How to speed up your workflow without crystal meth..... (Photo Mechanic Review)

   So it's only been a couple on months since I switched my workflow out completely and started using Lightroom instead of Aperture. I am just getting the hang of LR and my new way of working. So why would I want to screw my workflow up completely again? Quite simply: SPEED!

    When it comes to editing, faster is better. This isn't as important when I am working up a personal project and have no deadline, but when I am shooting event gigs, even if there is no specified deadline, speed is important. Getting the images up as soon as possible after an event is key, the longer it takes me to put images up following an event, the less traction those image sets get me, so I am always looking for ways to improve my turnaround time without sacrificing quality and attention to detail. Sure, it would be really fast just to post all the in camera JPEG conversions from a shoot, but that isn't my style. I want to at least present my best and do some workup even if there is a tight timeline.

    Lightroom and LR mobile was a step in the right direction, and a great timesaver because I could cull images on my iPad the next day at work while I was bored sick in meetings. But I kept hearing about this speed demon of a program that photojournalists swear by, and even got a great word from Joe McNally; Photo Mechanic. 

   Photo Mechanic isn't an image editor, it's an image sorter and image culler. This quick review won't even touch a portion of the capabilities resident in this freaking awesome too. So, what the hell is it? Quite simply it's the fastest, most useful import and sorting tool I have ever seen. And I have only used the free trial version so far.

   Basically, Photo Mechanic destroys any other image handling program I have seen when it comes to importing, sorting, categorizing and adding meta data to your image files. Shot five cards worth of images? No problem, PM can ingest (what it calls the import function) as many cards simultaneously as you have card readers.

   Meta Data control is simply unbelievable. Yeah, most programs like LR or aperture let you set up IPTC presets to apply on import, just like PM. But photomechanical ads variables. You can build a presets that let you automatically build dynamically changing captions, titles, file names.... etc. You can even build cheat sheets for your captions so that you can use shortcuts to make your captions specific to each image.

    Even if you aren't a photojournalist with a tight deadline, Photo Mechanic still offers the advantage of speed. Unless you build full resolution previews of all your images on import, either LR or Aperture can still be slow as hell to work with when you just want to view your images and go through them quickly for culling. Even if you have a really fast processor and lots of RAM, if you are shooting with a high resolution sensor (heaven forbid the D800 and its' 36mp 14 bit raw files) you will be waiting forever each time you scroll forward and the preview has to render. It isn't a long wait for each file, but it adds up, and is really frustrating when you are in a hurry and trying to get an image set edited fast.

   Rumor had it that Photo Mechanic eliminated this issue. It uses the built in JPEG preview contained within the raw file and lets you blast through the culling process. Or so they say. Camera Bits (who makes PM) offers a 30 day free trial, so I decided to see how PM could work for me. I was pretty skeptical, since LR mobile was already shortening my workflow significantly.

   Downloaded and installed the trial, and got set to test it out. I was initially not that impressed. Turns out this was my fault. When I do my imports into LR, I convert my raw files into DNGs. For my initial tests of PhotoMechanic I was using it to work on folders of already imported/converted images.

   This was a mistake. Photo Mechanic does not seem to play well with DNGs. When I tried to go through a contact sheet (PM's term for a folder full of images, throwback to old school negative editing days) of DNGs, it was horribly slow to render images, and if I attempted to change any meta data, PM would lock up and pretty much die. So I was initially underwhelmed, to say the least. But everyone was talking about how fast it was... figured I had to be missing something. And I was.

   My next shoot, instead on importing images using LR and converting to DNG, I just copied the .nef files directly from my camera card to a holding folder on my drive, then used PM to go through those files. DAMN! This was what everyone was talking about. PM ate the nef files like they were candy and would respond almost faster than I could click the scrolling arrows or change any meta data settings. Just to double check, I then took the culled image set and imported them to LR and converted them to DNGs and then re-opened them in PM... and found that the same slowdown and crash happened.

  I am not a coder, not sure what is going on under the hood, but my theory is that when LR converts a raw file into a DNG, it either throws out the built in jpeg preview that PM runs on, or puts in into a format that PM can't recognize, this preventing Photo Mechanic from being able to speed render and work with those files.

   So- here is my new workflow. When I am done with a shoot, I do the initial import using Photo Mechanic's Ingest function. I take advantage of the meta data functionality in PM, which seems to me light years ahead of what I can do in LR. I then cull the images and make my initial selections and put them into a sub folder all within PM. Last thing is that I crop all the images in PM- it is light years faster and easier than in LR. Once I have done all the initial bulk work in PM, I go into LR and run an import/convert to DNG on just the files that survived the initial cull. Once this set is imported into LR, I take the rejects and toss them onto a scratch drive, just in case. As that drive fills up the oldest rejects will get deleted completely. I figure if no one has asked for them by then, they never will. Then I proceed to edit the survivors using my normal LR and Photoshop workflow.

   You would think that adding an additional layer of software and basically doing a double import would add time to the workflow, but it actually creates a significant time savings. The closest equivalent example I can make is the difference between using just PhotoShop or adding Lightroom to PS in your workflow. Before LR, you had to convert each images from raw to another format, then open each image in PS one at a time and do all your edits, then move on to the next image. Adding LR let you look at multiple images simultaneously, do basic editing a hell of a lot faster, and even apply batch settings to a group of images.

   Photo Mechanic does add another layer, but just like batch adjusting exposure or WB in LR is faster than doing it individually to each image in PS, Photo Mechanic lets you caption, rate, select and crop images significantly faster, easier and more powerfully than LR does.

   For a personal shoot with a model where I may only wind up with a couple hundred images and no particular timeline to get them edited and shipped out, I may skip the photomechanic step and just use LR. But for a conference like I shot this week where I wound up with 1400 images to sort through, caption, cull, edit and post I definitely appreciate the speed and power Photo Mechanic offers. It helps me win the speed race and get quality images back to the clients as fast as possible; fast enough that the event is still fresh in the minds of the audience, and my high quality, well edited and curated images can actually get out and posted in time to compete head to head with the crappy cell phone shots that were on Facebook and instagram 30 seconds after the event. And that may just prove to be worth its' wait in gold.

    Even if nothing else, not having to wait on the dan skinny beach ball is worth the price of admission. If you have all the time in the world to edit and deliver images from your shoots, save the $150 and don't pick up Photo Mechanic. But if you are shooting lots of images and operating on deadlines, or just appreciate every second you can spend playing with your family instead of waiting on images to load so you can get through the aftermath of a shoot, then photo mechanic will prove to be well worth what you spend on because you will get back the only thing in life you can never get more of- TIME. It's the only thing that matters, and photo mechanic lets you use yours more efficiently. If you're not sure if it will help you or not, they give you a month free to try it out, so you may as well give it a shot. I did, and there's no going back. It's awesome!

UPDATE: The people at Camera Bits (who make Photomechanic) apparently read this review. They have reached out to me and said PM should not be any slower with the DNG files than it is with the NEF version. I just sent them a couple of sets of files and all my system info, so maybe my issue with the dngs will get resolved, but even if not I am really impressed with their customer service and dedication to their product.

UPDATE 2: Camera bits took a look at my files and sent me an answer. Turns out I was close to correct in my theory. My DNG files did not have the embedded jpeg preview that PM uses. But this was because I had lightroom set to not built and include jpeg previews into my DNG files. I changed that setting, did a test conversion with the previews embedded, and PM eats those and spits them out just as fast as the unconverted raw files. So, awesome program and beyond stellar customer service and support. Definitely worth the money for both time saved and user experience.

Gear Review: iCoffee Opus K-Cup brewer

    Ok. This is a photography blog, but I am about to review a coffee pot. If you fail to see the connection between massive amounts of readily available caffeine and photography, you have obviously never gotten home from a shoot at 2am, downloaded your images, left your backup running and fallen over asleep only to have your toddler ....er.... alarm clock.... wake you up at 6am so you can play.... or start editing.

    Needless to say, good coffee is pretty important to my workflow, and I will hazard a guess that many photographers can say the same thing. I am really the only coffee drinker in my household; my fiancee prefers tea and the idea of my already hyper speed toddler becoming caffinated is truly terrifying, so brewing pots at a time is overkill. I decided a while back that the k-cup setup was the way to go, especially with an adapter to let me use whatever coffee I want in the system.  It's quick, easy, and I don't wind up reheating the same pot all day for a new cup.

   I had a machine that served me well for a few years, but it started acting up, I think it developed a wormhole into another dimension. Seriously, I would hit the go button, water would disappear from the tank, noises were made, no coffee came out. No leaked water on the counter, or anywhere else I could find, it just disappeared. I can only assume somewhere in an alternate universe there was a repeated random appearance of coffee or at least hot water every time I pushed the button.

   I needed reliable coffee, so it was off to replace the machine. Went to Costco first, they only had one machine, a Kuerig 2.0. Luckily I googled that for reviews before grabbing it, in the immortal words of Admiral Akbar, "IT"S A TRAP!" The new Keurig machines will ONLY brew new Keurig cups with a special sensor thing in them. WTF? If I am paying $200 for a coffee pot I want to be able to choose what coffee I make in it dammit. So that was out. Off to Bed Bath and Beyond.... no real store commendation here, that just happened to be the next closest place that I knew had coffee makers.

    There I found my new Hero, and subject of this review, the iCoffee Opus! It was on sale, it had good reviews... and it was in stock.

    I will start by saying it makes coffee. Therefore it meets the basic requirement. My water no longer vanishes into an alternate dimension, instead it comes out coffee flavored and goes into my mug. But this pot goes beyond mere survival. It brews in style, with a spiffy Blue LED lighting scheme that also serves as a handy kitchen night light, this making it possible to brew the first cup of morning coffee without having to deal with blinding myself before I am sufficiently caffinated to deal with brightness.

   It also has a selector dial to adjust the output to your cup size, as long as your cup happens to be between 4 and 12 oz, adjustable in 1/2 cup increments. That's handy when you want to go from your favorite small desk mug to the large road trip car mug. Water reservoir holds enough to get me through an average weekend without a reload. It heats up pretty quick, and has an energy saver mode where it will keep the water warm enough that it's near instantly ready to brew. Once the water is heated it takes around a minute to brew a 12oz cup.

   That's all pretty standard. But what makes this different as a pot is a mystical think they call Spin brew. Not sure what it actually is, but they say that it "steams, spins and stirs inside the K-style cup to virtually eliminate acidic and bitter aftertaste." I can't say how it manages that, but it does actually work. With my old pot, I found most of the bulk purchase pods from Costco or even most of the high end pods were really not that good. That didn't stop me from drinking them, but it was more for utility than enjoyment. This thing really makes the pod coffee smoother than the old machine.

   It may not be on par with handcrafted brews from a Chemex, but it's quick, it's easy, and it makes the cheap stuff taste great. So it's a win all around and it gives me steam to keep going for long days of editing, or early wake ups on the morning after the all nighter shoots I am too old to keep doing but still do anyway.

   So, if coffee is your life, and mandatory for your workflow, when it's time for a new pot this is definitely one to look at. (of course, it also may be the reason I am still up after midnight writing blog posts.... but can't hold that against it.... twitch... twitch... twitch......)

Gear Review: Tenba DNA 11 Messenger Bag

   Ok, I have had my Tenba DNA 11 Messenger style camera bag for a couple of months now, and it's seen daily use in that time, so finally ready to give it a review. Spoiler alert, it's awesome and I love it.

    I picked up this bag as a companion to my Fuji X-T1. I got that camera because I wanted something to carry around with me on a daily basis so I would always be ready to shoot, and my big Nikons were not suited to that task. I was using a Timbuk2 small messenger as my man purse, but I couldn't fit the X-T1 into it along with my other daily carry items, and all my camera bags were sized for the big nikons. I liked the messenger style, so I looked around. Timbuk2 makes camera inserts, and Think Tank, one of my all time favorite camera bag makers also has a line of messenger style bags that I love. But none of these fit the bill, so I grabbed all of my toys and headed to the local camera store to test fit things. The DNA 11 caught my eye initially because I liked the size and the way it looked, so I pulled one off the wall and opened it up. I had to remove and reconfigure the internal dividers, but I was able to set it up to carry all my usual stuff as well as the X-T1 comfortably and easily.

    As you can see, the X-T1 with the 18-135 pretty much perfectly fits in. This isn't a bag for full size DSLRs, it's aimed at the mirrorless crowd. A smaller DSLR like the D3300 would fit in with a kit lens, and in a pinch I could put my D800 in with the 24-70/2.8 mounted and lens hood reversed, but that would be a very tight fit. A gripped DSLR wouldn't fit with a lens attached. But that isn't what it was designed for. It will fit quite a bit of compact system gear. To get the configuration I wanted I actually pulled out all the included dividers except for just 1 in the center. With all the dividers in you could carry a body with lens attached along with several spare lenses or flashes.

   I recently took a trip to Vegas for the weekend, and decided that I would only bring the X-T1. I will write that up later, but I also thought I might want more than just the pop up flash, so I really tested the capacity of the bag. Should have taken a shot of that, but was too busy having fun. What I was able to pack in easily for the trip was the X-T1 with the 18-135 attached, two Nikon Speedlights, the SB700 and the SB910, a set of Yonguo remotes, (note- the canon version needs to be on the camera to work unless you feel like rewiring it, the nikon version on the nikon speed lights, but the cannon transmitter will trigger the nikon receivers), spare batteries for the flashes, spare batteries and charger for the camera, the EF-X8 flash unit, a rogue grid setup with a set of gels, a second set of gels for the second flash, a lumiquest 80-20 system, two joby gorilla pods to use as flash stands, a small LED flashlight for light painting, a water bottle, my iPad mini and several other travel odds and ends. All I really had to take out to get this load out was my journal and sketch book. Strangely, with those two out the bag was lighter than it usually is for my daily carry even with all that gear.

   So the bag carries a lot. One of the things that makes this possible is that there are a seemingly infinite set of pockets all over the bag. Seriously, there are more pockets than I can count because I ran out of fingers and toes. The main cavity includes a tablet pocket with a velcro securing strap, and a flap at the front with a large zippered pocket, a couple smaller pockets and several pen holders. The camera portion is actually a padded insert, which can be configured as needed with the included velcro dividers. On the outside of this inset there are two more accessory pockets.

Main compartment with insert removed

Large zipper pocket and pen pockets

large zipper pocket opened

my sketch book lives in the tablet compartment

removed insert

external pockets on insert

empty insert

    Moving to the outside of the bag, there are two more pen pockets, and 4 large, flat accessory pockets, two are slightly shorter and in front of two taller ones. These pockets are under the flap when it is closed.

Top view of the 4 external pockets

  Speaking of the flap- it has one zippered pocket that covers slightly more than half the flap and one smaller non-zippered pocket that seems designed for glasses or possibly a phone. My iPhone 5s fits snugly with a slim case, anything larger might not.

Larger pocket is on left in this picture, smaller pocket is on right.

   We'll take a break from the pockets for a second here to talk about the cover flap. There are two velcro strips that hold it closed, and there are buckles for extra security. They are a different type of buckle that is a sort of magnetic slide clip, takes a minute to get the hang of but once you do it is quick and easy. I wish Tenba had included silencers for the velcro like Think Tank does, that is really my only critique of this bag, it would be nice to just be able to use the buckles. However; this isn't too limiting omission, because they included a different solution for silent access. In addition to opening the flap, there is a large zipper across the top of the bag when the flap is closed, allowing access to the main compartment.

Zipper access through flap into main compartment

   This is awesome, because my toddler can hear velcro from 5 miles away and it will wake him up mid-nap if I forget to open the velcro on my old Timbuk2 before I walk into the house. This solves that problem nicely.

    The flap also has a gusset on each side to prevent water from running down into the bag from the flap if you were out in the rain.

rain gussets

 
 There is also an included rain cover for really heavy inclement weather, if you had to be out in a hard core storm you would want to use that because eventually the top zipper might let water in (even though it is covered with a small flap and is designed to be water resistant. I live in San Diego, so the rain cover pretty much lives in a drawer in my closet.

  The zipper pulls are a nice touch that just goes to show the overall thought and care Tenba put into designing this bag. They each have a moulded section that holds the tab open and makes it easy to grab with a finger and pull open or shut.

  Ok, enough digression, back to the pockets. Each end of the bag has an elastisized mesh water bottle pocket (that will also hold small collapsible tripods, a speed light, or other accessories)

    As you can also see from this picture, the hardware is all metal and pretty sturdy and there is also a grab handle on the top of the bag, in case you didn't want to grab it by the shoulder strap. Speaking of which, the shoulder strap is really easy to adjust and has a pretty comfortable (removable) pad with rubberized non-slip patches on the bottom which hold the strap in place quite comfortably. There is also an additional cross body strap that you can attach if using the bag on a bike or while really moving, traditional messenger style.

   Ok, back to the pockets. Seriously, told you there were a lot. The back of the bag has a large, flat zippered pocket as well as a strap designed to let the bag slide over the handle of a roller bag. Inside of the large pocket is... guess what... two more flat pockets and some additional pen holders.

  Ok. I think that's it for the pockets. Maybe. I keep finding more. It's also pretty much the end of the review. The bag is light, built and sewed very sturdily, and the layout of all the myriad of pockets is very utilitarian. Filling one pocket doesn't prevent using another, even when they are stacked on each other. It hold the X-T1 and everything I need to carry around on a daily basis, and is quickly reconfigurable if I need to add more gear for a trip.

   If you are shopping for a full size camera system, this isn't your bag (although Tenba does make larger versions, which will also let you carry a laptop) but if you are looking for a bag for a mirrorless system, this is definitely a contender that you should check out.