Review
Ars Technica Reviews Aperture 2.0
2008-03-10
A Quick Look At Photon 1.0
2007-11-05
Photon is a RAW workflow utility designed to do one thing well: let me view and sort my images quickly before I import the good ones into a more heavyweight tool like Aperture or Lightroom.
As soon as I put my card into a reader, Photon starts reading and converting RAW files, putting thumbnails into the area on the left. I can start working with images right away: no need to wait for the download to finish. Photon maxed out both my CPUs as it downloaded at about 7MB per second from my USB card reader.
Across the top are stacks: general purpose bins for images. The currently selected stack populates the thumbnail pane, so clicking on a different stack shows me a different set of images. Each card initially goes into its own stack.
To process my images I scroll through the thumbnails with the left and right arrow keys and restack the images using whatever criteria make sense for me. Each stack has a single-key short-cut, called a hotkey (the numbers 1 and 2 in the screen shot above). I can reassign these to any keys I like. 7, 8, 9, X might relate to ratings. I could add a stack called T for trash and another called P for print. If I were shooting a wedding I could assign hotkeys for different locations or people. There is no need to drag and drop images, just pressing the hotkey moves the image to the stack assigned to that key and shows the next image in the viewer. I can process 1000 images with only 1000 key presses this way.
Zooming is simplicity itself: I click on the image and it zooms to 100% with the click point at the center:
I let go, and it returns to a scaled view. To make zooming persistent I can move the switch bottom right.
Once I have my images sorted, I am ready to export the images to disk. Since many of my images have no value and were either moved to a junk stack or skipped over, I only save some of the stacks. I can save the original RAW, or opt to have Photon convert to JPG, TIFF, or a number of other formats. Once done, I am ready to import my surviving images into Aperture or another application or process them further, maybe adding GPS data or keywords.
I found this 1.0 release of Photo to be stable and fast. There are a few rough edges to the interface and a need for refinement in some areas. Photon is short on features -- but that's good. It does what it claims to do well, and there is plenty of functionality that can be added later once customers start telling Green Volcano what they would like to see. The demo version does everything except save stacks.
As soon as I put my card into a reader, Photon starts reading and converting RAW files, putting thumbnails into the area on the left. I can start working with images right away: no need to wait for the download to finish. Photon maxed out both my CPUs as it downloaded at about 7MB per second from my USB card reader.
Across the top are stacks: general purpose bins for images. The currently selected stack populates the thumbnail pane, so clicking on a different stack shows me a different set of images. Each card initially goes into its own stack.
To process my images I scroll through the thumbnails with the left and right arrow keys and restack the images using whatever criteria make sense for me. Each stack has a single-key short-cut, called a hotkey (the numbers 1 and 2 in the screen shot above). I can reassign these to any keys I like. 7, 8, 9, X might relate to ratings. I could add a stack called T for trash and another called P for print. If I were shooting a wedding I could assign hotkeys for different locations or people. There is no need to drag and drop images, just pressing the hotkey moves the image to the stack assigned to that key and shows the next image in the viewer. I can process 1000 images with only 1000 key presses this way.
Zooming is simplicity itself: I click on the image and it zooms to 100% with the click point at the center:
I let go, and it returns to a scaled view. To make zooming persistent I can move the switch bottom right.
Once I have my images sorted, I am ready to export the images to disk. Since many of my images have no value and were either moved to a junk stack or skipped over, I only save some of the stacks. I can save the original RAW, or opt to have Photon convert to JPG, TIFF, or a number of other formats. Once done, I am ready to import my surviving images into Aperture or another application or process them further, maybe adding GPS data or keywords.
I found this 1.0 release of Photo to be stable and fast. There are a few rough edges to the interface and a need for refinement in some areas. Photon is short on features -- but that's good. It does what it claims to do well, and there is plenty of functionality that can be added later once customers start telling Green Volcano what they would like to see. The demo version does everything except save stacks.
Leopard: The Ars Technica Review
2007-10-30
I agree with Gruber. Ars has an excellent behind-the-scenes review. Leopard has a lot of polish and great tools under the hood as well as a nice shine coat on the bodywork.
Canon 40D Review At DPReview
2007-10-25
Many people have been waiting for DPReview to write at length on the Canon 40D. It's a big review -- 30 pages.
Canon S5: DPReview Now Has A Full Review
2007-07-28
DPReview now has a full review of the Canon S5, the successor to the S3 that I have. I've played with the S5 in a store, and I'm not impressed, especially since the S3 costs half what the S5 does right now. The big turn-offs for me are the card access (in with the batteries), and the slower burst speed. There are plenty of comments going up right now in the Canon forum.
Terry White Reviews The iPhone
2007-07-04
Terry White has a long and interesting review of the iPhone on his blog.
Terry is the Director of North America Creative Pro Core Business at Adobe.The iPhone is a huge step forward in the right direction. The more I use it the more it makes me smile and I catch myself thinking “this is so cool!” The iPhone is not perfect by any means. Show me a smartphone that is. Some of the missing features just make me smack my forehead and say “how in the heck could they have left that off?” However, the iPhone is the most interesting phone I’ve seen to date. Like it or not, the iPhone HAS changed the world of cell phones forever. Apple has raised the bar and everyone else has to now step up. This is good for us all. I’m pleased with my purchase and my gauge is, “would I buy it again?” The answer is a resounding YES! Sure I want iPhone 2.0 with all the missing features that I’ve stated above and then some, however, for a 1.0 product this phone lives up to the vast majority of the promises and even most of the hype. Oh how far Apple has come since the Newton 1.0.
Canon S3 Review At The Luminous Landscape
2006-07-28
The Luminous Landscape has a review of the Canon S3 IS. They like it. That's good because Michael Reichmann who runs the site seriously knows what he is doing.
Digital Camera Info Review Of The Canon S3 IS
2006-06-29
Digital Camera Info has posted a review of the Canon S3 IS and there are some unusual and notable items in it. The review has some nuggets:
For the sharpest images, use a focal length of 16.8 mm (3x zoom) and an aperture of f4.5. The camera has the best dynamic range at ISO 100, not 80 as you might expect.
And some errors and odd comments:
Shot to shot is listed at 1.6 seconds in burst mode. It's actually 2.1 shots per second. The review claims that manual focus through the EVF is "nearly impossible", but I've done it and it is certainly usable. My hummingbird pictures were done that way. The complaints in the review that the power button takes "too much energy to turn" and that "it takes some serious effort to turn it toward the playback icon" make me wonder if the reviewer had a dud unit or if he/she didn't realize that you have to depress the tiny button on the control to unlock it. No mention at all of C mode. That's odd because it is a great feature. It remembers every setting, so when you turn the camera on you have a completely predictable set up. The conclusion includes "poor battery life", which is very surprising. I get easily 500 photos out of a set of 2300mAh batteries. The spec page lists the fStop min and max as 2.7 and 3.5. Surely 2.7 and 8.0?
For the sharpest images, use a focal length of 16.8 mm (3x zoom) and an aperture of f4.5. The camera has the best dynamic range at ISO 100, not 80 as you might expect.
And some errors and odd comments:
Shot to shot is listed at 1.6 seconds in burst mode. It's actually 2.1 shots per second. The review claims that manual focus through the EVF is "nearly impossible", but I've done it and it is certainly usable. My hummingbird pictures were done that way. The complaints in the review that the power button takes "too much energy to turn" and that "it takes some serious effort to turn it toward the playback icon" make me wonder if the reviewer had a dud unit or if he/she didn't realize that you have to depress the tiny button on the control to unlock it. No mention at all of C mode. That's odd because it is a great feature. It remembers every setting, so when you turn the camera on you have a completely predictable set up. The conclusion includes "poor battery life", which is very surprising. I get easily 500 photos out of a set of 2300mAh batteries. The spec page lists the fStop min and max as 2.7 and 3.5. Surely 2.7 and 8.0?
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