21st Century Workflow

KnockKnock

Somewhat of a side topic from the Mirrorless vs DSLR thread. I think the entire industry is missing the boat on workflow, and innovation is slowly coming from "mirrorless companies." Don't think it's there yet, but a good UI to instantly upload photos from your camera as you can with smart phones should have happened 2-3 years ago.

But how much do we want to do in-camera these days?

A) Camera setup includes logins for your accounts on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, SmugMug, Flickr, iCloud, Picassa... (you name it, and firmware should add new ones regularly). Touchscreen keyboard for updating posts and metadata.

Cameras should assume iOS/Android/Windows phone or tablet integration. Live view should be standard to these devices via BT or WiFi. Wireless remote tethering built-in. Face it, if you have a digital camera, you have one of these other devices.

C) 20th Century Workflow (in the digital era): based on magnetic card media > JPEG (settings in-camera or RAW with conversion on the desktop computer > Cataloging in something like LightRoom > Post-processing.

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edited to clarify the good old fashioned workflow, C)

sevencrossing

for photographs i want to send immediately FB, i use my smartphone, they are often selfies

For other stuff, eg photographs of friends taken a dance, I want to carefully edit them, on a big screen, at home, before they are uploaded to FB . I am very selective what photographs are uploaded; friends must look happy, teeth are whitened, and wrinkles reduced

Hope this answers your question

KnockKnock

Okay, sounds like you're saying a little bit of A) and a little bit of 20th c. workflow. I should have labeled that C).

Thx

ggbutcher

I shoot NEF + a small JPG. Both go into the TV computer so my family can see the JPGs, then I sync that over the house LAN with my desktop computer. Then, I selectively develop shots from the NEFs for albums with Raw Therapee, and maybe a little GIMP.

Used to shoot just JPG, then work them in Picasa. Same storage setup.

So, I'm a C) guy...

I've thought about what you describe, in my view having sufficient logic in the camera to produce a wide-gamut TIFF, equivalent to what I'd get from Raw Therapee. For some reason, the Luddite in me still wants the raw sensor measurements, so I can work them in unknown ways after the fact...

spraynpray

B&C are me.

WestEndFoto

C.

I have used IPhones, IPads, android devices, laptops and desktops. For me, nothing beats a desktop for productivity (I am a PC user). Phones are for making phone calls, email, calendars and basic websurfing. I use an IPad for more serious websurfing where I don't want to be tied to my desktop.

For serious work where productivity is important, I use a desktop and C works really well for that.

sevencrossing

I am only .0001% A
99.999% C I don't shoot jpegs, only RAW

WestEndFoto

Yeah, I only shoot RAW as well. A is for documentary images taken on my BlackBerry Passport.

Hammie

Although I am a major tech head, I would say that I am pretty much only C.

I really don't care if my DSLR is connected to everything in the world. I have my smart phone for that. B is similar to A, but the idea of controlling my camera with my smart phone is sort of cool. I personally am not sure how often I would actually use it, though. Although I do have the Nikon app, there is the qDSLRdashboard app for $10 that gets great reviews for remote controlling a camera.

spraynpray

B&C are me.

Oops - didn't read the post properly - I'm a C too.

Killerbob

I am an all-out Mac-head, and definitely a C guy:

On the 2 cards I shoot MAX RAW and JPG. I move the files to my NAS, and import with reference into Aperture. I have a few DBs; one for RAW, one for JPGs, and one for MOVs. Aperture is my workflow, and I do basic editing here as well.

I have the Adobe CC package, and use PS for serious editing, and convert a lot of pictures into PDFs. I also use the NIK package alongside Photomatix Pro.

Publishing is done via Flickr and/or FaceBook.

Even if it was present I would not use WiFi or the like on the camera, and would never publish any pictures without PP. The snapshots (and I distinguish between pictures and snapshots) I take with my iPhone I usually post directly into FB.

FlowtographyBerlin

@Killerbob: Just curious, why would you 'convert' images into PDF (a container format) instead of directly into whatever algorithm you've set that PDF export to (most likely JPEG)? What device can display a PDF but not a direct JPEG?

Killerbob

I convert into PDF (sometimes) because the place I have files printed in large format, prefer PDF. Also the properties on PDF files are more easily controlled.

Golf007sd

C.

FlowtographyBerlin

I convert into PDF (sometimes) because the place I have files printed in large format, prefer PDF. Also the properties on PDF files are more easily controlled.

Ah ok. Very strange lab, apparently... What properties are you referring to? You're aware that inside that PDF is only a JPEG or TIFF or whatever you set it to be, and there's no "PDF" image format, right?

BTW: C, definitely, just like about everyone else :-)

KnockKnock

I see most are coming down on C. It's where I currently operate. And it's mostly based on cataloging and post-processing. But the more I think about this, the dinosaur in the camera is magnetic media, and physically pulling it out and putting it into a computer.

Maybe intuitively, I label it 20th c. but upon further thought, how well has magnetic media survived the last two or three decades? Similarly, how much productivity have we gotten out of our desktop/workstations? IT folks understand how much computing is done on servers in far-away datacenter these days how much the network facilitates that, and how much wireless is changing networking.

So I still hold to the idea that the current workflow of getting images out of the camera and into its endpoint of viewership is due for significant change. Capture an image > Edit on something > Push to endpoint. So I guess there should be a B+: where it need not be a smartphone or tablet, but could also be a "computer." Some form of wireless will replace these SD/CF cards.

WestEndFoto

We still have magnetic media because wifi is nowhere near the speed required to match magnetic media. Maybe that will change.

This is why I have little interest in Wifi. To me the use would be to back up my SD/Flash card (Raw Files) onto a backup device in my pocket, but the speed is no where there yet.

ggbutcher

To my ends, wifi would be useful for remote control.

But, it seems they're putting wifi in the mid-range cameras to support an 'instant-post' use case. It is probably a reaction to how snapshot photography has evolved to cellphone cameras and apps that will post the just-taken photos directly to your facebook wall or whatever. I'd be interested to hear from the population of serious phtographers here about who uses it that way?

And I think @PitchBlack describes the limits of in-camera/cellphone PP pretty well. I have so wanted to find enough usability in my cellphone to keep from traveling with a laptop, but the user interface just doesn't cut it. I read a lot of my forums on the phone, but I usually wait 'till I get to a computer to respond; stupid screen keyboards... And yeah, I cannot see doing any serious PP on a phone, unless it was hooked to a regular monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Oh, wait...

One more thing: I could begin to wrap my head around LR-category picture manipulations in-camera, if the algorithms for sharpening and denoise became more ISO-aware. You still have to make too many picture-context decisions about these things to just build in-camera profiles that would produce a high-gamut TIFF at exposure time. This could be a "21st century workflow" evolution; thoughts?