens on my Sony cameras than my Nikon cameras. My reason: the sony sensor is more accessible making it easier to view dust and to remove it. And in my experience, the sony sensor is no more or less likely to pick up dust than my Nikon sensors. I also use the new newer Visible Dust magnifier and rocket blower.<br> Over the past 15 years, my path for sensor cleaning tells me that very very rarely does the in camera shake approach helps, but maybe I am not doing it right. I use the f22 criteria so even the smallest of particles will show up. 2-3 in the central 3/4 of the sensor is sufficient to get me to clean the sensor. The path: Find dust-->clean-->2 shots to verify-->in camera shake clean-->2 shots to verify-->repeat until clean.<br> Gup....I wish you wonderful travels and keep us updated on your story. And let us know what you finally decided to do and then what your final experience was. For many years I have traveled for personal enjoyment and family with a NEX 5 (18-200mm, f3.5-6.3) and my D800's together. At the end of those trips, I have extracted metrics on how the different bodies were used and what percentage of pictures were deemed 'keepable' in the end. The results were always a bit of a surprise. </p>

<p>@Allen....that is likely to be true from a printing perspective, but another advantage of those megapixels is the ability to crop and still have a large enough image information to print at an ok size. Some caution needs to be exercised at higher ISO's but at reasonable ISO, one can pretty crop a fair amount and still get a high quality image.</p>

<p>@Allen....that is likely to be true from a printing perspective, but another advantage of those megapixels is the ability to crop and still have a large enough image information to print at an ok size. Some caution needs to be exercised at higher ISO's but at reasonable ISO, one can pretty crop a fair amount and still get a high quality image.</p>

<p>Well, I suspect the difference is driven by a number of factors, but I am still in search of individuals who have migrated a reasonable number of images contained in a referenced Aperture library into a LR catalog.</p>

<p>The effort I described above actually has three goals. The first goal is to aggregate 15 years of digital files held in reference Aperture libraries into a Lightroom structure. I am hoping to get some guidance on that process specifically. Since Aperture will likely be non-functional with the next OS upgrade (this fall or next fall), my time horizon for the legacy of the digital files is not decades, but more like 2-7 years. Hence migration of the digital files to LR catalog extends the useful digital life time. This migration will also allow my wife to access the digital files for her needs (emailing and posting images) using a single platform at least for the next few years.<br> The pictures are currently stored as a directory structure in the following structure: Year folder-->Month Folder-->Day Folder-->RAW/PSD/TIFF Folder and JPEG Folder. The Aperture library only references the RAW/PSD/TIFF files and not the JPEG files. So they are not divided by pseudo-Aperture folders as I think I understand your point. As best as I can tell, the LR plug-in to import Aperture libraries only recognizes the folder actually containing the images and not the organizing folders of year and month. I have chosen to leave the pictures in their original location during import. Is there a way to have the organizing folders recognized and incorporated into the LR structure during the migration?<br> So my first question remains. For those that have migrated a large number of images from Aperture to Lightroom and consolidated them into a single larger catalog, would you do the aggregation in Aperture first or would you create individual LR catalogs and then aggregate those together? It is a process question.<br> But the second goal of the project, once the images have been aggregated together in a LR catalog is to create a series of print albums of the best images from the past 15 years. I suspect this second goal may take me a few years to accomplish, hence my desire to have a functional digital catalog at least for the next few years. Another reason for this aggregation is the knowledge that my photography and editing style has drifted considerably over the years and I plan on re-editing the images that end up in the print albums so they are more coherent, at least editing style.<br> The path of the second goal is still under consideration. For those that have done legacy print projects, would you print individual pictures and put them in scrapbooks or would you do print albums?<br> With respect to the question of family members will look through 200,000 images. I don't know the future. My oldest son has not only the interest but also the technical skills to maintain the digital asset at least through his life time. I know with 100% certainty that family members will not likely agree with my selections and will want the opportunity to find other and perhaps similar images. In addition, pilot testing the process with 20,000 images suggests the LR plug-in is pretty robust (minus the organizing folders issue), so there is little merit for me to cull the 200,000 images at this time. <br> The culling issue was a critical decision point in a past project. My father had taken nearly 12000 slides over his life time. He had organized them into the carousels and annotated nearly ever slide in the set. When discussing this project with others at the time, nearly everyone made the same recommendation: "pick the very best for scanning and not worry about the rest. Today, nearly 5 years later, I am glad that I ignored that recommendation. Let me try to explain. Those 12000 slides are a pictorial history of my parent's life and each image adds its little bit to the story. By analogy let's create a 12,000 word story. Then reproduce that story in two ways: 12,000 words identical to the original story or the "best" 2000 words in the same sequence as the original story. The "best" 2000 word version, IMHO, is a mere faint shadow of the true story.<br> Anyway, I have digressed from my central issue... that is the migration process of a relatively large collection of Aperture libraries to a single LR catalog.<br> Thanks</p>

<p>I am in the final phases of preparing to move all of my archival Aperture Libraries over to Lightroom. <br> Situation<br> 1. I have been using LR CC and PS CC since last fall and am reasonably comfortable with it.<br> 2. I have about 200,000 images stored in yearly Aperture libraries (about 10 different Aperture Libraries)<br> 3. I have cleaned up those Aperture libraries making sure all of the images are referenced, there are no missing images and I have deleted the old previews and rebuilt the preview to large JPEG files<br> I would like to have all these images in one catalog or library<br> Question 1: At this point I have a choice in the process. Should I build one large Aperture library combining all the years first and then import that combined library into Lightroom or should I import the individual Aperture libraries into Lightroom and then combine the LR catalogues into one large catalogue. Does anyone have a similar experience, and if yes, what were the issues?<br> With Lightroom import of Aperture Libraries, the LR catalog seems to ignore the folder structure leading to the folder containing the pictures and only uses the final containing folder name. One can fix this issue by adding folders and subfolders in LR after import to provide a bit of structure to the folder list. As long this additional structure is done on the same drive as the Aperture Library points to, Aperture seems to be able to find those pictures with problems. <br> BUT, once rearranged in LR, it does not seem possible to reimport that Aperture Library again as the import process fails to find those LR moved pictures (although Aperture still finds those pictures and are not listed as missing or offline in Aperture. Somehow the Aperture Library links to the pictures fail to give LR sufficient information to find them. <br> I have rebuilt the Aperture library, put the pictures back to their original folder location and a few other strategies without success.<br> I know this is a long note, but creating a legacy LR catalog for me is critical so other family members can find pictures.<br> I only wish Apple would have come out with an Aperture Library reader that would be stable going forward, preserving the Aperture edits.<br> Thanks in advance.</p><p><b>Moderator: The questions being asked here are very specific. Please don't tell the poster to do something else, that's not an answer to the questions being asked. If you feel that what you are saying is important, find a thread where it answers the question(s) being asked. Responses that don't help with the question being asked are scheduled for deletion.</p></b>

<p>Did a bit of research, not knowing how much weight you want to carry<br> This combination of body/lens totals 65.2 oz or 4.075 pounds</p> <table width="330" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><colgroup><col width="136" /> <col width="82" /> <col width="112" /> </colgroup> <tbody> <tr> <td width="136" height="15"> </td> <td width="82">Weight (oz)</td> <td width="112">WXHXD (in) or DxL</td> </tr> <tr> <td height="15">a7RII</td> <td align="right">22.05---</td> <td >5.0 x 3.8 x 2.4</td> </tr> <tr> <td height="15">Sony FE 28 f2</td> <td align="right">7.05---</td> <td >2.52 x 2.36</td> </tr> <tr> <td height="15">Sony 21 mm adapter</td> <td align="right">9.5---</td> <td >2.8 x 2.0</td> </tr> <tr> <td height="15">Zeiss FE 55mm 1.8</td> <td align="right">9.9---</td> <td >2.54 x 2.78</td> </tr> <tr> <td height="15">Batis FE 85mm f1.8</td> <td align="right">16.7---</td> <td >3.19 x 3.62</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>With bag and accessories I bet you could get to 10 pounds or less and might be able to add a 35mm prime<br> I found camera operations to be pretty straight foward with a few tricks, depending on shooting style. Learning curve to reasonable ability probably less than 3-4 hours.<br> Lensrental.com will send you gear to your front door at a pretty reasonable price. They have been very reliable for me over the years.<br> Now, if you really get stuck, I might even consider being your assistant! Sounds like a wonderful trip and enjoy</p>

<p>I went to the Sony system because I wanted a lighter bag. I estimate my working Sony bag is about 1/2 the weight of my Nikon working bag. Each carrier similar focal length lenses and misc stuff. BUT, the main reason the Sony is lighter is my sony lenses 24-70 and 70-200 are f4 while my Nikon are f2.8. I accepted that trade off as accepted given my desire for something lighter and smaller.<br> For me the solution process divides into three interdependent parts<br> 1. Camera bodies<br> 2. Lens<br> 3. Accessories.<br> In the final analysis, the largest fraction of the weight/size of the bag is dependent on the lenses and there really is not much difference in weight amongst the different vendors if one compares lenses of equal focal length/speed.<br> Since I am not a professional travel photographer and I was going to places with limited light, I would focus on fast primes and tripods, if they can be used. I use the Sony FE f2 28mm (with the 21mm adapter-makes the lens f2.8), Zeiss for Sony f1.8 55mm, Zeiss for Sony f4 24-70mm and the Sony f4 70-200. I may well get a 35mm and one of the 85-90mm choices as well to complete the set. One thing that Sony is missing is long telephotos. BUT again, there are adaptors for nearly all the lens out there...so decide on which ones you want.<br> The other thing to consider with limited light environments with very limited motion is the in body image stabilization that Sony offers, particularly if tripods are a no-no. I have seen some incredibly sharp images at very slow shutter speeds out of the a7 and a7RII.<br> Again, I would rent and test drive your choices... that is the only way you can really make the best decision for yourself.</p> <p> </p>

I travel with two Sony a7RII bodies. Depending on photographic needs and the weight you want to carry, there are plenty of excellent lenses to chose from. I suspect that you will have a difficult time telling the difference between the 800e and the Sony results. If you have time rent the body and a collection of lenses and test drive them.

<p>Ed, are you referring to the Live View Display menu item?</p>

<p>I have taken to embedding the camera serial number into my keywords upon import into LR. I wrote the numbers on a small piece of sticking label paper and put it on the battery compartment door.</p>

<p>If you did not take the lens off between the pictures, the most likely explanation is there is a lot of dust and junk in the sensor chamber that is moving around. You might want to try to carefully clean the chamber. While the pictures you uploaded are ok for finding dust, you really need a real clean sky (no clouds) to make sure there is not some smudges.</p>

<p>Put a lense on, set the aperture to 22 and take a picture of a reasonably clear blue or grey sky. Shutter speed does not matter, but low iso. Post that image up....I expect your work may not be done....</p>

<p>I think you need to focus on your underlying data structure. I also think you need to clarify your workflow process. My comments are derived from the experience of managing over 500,000 images over 15 years. Here are few suggestions:<br> 1. As other have suggested, every picture I have taken is given a 10 digit number: YYMMDDXXXX. This allows pictures to be sorted by year, month day and picture number in the event that all other structures are lost. XXXX has a value of 0001 to 9999. YYMMDD is the year, month, day that the picture was taken.<br> 2. These pictures are stored in a series of folders. Each year has a folder and within that folder are month folders and within the month folders are day folders. In each each day folder is a folder for the RAW files and another folder for exported JPEG images. It is these JPEG files that get uploaded online for client viewing. The JPEG files should have a name linked to the RAW negative file.<br> 3. Not sure how much data you have, but you might find it easier to aggregate the 'few different hard drives' onto to a single hard drive (along with appropriate backup and archival drives).<br> 4. I would then create a LR catalog and 'point it' to all of the original digital files. The catalog represents your resource for finding any of your 'negatives' and also this a very good place to keyword your negatives. Future editing would start with these negatives.<br> 5. For your pictures that have been edited and uploaded, those will also need a determined structure. Once you have decided on that structure, you could add a section(s) to the LR catalog that points to these edited images or you could create a second LR catalog. In either case, you can keyword using the LR tools to make it easier to find pictures in the future.<br> 6. I would not consider Smugmug as a reliable backup. Online companies come and go. If they go and your backup data is stored there, you have lost all your backup. At the least, you should have your own backup drive and a separate backup drive that gets stored off site (archive drive)<br> 7. It is also important to realize that eventually your storage device will prove insufficient. So I would place all digital resources over a span of time on a single drive with a single LR catalog. As that drive was 70-75% full, I would set up another drive to continue forward.<br> Hope this helps.</p>

<p>@Ed....<br> Thanks for the link to the Sony announcement. I look forward to see what the final product might offer. I have gotten use to setting flash manually and triggering with a Pocketwizard Plus III on my Sony, but there are occasions when I wish I could do it on the fly. This works with my SB800, 900 and Einsteins 640. By the way, I had to click it twice to get to the relevant link.<br> On camera I have used the Nissan i40 for TTL capability or set my SB800 or 900 to manual. The i40 works well if you don't need a lot of extra light. I almost always use bounced flash off my camera.<br> I use the last two of your autofocus suggestions, but not the first one...setting the viewfinder effects to off. I will try to see how I feel about it. Thanks for the suggestion...</p>

<p>I think when one compares the weight of a Nikon D800 with a Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 with a Sony a7RM2 with the new Sony 24-70mm f2.8 you will the weights are similar.</p> <p>With the a7RM2 camera, the biggest barrier to the professional is support for off camera flash. Yes it can be done manually, but nothing as elegant as the Pocket Wizard TT1, Flex 5 for Nikon or Canon.</p> <p>And I am not sure its autofocus in low light matches my D800.<br> Having said all that, I really like my a7RM2 particularly with the prime series of lens.</p>

<p>As I understand the problem occurs across different cards, but you are able to restart the process and recover the picture. Is that basically correct?<br> If yes, this suggests that it is something downstream from the cards. <br> You can take the card reader and cable out of the equation by testing transfer directly from your camera. For that all you need is a charged battery and the appropriate cable which should have come with the camera. And do NOT use the same cable as used with the card reader.<br> If you have problems with direct transfer from the camera, that would suggest something other than the card reader and cable in other words something on the computer. <br> My bias is the most likely problem is the card reader/cable, but it could also be corrupt RAM or HD.<br> Report back when you figure it out....)) </p>

<p>So I worked for several more hours today with the cable holder tying the USB cable into place and had no further random disconnects. I think this speaks to the fragility of the USB and HDMI ports on the camera. The only condition that would lock the camera was letting the computer to fall asleep while the camera was connected. <br> So my conclusion is this is a viable way of doing tethered shoots with the a7RM2 into lightroom: <a href="http://briansmith.com/how-to-tether-sony-a7-a7r-a7s/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://briansmith.com/how-to-tether-sony-a7-a7r-a7s/</a></p> <p> </p>