Linux verses Windows for photography
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March 29, 2008, 02:11 PM
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I thought it might be good to start a thread here on this to allow the other thread for the discussion about python. Please this is not a"my operating system is better than yours" kind of thing.
I, like Jamie and Joseph plus, am running a dual boot system with Mepis Linux and Windows XP on one drive. I have another drive for backups.
I think it comes down to preference on the operating systems. Which ever one you like is the one you should use. I have found limitations to both. Windows is sometimes very intuitive and does things for you that Linux does not. That is sometimes very good and other times very bad as it "assumes" it Knows what you want to do and that is not always the case. I perticularly hate the way it keeps popping up a window when "it" wants to download updates.
The biggest draw back I have found in Linux for me is that other companies like Canon and Photoshop do not recognize it and do not make products to work with it. The photoshop has a work around in Whine but I haven't found it to work well with my Canon camera as yet.
Personally, I prefer the Linux environment much more than Windows and would rather stay on that side of the Hard drive but, because of some of those issues mentioned, I find myself going back and forth.
Much like Joseph plus, I like the free software and the fact that the developers who put this all together do so without making millions of dollars to do so. That tells me they Love what they are doing and do it with a passion. I also like the fact that I can customize what I need on my OS rather than take whatever the package has to offer and if I want the other things I have to buy it in another package, which will most likely have other things I don't need in there too.
I am no computer geek by any means, which at one time, you had to be to run Linux. It has come along way, However, I have had to learn some things to make it do what I want. There are, however, many sites with the people who do usually know how it's done and whom are very willing to help out newbies like me.
But alas, it just comes down to preference as to what you like and are comfortable with. Many people will never leave Windows because that is what they are "comfortable" with and that is fine. There are those, like me, who wish Linux did it all and maybe someday it will. Then there are those , who will run Linux because they have the understanding to make it do much more than most of us can imagine. What ever your preference is doesn't really matter as we can all work together to take better photos and help each other with that main goal in mind.
Now does anyone know of a camera that will just take the perfect picture without me working so hard at it? Sigh!
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December 31, 2008, 03:23 PM
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What camera do you have now? Why aren't you happy with it?
There are a few things to look for:
- More megapixels does not mean better quality... sometimes the reverse is true... more megapixels means less light per pixel, means more noise... 10 or 12 Megapixels is enough unless you want to print larger than A3 format...
- Sensor size matters, the bigger the sensor, the larger the pixels, more light per pixel, means less noise. This is a big part why Digital SLR camera's make such good pictures.
- Mind the lens, with a DSLR you can interchange the lens. But with a compact camera the lens is fixed. Canon and Nikon generally put decent lenses on their camera's. With other manufacturers this is not always true. Higher end Kodak/Samsung camera's use Schneider-Kreuznach lenses which should be good as well. Panasonic uses lenses co-designed by Leica. I'd avoid other lenses.
- Get Optical Stabilization when possible, this really helps in low light conditions, or when shooting on unstable ground (like a boat).
- I'd also avoid Sony/Olympus/Fuji because most of their camera's use non-standard memory cards.
But honestly, I own a EOS 400D, with a Sigma 17-70 lens. And I always shoot in raw, and postprocess with UFRaw.
Getting superb images is a lot of hard work. That's why people can make a living of it.
Regards,
Pascal de Bruijn
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December 31, 2008, 03:45 PM
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All Olympus DSLR cameras uses both CF and XD. I would not call CF a non-standard memory card.
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December 31, 2008, 03:52 PM
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Sony uses compact flash and Memorysticks. In the newer models you can also use SD cards. Pretty standar, too. Btw, the kit lenses is still a cheap one but better than the classical Canon and Nikon kit toys. Oh! and every lense is stabilized by the body of the camera.
hahaha... sorry, I usually don't enter in this kind of wars but I've got a hard day :p ;-)
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December 31, 2008, 04:02 PM
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Yes, as long as Sony keeps MemoryStick alive, I try not to buy Sony.
But indeed, body based stablization is great. Pentax has that too.
Regards,
Pascal de Bruijn
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December 31, 2008, 05:45 PM
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Olympus also has body based stabilization for some of its models, and it is know for good optics as well.
Nowadays all modern camera makes good pictures. What make you choose is for most of us not decided by the image quality bot for other reasons. Like how you like the grip of the camera, if you want a large or a small camera etc.... etc....
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plus
January 03, 2009, 11:47 AM
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My Story (just to explain why I'm so adamant):
I was a Windows user for several years. After a while I grew tired of the constant "bloating", spyware, virus/worms that got through the software that I paid for. I got tired of always needing to buy more software for each task that I wanted to do. I also read about MicroSoft's tactics like embrace, extend, extinguish (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish). Since I'm a programmer, I learned about Free Open Source Software (FOSS) like Linux and Gimp, etc. I ran several FOSS programs on Windows and started dual booting. I found that just about everything that I needed to do was possible on Linux and so many things were easier (package managers, customizing, scripting, scheduling, etc: http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/12/windows-needs-a-linux-package.html). I had to learn where some options were, but I knew when the next release of Windows came out I would have to do that anyway (look at how different XP is versus Vista). Soon I stopped using Windows at home (sadly, I still have to use it at work) and I don't miss anything. There really is a great user community out there who is willing to help you for no charge. Even Mac OS X is written on top of FreeBSD/NetBSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X).
There are other options coming such as ReactOS (http://www.reactos.org = a Windows compatible written from scratch).
So I apologize if I'm a bit of a fanatic about this, but it's only because I wish freedom for more people. My advice: keep an open mind and don't resist something just because it requires a little change (it may be for the better).
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January 03, 2009, 12:15 PM
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Joseph, that is very well written. I share much of your experience and run linux for most everything I do on my PC. I am not a programmer though so, I haven't been as able to just eliminate windows for everything- yet. I find it frustrating sometimes, that so many just assume everyone is running windows. My Canon software, for example, doesn't play well with linux. If someday, I can figure out all the ways to do so, I would say goodbye to windows completely.
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January 03, 2009, 01:29 PM
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Why would you need the Canon software... DPP is the biggest piece of crap I've even seen :)
Regards,
Pascal de Bruijn
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January 05, 2009, 06:43 PM
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This is where I ment to put this post.
Pascal, what is it about dpp that you did not like? I really do enjoy the batch processing on it but, I mainly use it for resizing when I want to upload photos online. In Mepis 6.5 and in 7.0 I had a terrible time disconnecting the canon rebel xti from the computer as it would then shut down any usb ports (which my wireless router and printer both use). This all may be some kink inside the Dell system instead of the software but, it does not act that way on the windows partition so, I assume the software does not like me unplugging from the ports. And yes, I would make sure it said it was safe to disconnect the device. I think it lies.
What program do you use to off load from your camera to?
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January 06, 2009, 08:05 AM
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Hmmm ... had to reply to this one. I would like to know also why you dismiss DPP. I use it running in virtualbox XP inside linux and I really find it's results very impressive. I use it for my initial work with the Canon raw files. I use Digikam for all my image storage needs etc.
I also use Rawtherapee and Ufraw from time to time.
Regards Pete
PS I have seen a few people on various photographers channels who prefer DPP over Photoshop's Lightroom, even though it has less editing abilities than lightroom. So I am not the only one who is impressed with the results obtained fromm DPP.
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January 06, 2009, 07:06 PM
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When I tried DPP a couple of month's ago DPP didn't have lens correction. I heard that DPP recently got the lens correction feature but of course only for Canon lenses. Which is simply not acceptable...
And the main gripe with DPP is the user interface, it's probably the worst user interface I've ever seen for any raw converter...
DPP does not accept input color profiles... At least back then I couldn't find it...
And of course DPP is not open source, and not really multi platform...
Another note about batch processing, I rarely use batch processing, for 90% of my pictures I either throw them away, or process them individually with UFRaw. I only use batch processing for shots taken on birthdays and such, which I try to avoid in the first place.
Regards,
Pascal de Bruijn
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January 07, 2009, 09:23 PM
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Well, my 2 cents to conversation. First of all, I`d like to admit, that topic should have been called not Linux, but Unix - a lot of ppl out there are using not only GNU\Linux, but FreeBSD, Solaris (as I am) and, perhaps other flavours of Unix.
But, if you have Gimp and friends up and running, if you have working USB/IEEE1394/CardDriver working - then it`s doesn`t really matter for average user what flavour of Linux or Unix they are using. Differences are deeper - but this is not the topic of current conversation.
As for me, as Gimp user, Windows has no real advantages compared to OpenSolaris (in my case) in relation to foto-editing. Even more, I found myself much more protected from hdd failures with ZFS filesystem :)
Respect,
Nik Maslov
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January 07, 2009, 09:36 PM
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And, after all - it`s not a big shame to load WinXP in VirtualBox as Linux/UNIX guest system to do something, and then come back to your favourite system :)
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January 15, 2009, 04:59 PM
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It's not a shame, but it's bothersome...
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January 15, 2009, 08:51 PM
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Virtualization is just another tool, no more - no less :)
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