stevenseelig

<p>I asked Brian about this and he suggested using a strange looking device called a cable holder that is in the box when you purchase a a7RM2. I have been testing that this morning and it does seem to prevent the random disconnects, but I am extending testing to determine how comfortable I would be to take this into a professional shoot where random disconnects would be the kiss of death. Preliminary testing with the cable holder seems to be working at this point after about 45 minutes of testing.</p>

<p>I was able to use the strategy suggested by Brian Smith <br> http://briansmith.com/how-to-tether-sony-a7-a7r-a7s/<br> and it 'works', but the camera randomly disconnects and crashes, such that i need to remove the battery to regain control of the camera. Remote Camera Control (Sony's software) seems to loose the camera or the camera goes into some sleep mode and will not wake back up or the software does not recognize the camera status.<br> System: Sony a7RM2, microUSB cable with CP Technology Extension Cable, iMac (10.10.5). I have used the CP Technology Extension Cable for years with my D800 shooting tethered with problems.<br> Any ideas for suggestions?</p>

<p>I am wondering if anyone has successfully shot tethered to a MacBook Pro into Lightroom CC with the Sony a7RM2? If yes, how did you do it. I don't really want to control the camera as much as just transfer the pictures from the camera directly to LR during shooting.<br> Thanks</p>

<p>Howard, that is certainly true, but another way to think about it is whether one can achieve the desired results with an f4 lens. In my mind there are three advantages to the f2.8 lens: more light, shallower depth of field and perhaps nicer bokeh. <br> The more light issue can be largely offset by the better sensors (particularly in the a7M2 series) which leaves depth of field and bokeh. Most of my travel photography is not heavily depended on those two things so a lighter f4 lens really can do the job, at least for me, and I don't need to carry all that extra weight. <br> Just a weird way of thinking before the Super Bowl.</p>

<p>Ed, Do you have a strategy for keeping track of which camera generated the pictures. One of my uses of camera specific information is to keep track of how clean the sensor is and also for clock adjustments.</p>

<p>When I import a7RM2 raw files into Lightroom CC, there is no serial number in the exif data, but my D800 camera serial numbers are present. Does anyone know how to get the a7RM2 camera body serial number imported into lightroom?<br> Thanks</p>

<p>I still believe a same bag with identical lens will weight about the same...in an effort to be clear<br> Bag One<br> Two Sony a7Rii bodies<br> Sony 24-70/f2.8<br> Sony 70-200/f2.8<br> Bag Two<br> Two Nikon D800 bodies<br> Nikkor 24-70/f2.8<br> Nikkor 70-200/f2.8<br> There will only be a minor difference in size/weight between the two bags. The Sony body is smaller by a modest amount.<br> BUT, if I am willing to live with f4 lenses with my Sony cameras, then Edward is exactly right. For me, when I travel, the weight/size advantage of a Sony with f/4 lens is clearly more preferable than the one stop gain in light the Nikon system would give me. </p>

The weight and size of these new lens are comparable to the NIKON equivalent. Seems like the concept that mirrorless cameras are lighter is not particularly valid. The body of the a7Rii is somewhat smaller than the D800, but a modest difference. Just a thought.

<p>I was reminded a few minutes ago from another thread announcing new Sony lenses that if you compare the weight of a D800 to that of a Sony a7RII body you will find them very similar AND a Sony 24-70 f2.8 lens weighs essentially the same as the Nikon 24-70 f2.8. So in reality at least for the Sony a7R series, the mirrorless camera really are not lighter than a regular DLSR. <br> Sorry to rain on that parade!</p>

<p>I have used several Sony mirrorless. I got the a7R and was never really happy with it, but the a7RII is an excellent camera with outstanding IQ. If you try the a7RII make sure you turn off the RAW compression. Yes the files get huge (80MB), but the dynamic range is quite remarkable.<br> BUT, before making the investment in body and lens, I would encourage you to rent the body and a few lens and do a test drive.<br> When I travel, I only go with my Sony's now.</p>

I agree with Barry. Jump in and try. That is the only way you will find what works for you. @Alan. I have scanned some pictures that date back To the 1870-1880. Tin types. It is very difficult for me to imagine someone preserving my digital files for 145 years. It just seems very unlikely. But many of the pictures I scanned, I was probably the first person to look at them in 30-40 years, preserved in a box in my parent's basement. Hard to image a digital file surviving a 10-20 year interval of observation, although I recent pulled some 8-10 year backup drives out of my basement, and I could read/access the files! My reprint effort is to gather the very best of all those images, and create heirloom type album for each of the kids. Those will have the ability to survive long between observation intervals and perhaps will find their way to a descendent who has the same curiosity and interest that I have had. I think a lot of people view the analog to digital conversion as an effective means of preserving the images. While perhaps that is true, I think it is an unlikely outcome without the re-creation of a hard copy.

I have scanned thousands of old family pictures and photographed 100's of album pages for the purpose of reproduction. It is possible to do it either way, but photographing carries extra demands. Photography Estimate the number pixels you will have on the long side. This will serve as I guides as to resolution and how small or large your reproduced prints will be 1. Need tripod set up and remote release 2. The 45 degree is a guideline and I have found that it does not alway work. Very glossy prints or prints with lots of architecture will require modification of your illumination 3. The picture must be absolute parallel to the sensor and should be centered on the center of the sensor. Otherwise you will get a distorted picture. 4. Be sure the background will be easily edited out BUT I have taken quick snaps with my iPhone and those are ok to let me know what is in the picture. Scanning I scan 600 color dpi all the time at 8bit (not 16 bit) and they tend to average about 70MB so your large size is most like related to your chosen bit depth. Scanning does not need a complicated setup to get very good results. Yes it can seem to take a long time, but the overall quality is likely to be better than photographing. I use image capture on the Mac (Vuescan is excellent), I like the auto segmentation of image capture. I typically get through about 1 image a minute running two scanners at the same time. A lot depends on why you want to do this. When I began, I held the belief that I was preserving those image for future generations. In retrospect, I was not able to identify anyone in my family willing to devote the time to backup, archive, maintaining, covert to newer media over time. At that point I sort of decided the analog to digital conversion is great for reproduction of as many prints I want, and is great as long as I am alive, but if my goal is to preserve those images for future generations, I will need to reprint them. And in fact I am in process of actually do that, so you may want the images to be the best quality images

<p>Hi Dave,<br> I am in a similar position as you. 320,000 images processed through Aperture. <br> I have evaluated Capture One Pro 8 and Lightroom CC. <br> In terms of going forward, I will likely chose Lightroom CC. I find Capture One Pro 8 a bit more complicated to use and I find Lightroom CC to have the capabilities I need, although not as clean as Aperture in terms of DAM.<br> In terms of legacy issues, I still don't have solution. Capture One did a pretty good job of importing your images as you might have seen them, but much more problematic is it would not import PSD files and only some TIFF files (not quite sure why). Lightroom basically give you your RAW files (the recommendation is to make your previews as large as possible..but I honestly don't know the advantage of doing that). My hope is that Photos in El Capitan will be viable, but will know in the next month or so. If you want to preserve your edits for anything other than an Apple solution, the only choice is to export your images as TIFF (very costly in terms of memory space) or JPG, if you really don't want to do extensive editing or don't care about your layers.</p> <p> </p>

<p>A brief update. I downloaded the free trial of Capture One Pro 8, and have been watching tutorials, and learning about the program. After some learning curve, I can see why people might like it. So I decided to test an Aperture import on a referenced Aperture 3.6 library. It took about an hour to import a little more than 11000 images, but at the end of the import I noticed that it said it could not import 332 images. On further exploration, it turns out that Capture One Pro 8 can not import .psd files created through Aperture and perhaps elsewhere and strangely only imported some of my .tiff files. A preliminary investigation as revealed the following:<br> 1. If I created .tiff files from my scanner, it seemed to recognize and import those<br> 2. If I created the .tiff file in Aperture (though CS6 and Photo Perfect Suite) and there was only a single layer, it failed to import it, but if there was two layers, it seemed to import the top layer as a tiff.<br> I am not 100% certain as the full descriptor of which tiff files get imported and which don't so I will be investigating this a bit further.<br> Since most of my really important images (the ones I have done some work on) are either .psd or .tiff, this outcome is very disappointing. <br> I will be looking to see if the none .psd/.tiff adjustment have come through 'ok'.</p>

<p>@ Leonard...on a mac so PaintshopPro would not work for me. And yes, I will be trying the trial version of both Capture One Pro 8 and LR+PS CC. The comments here have helped to clarify for me a number of important issues/ideas, enough so to invest the time to test drive both paths. </p>

<p>Thanks Andrew....seems like LR6 does not add any value assuming I go with the LR+PS CC path.</p>

<p>Thanks Andrew....i don't think one of my questions was clear.... Let me try again. If I decide to go forward with LR + PS CC, but let the subscription expire, will I need LR6 to access the LR CC catalogues or will there simply be a partially disabled LR CC application that I can use to access the catalogues. In other words, when I let the subscription go, will I need a copy of LR6 to access those files?</p>

<p>@ Wouter.... Capture One Pro 8 does not support video? I think you are right... I need to test drive both applications and see how I feel using them....</p>

<p>Andrew.... so LR CC resides on my computer after the subscription ends and is partially disabled, but PS-CC is there but not useable. I currently use PS CS6. Will the disabled LR CC support opening the files in other applications, such as PS CS6 or Perfect Photo Suite 9?</p> <p>Does that mean I will not need a copy of LR6 to access those files once the subscription to LR CC ends?</p>

<p>A couple of things are unclear to me. If I decide to go with LR+PS creative cloud now, but in the future decide not to continue the subscription, I understand that I will still have access to the files and edits I made up to the time I discontinued the subscription. Will a copy of these programs exist on my machine so I can access the edits through partially enable LR and PS or how does it actually work...?</p>