Adobe Denoise AI not supporting Ricoh GRIII DNG files

 

Thoughts on cameras

During holidays I had two cameras with me: Sony a6000 with Sigma 56mm f/1.4 and Ricoh GR3 (and iPhone). 

Sigma lens at f/1.4 or f/2.8 allowed me to take some amazing portraits. This lens is exceptionally sharp, even wide open, although focusing on fast action is sometimes not fast enough on an old camera like a6000.

Ricoh on the other hand has one big advantage: size. Small size means that the camera is easier to carry on (even in a pocket) and easier to pick up. It means that because camera is small and light, I can have it on me at all times, even when I don't take photography bag (or any other bag) with me. It allows me to get extremely contrasty B&W shots. Focusing is sometimes an issue (camera sometimes focuses on the background instead of the subject which is in the middle of the frame) but otherwise it's a great camera. Highlight protect metering mode is doing a great job, however, it has its own limitations: in a scene where there is even a small bright area, camera will make entire scene dark, in order to preserve that highlight detail in that one bright spot. This results in a very dark, almost black jpg, but raw has a wide latitude for processing, so not all is lost. Also, since the camera has physical controls for almost all settings, adjusting exposure is fast and easy. 

One thing which I miss is the ability to recreate Ricoh look in Lightroom by processing the raw file. 

So, do the cameras complement each other? 

In a way, yes, definitely. 

Is it comfortable to carry two cameras? Definitely not, however, I don't regret this choice as I was able to make some great portraits with Sigma which would be impossible with Ricoh. 

Ricoh on the other hand can produce some amazing shots of beach and seaside, which I didn't have a chance to explore in detail. 

Issues: when shooting with Ricoh, it sometimes complains about memory card - to resolve that always have a backup card and if using microSD with adapter, always have a spare adapter, just in case. The card was fine all along, but somewhere along the electric connection there was an issue, causing memory to not be recognized by the camera.

Same goes for batteries: always have a spare, just in case, same applies to a6000. 

Good practice: check camera before leaving the house: start the camera and actually try to take a shot, look at remaining photo count and battery - it might happen that even though all looks good initially, when you actually try to shoot, it complains with one kind of an error or another.

Another issue with Ricoh is dust. Unfortunately, the camera is not sufficiently protected against dust, so after a while you will get dust on the sensor. In most cases it's not an issue, but when you shoot high apertures (f/8-f/16) against even background (like sky), you will clearly see all of dust particles on the sensor. It's a shame as it's limiting the camera usability. 

Sony a6000 extended capabilities

 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4498751

Hi all,

This is my first post on this forum! I hope you'll find it useful.

I came across an interesting thing that I would like to share:

I had a Sony a6000 for quite some time now, and while it's a great camera, it has it's own limitations.

One example is it's timelapse app - I bought an external power adapter to be able to take long (entire day, night or even both) timelapses. I was lucky enough that my second-hand camera already had the official (paid) timelapse app installed. The app does it's job, but it has it's own limits. One of them is max number of shots (990), another is the inability to reduce interval between the shots to less than one second (burst). But otherwise, the app works perfectly fine.

Another limitation however was more difficult to work around: I was looking at (cheap) options to add an external monitor to a6000 - turns out you can use your smartphone with Imaging Edge app and get live view straight away via WiFi. One problem though: for some strange reason, this can't be used for video. This was a huge disappointment, as filming would benefit from having external monitor.

I did some research and came across a page by some Vietnamese guy, who describes how you can work around this limitation. Turns out all you have to do is hack your camera and change it's model name from a6000, to something else like a6001 (I understand that it works because a6000 is on the list of unsupported cameras, but a6001 isn't).

I've tested this myself and can confirm that it works as expected, the whole process took me about 5 minutes.

At this point you can also install some other additional apps like unofficial timelapse app (without the limitations of official app), and a bunch of others.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow, details are here: https://chandat.net/multimedia/photography/huong-dan-bat-che-do-remote-control-video-recording-cho-sony-a6000/

The page is in Vietnamese, but can be easily translated.

Cheers

 

https://chandat.net/multimedia/photography/huong-dan-bat-che-do-remote-control-video-recording-cho-sony-a6000/

 

in short:

start the camera
open the tweak app
enable wifi and telnet
open putty, connect to camera via telnet
run bk.elf w 0x003e0005 49 4C 43 45 2D 36 30 30 30 to set camera model to a6000
run bk.elf w 0x003e0005 49 4C 43 45 2D 36 30 30 31 to set camera model to a6001 

If camera is set to non-existent camera model (like a6001), then raw images will not be reported properly and might not open in some programs (like darktable) - such raw images can still be read correctly by lightroom and perhaps other raw developers.

It's better to roll back the model change once it is no longer needed.

Medium format focal length equivalent

 

6 x 6 Crop Factor = 0.55

80mm on 6x6 is equivalent to 44mm on full frame

The GR III uses a slim optical system consisting of 6 elements 4 groups with a focal length of 18.3 mm (approx. 28 mm in 35 mm equivalent focal length) and aperture of F2.8.

 

Sony a6000 - crop factor = 1.5 - Sigma 30mm = 45mm focal length equivalent

 

Ricoh: 28mm

Mamiya: 44mm

Sony: 45mm

automating basic image manipulation tasks

In Linux:

 

To copy only jpg files and not raws from given time period:

cd sourcedir

cp `find . -type f -name '*.JPG' -newermt '21 sep 2022 01:05:00'` targetdir

To invert colours (negative):

for i in *.JPG ; do convert -negate "$i" conv/"${i%.*}.JPG" ; done

HEIC on windows

 

To view HEIC/HEIF file on Windows 10 PC, the following 4 requirements are necessary.
1. Update Windows 10 to 1809 or later
2. In Microsoft Store, get the 'Microsoft Photos' (Released by Microsoft and Free) , and set it as Windows Default Photo Viewer
3. In Microsoft Store, get the 'HEIF Image Extensions' (Released by Microsoft and Free)
4. In Microsoft Store, get the 'HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer' (Released by Microsoft and Free)
Please note, there are 2 versions of 'HEVC Video Extensions', one you have to pay for $1, another is free, get the free one from the following URL:

 

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/hevc-video-extensions-from-device-manufacturer/9N4WGH0Z6VHQ?hl=en-us&gl=US

 

Apparently this is not available for Windows 11.

Fujifilm X-E3

Finally, I've made my decision and got Fuji X-E3 camera with 23mm f/2 lens.

First impressions: the camera itself is beautiful, very well made, high quality materials are used, camera is quite heavy, and with lens it's quite front-heavy.

Operation is far from what I am used to. Sometimes it's confusing, sometimes counter-intuitive.

Good example is the shutter speed dial: in theory you can set your shutter speed this way, in practice, you can also adjust shutter speed with rear dial, making setting misaligned with each other. 

Electronic shutter is a nice feature, making the camera completely silent. It's weird, as you can have the camera set to high speed burst mode, but the camera doesn't emit any sound at all. Nothing. 

Viewfinder is decent, although there is a delay when switching between LCD and viewfinder, much longer delay than on my Sony A6000.

Some buttons and their functions are confusing, but that's a matter of getting used to it probably.

The camera is quite heavy, and I'm not sure if I like it.

Having used this camera for a couple of minutes just now, I miss my Ricoh GR II. Now I understand the benefits of having a minimalist camera. Some cameras have just too many features - this is overwhelming, and often unnecessary. A good example is the shutter speed dial - do we really need it? We have two dials in addition to that, which makes the camera highly customizable, but again: do we need that level of customizing the camera? I don't think so.

In most cases, we set the camera and shoot. That's it. If it gets darker, we might change aperture. When we need to freeze motion, we can change shutter speed. ISO can be auto. For some unusual scenes, we might just put a camera still, and use a very long shutter speed, take couple shots, and get back to 'normal' settings. That's all there is. 

Still, it was good to have this camera, even if only to make me realize that minimalist, small camera is actually better. That's still a good outcome.

We want to be 'pro' photographers, who understand and use all those manual settings. But in reality, all we need is a simple A or S mode with exposure compensation and auto ISO, and M mode for special cases.