It wasn't until I went through the pictures later that I noticed while the time was perfect the day's were off by one!!! Ugh!! OK not the worst thing in the world. Get out a metadata editor and batch change the pics from the offending camera. Well, it went partially OK. I changed the date and windows recognized the change and all is good, right? No! Nikon View NX, did not recognize the batch change. I use Nikon for basic stuff and converting from RAW. 

What now? I had to go through 175 pics and manually change the metadata. It's the only way Nikon would recognize it. UGH!!

Well, I'm dumb for not noticing the date being off and Nikon View NX sucks!! I've blogged about it before. Apparently, I'm too dumb to stop using it. Actually, it does the basics very well (and doesn't require libraries and catalogs, which I HATE)!!

So as would typically happen, I get home from shooting and the first thing I do is put down my gear and download the contents of my card(s) onto my computer. The longer this takes after arriving home the more potential I have for twitching. Anyway, the pics are downloaded and now it's time to return the card to it's rightful spot, in my camera.

I come downstairs snacking on Wheat Thins. I grab the card out of the card reader and pop a Wheat Thins in my mouth. Crunch!! I stop for a moment and ponder the possibilities. First, I quickly glance at my hand. Nope, no SD Card there, just Wheat Thins. Then I reach for my mouth. Luckily I didn't break any teeth. However, I did have a memory card with 2 very substantial bite marks. I cleaned the card off with compressed air and put it in my camera. Card Failure Error!! Then I put it in my computer to attempt to reformat it. No luck!! Then I went online and bought a new 32gb Sandisk Extreme Pro card to replace the one that could now be used as a very small shim for a wobbly table or chair.

Sadly, I though it was pretty funny when I did it, and i still do now retelling it.

The family and I went to Israel. I was shooting my 7000 and my wife was using the D80. After the first week I was up to 1100 pics and BAM!! you guessed it CARD FAILURE!! Despite the truly nauseated feeling, I swapped the card in slot 2 into slot one and kept shooting. I contacted Sandisk support on live chat. I explained what happened and they suggested running Recovery Software. The only problem was I didn't have my laptop, so i would have to wait a week until I got home (and until I could breathe again).

Since the recovery software I have is very old, I downloaded the recommended Rescue Pro Software. Nothing, it couldn't read the card. The good news is it knew there was a card in the slot that it couldn't read. I contacted Sandisk again and they recommended I Contact LC Technologies in Clear Water Florida. So I did. I sent my card overnight on a Thursday. It arrived Friday Morning and by Friday Afternoon James from LC was calling me with the good news, 1000 of my pics were there!!!! I could breathe again!!!!

LC's service was great. The communication, either by phone or email was great. They are competitively priced and they sent me back my card so i could get it warrantied by Sandisk.

I hope I never need LC again, but it's good to know they are out there!!

All in all Transfer does a good job of getting pics off my Camera and putting them where I want them. I know the download is done because View NX 2 opens. Pluses; Windows based file structure, easy to edit Raw/Nef files, easy to convert to Jpg or Tiff, multiple viewing options including huge thumbnails and scrolling through and deleting pictures can be done very quickly, . Minuses slow editing, no true batch editing feature (you can ctrl, click multiple pictures and apply the same settings), the processing of those edits is really slow (but I said slow already). Here was an interesting negative that I found recently. I shoot Raw, the output of my Camera produces 16-18mb files, I convert them to JPG to post or print. I went to make a fairly larger reprint and noticed that the largest JPG I could get was 6-7mb, too big for posting on the web, but too small for a big print. All the other photo programs I've used could make a 12-14mb JPG. For most paid work, I would print from Tiff's but often would post large JPGs for customers "to with as they please". 6-7mb just wouldn't do.

I researched on line, I called Nikon, I entered service tickets, I asked friends. Nikon's response, "nope that's as big a JPG as you can make". My reply, any plans on changing that in a future release? "Don't  know".

Anyway, It just adds a step to some workflows (ie converting Raw to large Tiffs for printing and small jpgs for posting). Not that I wouldn't do that anyway but not being able to produce large JPGs, requires it more often.

Oh by the way. Nikon web based customer service leaves a bit to be desired. Slow, the first answer is telling you you aren't using the software or your camera correctly. Followed by a link to a web site searchable instruction which I found myself and read prior to submitting the ticket, only to have the ticket answered with; the software doesn't do that, and we don't know if future versions will either.

So net net, believe it or not, I'm going to keep using it. For me the pluses out weigh the minuses. Plus I seem to be doing less post production anyway. Oh BTW, my trial for Capture ran out. It was fun and interesting but Photoshop still gets the nod for editing.

As my storage grew, I noticed that Carbonite was always running and running slowly. I was told it's because they throttle the speed back after 200gigs. The cost to speed it up didn't seem worth it to me. I was paying $50 per year for slow and could pay $1055 for fast so I let it run slowly (for over a year). I was averaging about 1 to 1.2 gigs per day. That's sloooooow!!

I mentioned this to one of my friends who said he was using a service called Crashplan for his cloud back up so I checked it. Free trial that's cool. I ran the trial and chose a couple of gig to back up (it may have been 3 or 4). In what seemed like a couple of minutes, all backed up. Hmmm interesting!!

Now my set up is a Drobo external hard drive, my web host and Crashplan. While i was still on the trial I began backing up the Drobo, all 950gigs. At the moment Crashplan doesn't directly support external drives, but with a simple work around, recommended by Crashplan customer service,  the drive was mounted and visible. Crashplan was backing up between 50-80 gigs a day depending on internet speed, I couldn't be happier. One down side was I had to remap the Drobo. Now with a new drive letter the backup started over. Now the trial was coming to an end but I knew i was signing up. Plus because I was coming from Carbonite, they were offering the first year for free!!. Free, fast and oh did I mention I spoke to a human who was friendly and helpful.

So, the new backup started and right around the 1/2 point, Hurricane Sandy knocked the power out for 10 days. I was starting to think this backup wasn't going to happen. Once the power came on the back up started again. I did have a couple of questions and whether through email or phone (yes phone, talking to Erik in Minnesota) my questions were answered.

Well happily, on Monday my now 965 gigs were all backed up! That would have taken 3 years with Carbonite. I can access my files remotely, I can get them back g-d forbid I need to and files are backed up quickly and seamlessly in the the background.

So far seems like a win win!!

Thanks for the recommendation Chopper no I too can recommend Crashplan

Transfer is simple and solid. It does what i need it too, It gets pics off my SD cards, puts them where I want and allows me to put the necessary metadata on them. Although, I wish I could put a few more keywords than the field allows (more keywords can always be added after download though). Unless, of course there is a secret to keywords I haven't found yet.

When the download is done, View opens. View allows many viewing options. I prefer the one with a large preview, filmstrip at the bottom, folders on the left and editing tools on the right. Since getting the 7000 and having the Adobe workspace from the camera transferring to View there has been very little post production. I can make many changes just haven't had to. The program doesn't really batch edit, but you can make edits to multiple (or all pictures) nonetheless. You can highlight multiple pictures and then adjust them all at the same time. Scrolling through and deleting the pictures happens quickly. Adjustments and cropping is straight forward, and resetting the RAW file back to original state is also easy. Making a lot of changes does take some time as the program processes each edit. Although, it can process multiple edit sets. That said my computer was in need of upgrade and was painfully slow in it's own right so we will see when the puter is rebuilt.

Once the RAW files are the way I want them its quite easy to convert the whole lot. Although conversion to jpgs is a bit slow (again we will see once the computer is speeding along).

Thus far I'm quite happy and my issues are minimal!!

Transfer seemed simple and straight forward. It got my pics where I wanted them without libraries or catalogues. I could view and delete before or after downloading. I could make basic adjustments to the raw files. So far so good. Also, shooting a Nikon and using Nikon software meant many of my camera settings ie colorspace transferred right over. With a my monitor freshly calibrated I was good to go. The first batch of pics went from camera to Transfer to View to my website like I had been using the software forever. I clicked on everything and watched a couple of youtube videos (not a fan of reading instructions unless absolutely necessary). I'm sure I'll get better, find more tricks and get a comfortable workflow as I go. I'll update on that as it happens.

I watched a couple of basic videos and started playing around with Capture. I thought,  what will I use this for I use photoshop. I gotta tell you control points are pretty cool! I need practice and I don't think I'll stop using photoshop, but this Nikon stuff seems pretty powerful and easy to use!

More to come

Today I get to tell you about an internet business (unless you are reading this in Ohio where they are located) that also truly "gets it". Dodd Camera (www.doddcamera.com); I had some questions about a potential purchase, and i did the unthinkable, I clicked on "contact us" and there was a phone number, and I spoke to a person, and they were knowledgeable, helpful, polite, and patient. It's sad we (or maybe just I) have become so jaded that getting those things surprises us. Anyway, I wasn't ready to make the purchase at that moment and ended up having another question, so I called back. I got an equally knowledgeable, helpful, polite, and patient person (thanks Brad Cohn). I got off the phone with Brad, made the purchase online (a new lens). Not only has Dodd been around for 100 years with a great selection and great prices you can even talk to Humans.

Way to Delight a Customer!!

Hi Eti

It’s been a while since we spoke. I just have to share a testimonial for why I buy and Love Kata bags. I still have my 3 in 1 30. Today I was unloading my gear from my trunk and got side tracked. I pulled the bag out and sat it on the ground, leaning against my bumper. I pulled out the lighting stuff and brought it in the house and went inside (Oh no, he forgot the camera bag). Yup, I left it behind the car. I got in the car a little while later and left. When I backed down the driveway I pushed the bag down the driveway. Luckily, it got stuck under the car and I didn’t run it over. I pushed it about 30 feet, in to the street and drove away. Luckily my neighbor found it and put it by my front door. You could imagine how horrified I was when I drove down the street and saw the bag leaning against my front door. I knew instantly what had happened. Well, all the gear inside was unharmed. I tried everything immediately and it worked. The bag was dirty and had 1 scuff mark (a little bigger than a thumbnail). You guys make one hard core product!! Need product testers? I’m your guy (if I run anything else over, maybe I’ll do it without my gear in it)

Thank you thank you thank you for making an awesome product.

Neil

I'm now trying Lightroom again, I'm trying to be open to the learning curve. I hear it's a very power editing tool that also will improve workflows. I'm stuck on the fact that to view files it seems you have to import them into the program first from your hard drive. Please say it ain't so! Can someone tell me if there is a way to simply navigate to my photos and open them. Importing seems time consuming. Also, do i really have to create libraries and catalogs? I already have everything the way i want it. It's this same reason i hate itunes.

Your thoughts?