A miscellany of photography with digital, analogue and alternative processes, including cyanotype.
Five goes kayaking
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
When I posted about my selection of a tough camera I had yet to truly try it out. Now the Olympus Tough TG-5 has been taken on a couple of kayaking trips around the Skerries of Arisaig on the west coast of Scotland and I can report on how it performed.
These sample images were shot as raw and put through Lightroom with the Camera Vivid profile applied, along with a few other adjustments and a crop down to 16:9 aspect ratio:
Red pole navigation hazard marker
Me in a Perception Expression 14
Me in a Perception Expression 15
In addition to numerous stills we also shot several video clips, opting for the 4k resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels). Obviously the best playback option is to watch this full screen on a 4k display but it will also look good on QHD (2560 × 1440 pixels, this is what my Eizo ColorEdge gives me) or otherwise regular HD.
Problems
There were only a few minor issues, here's a quick summary:
With no viewfinder composing on the rear screen can sometimes be tricky in bright light.
On our first outing I had accidentally selected Pro-Capture mode, this takes several consecutive frames to allow the best (decisive) moment to be selected. It works well but in conjunction with shooting RAW+jpeg it did mean having a huge number of files to process.
The interface for uploading the files is only USB2 so uploading a few hundred files takes a while.
I used the Lightroom import and this resulted in having all the files in the same folder for the upload date rather than splitting them into the original shoot dates. Not sure but this maybe an issue with the EXIF data from the camera. I then had to manually re-organize the files, no big deal but it's an extra task that shouldn't be necessary.
Conclusions
Overall I'm very pleased with how the TG-5 performed. Water and getting a few knocks were not a worry. The image quality is good for the size of camera (compact). The raws process quite well and the 4k footage is quite adequate. Options like Pro-Capture mode could really help in capturing key action moments. Features like geo-tagging all the photos is an added bonus, helpful on longer trips and when out at sea with more limited landmarks to pinpoint positions.
The Raw Image Extension adds native viewing support for images captured in raw file formats and allows you to see thumbnails in Explorer without needing to open them with additional software. RAW Image Extension from Microsoft This is very easy to setup and free, from Windows desktop run the Microsoft Store , go to Apps and search for "Raw Image Extension". Under "System requirements" it should state if your device is suitable for installation and if so then just install (needs to be Windows 11 or one of the more recent versions of Windows 10). NB Although this installs like an App it does not run as an App, it will run in the background, just use the Windows File Explorer to see thumbnails and view metadata. It uses the LibRAW Image Decoder, a list of supported cameras can be found here: https://www.libraw.org/supported-cameras
I have recently purchased DXO NIK Collection 6 , here I'll give an outline of why I wanted this software and what my history of using the product is, along with some of the pros and cons as I now see them. Back in 2012 my then photography tutor recommended I look at Silver Efex as it was considered one of the best tools for processing digital images for black and white. At that time NIK sold the tools separately or, for the price of a couple of the tools, you could buy the set as a bundle which is what I did. I got on well with the tools and made extensive use of both Silver Efex and later Color Efex. Around 2014 I swapped computers and was unable to activate the NIK licenses on the new machine, I found Google had taken over the software and via their support team I was able to get an installable version. Subsequently I could reinstall that version as I changed computers a couple of times but when I started using Capture One Pro I intended to manage without it. DXO took over the N
With my old laptop being 10 years old it felt overdue for replacement. It could not be upgraded to Windows 11, the battery charge would not last more than a few minutes and performance was generally slow so time to see what the latest tech could offer. Elimina Pro I was looking for something that would be good for photo editing along with a little video editing and maybe a little gaming. I would expect to mostly use the laptop plugged in to a power supply and not on the move so a larger high-res screen would be the preference. This in turn suggests a dedicated GPU which means ultra thin cases would not be an option. As off the shelf laptop configurations often have poor screens, are usually short on memory and short on storage space I was therefore looking for a custom build. As a company I've used before, PC Specialist came to mind. I based the build on one of their Elimina Pro laptops, choosing a 16 inch screen (diagonal measurement) as a good compromise size and opted for highes
Comments
Post a Comment