not OP but - walking, carrying, holding, being pulled in random directions, catching kids when they jump at you from unexpected places, kids using your arms to practice tug-of-war/rock-climbing, pushing (empty) stroller with one hand, and carrying kid with other....
Do you mind talking a bit more about your workflow? I have good cameras but I haven't found a workflow I find ergonomic enough, between copying RAW files off camera, converting them to DNGs to work with Lightroom 6, and editing after that - I feel I'm not doing things optimally. How do you go from taking pictures to having something print/show worthy?
I use Filmulator exclusively for about 98% of my photos, and it does everything from copying off the card and simultaneously backing up to saving a JPEG to disk.
But if I want to put a little extra effort in I may use RawTherapee for noise reduction (still working on that for Filmulator), Hugin for stitching, and GIMP for local adjustments such as fixing sensor dust, cloning out distractions, or dodging/burning.
Glad to see that noise reduction is on the roadmap! Does Filmulator support embedded lens profiles? I enjoyed using Filmulator btw, its default output are just lovely.
Not OP, but I am a dedicated amateur of several years and a less than complete absence of skill [1] [2] [3]. Asked the same question, I'd answer like this:
- Unless there's a really strong reason I'm not aware of, don't bother with DNG conversion. If Camera Raw can convert your raws to DNGs, Lightroom should be able to work with your raws directly, eliminating a step.
- I use presets heavily when working with multiple images of the same subject, or from the same shoot. As long as exposure parameters don't vary wildly from shot to shot, this lets me perform most edits just once, on the first shot I edit, and then apply them to several others. From there, minor tweaks usually get me to done. (In most cases, I just crop, adjust per-channel hue/sat/lum, and tweak any edits from the preset that need fine-tuning for the image I'm working on.)
- This one might be a little controversial, but it's been by far the largest single improvement to my development workflow: Get a Loupedeck+ or some other closely similar editing console - specifically, something that's designed to work OOTB with Lightroom, and not something that needs a lot of assembly and customization to be usable.
Yes, a Loupedeck+ or similar will restrict your choice of software to that supported by the device manufacturer, and Lightroom's always going to be the best supported because it is universally the standard. And, yes, a Loupedeck+ costs $250, and the market goes up from there. It's still worth every penny.
The programs we're talking about here are complex, and they have complex UIs. Operating those UIs by means of keyboard shortcuts and mouse pointer sucks rocks. I know because I tried it, and I learned to do it, and the whole while I hated it and hated Lightroom and hated developing my raws because of how slow and picky and painful a process it was. Even with presets, I could at best manage a few photos an hour, and each hour was more frustrating than the last, to the point where the foreknowledge of the editing burden began genuinely impairing my desire to take pictures at all.
Getting a Loupedeck+ made such a difference that trying to describe it tempts me to cliché. Since this is HN, I suppose I'd put it thus: It was like going from using Notepad++ to using Emacs - except that where Emacs required a year's learning curve to achieve the kind of proficiency that made the effort worthwhile, getting proficient with the Loupedeck took less than a day.
I found it astonishing how much better the whole experience was when I had all of the develop-mode controls literally at my fingertips. Instead of endless fiddling about with a mouse pointer to select, hold, and precisely adjust a tiny slider, now I just turn a knob until the value is where I want it. For everything. The worst it gets is that, for some less commonly used controls, you have to hold down a button while you turn the knob. But it's a physical button on the actual device and, as with all the others, your fingers quickly learn where it is - which is a less obvious but very real benefit in its own right: with a physical editing controller, muscle memory comes into play.
Reading back over what I've just written, I suppose I sound a bit of a zealot on this subject, but I don't actually mind. It's a fair representation of how I feel. I genuinely cannot overstate the extent to which I've found having a physical edit controller to improve my experience of editing raws in Lightroom.
Obviously I favor the Loupedeck+, but it doesn't have to be that one - although I have to say, $250 is pretty cheap compared to literally anything else in the photography space, and in terms of value per dollar I legitimately do consider it right up there with the D850 body I use for macro work. The point is, get something, and get something that works out of the box. You won't regret it.
(Side note: You can customize a Loupedeck+ through its driver software, although I've never felt the need to modify the defaults. Also, I'm not a paid reviewer, nor have I received any consideration from Loupedeck; I'm just an extremely satisfied customer who uses it to develop everything, including the images in the pages linked below.)
(edit: I didn't notice you mentioned Lightroom 6, which may explain the need for DNG conversion. In my opinion, $10 a month is worth getting a Lightroom with current camera support; I don't love the subscription model any more than anyone else, but I'm willing to tolerate it. That said, as far as I know, the Loupedeck+ driver software does support Lightroom 6, so everything on that subject above should remain valid for your use case.)
The loupedeck you mention looks very interesting! I just found https://petapixel.com/2017/06/12/going-open-source-make-loup... which is rather interesting on using a MIDI controller for photography editing which I'm going to look into further, as the loupedeck is a bit pricey for me at the moment.
The photos you linked are really impressive, I'm curious how you managed such large DoF with the macro shots. I've only used macro rings before but found the DoF very shallow, do you use a tilt-shift lens out of interest?
I'd love to try the Nikon 85mm tilt-shift macro, but it is extremely pricey and I don't know if it would suit me, not least because the sense I get is that tilt-shift takes a lot of setup for which I doubt I'd have time. Of the shots I linked, only the yellowjacket held (relatively!) still in one place for long enough that I might have had a chance; the others were far more typical in that they hardly ever stopped moving and I had to take what shots I could get. These were all done with a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR II, courtesy of my local camera store's used gear counter; for macro use, the VR and AF capabilities are totally superfluous, but the optics are excellent, it has a good working distance even at 1:1, and the extra features are handy for using it as a long prime and portrait lens.
The DoF just comes from stopping down a lot. The P. metricus shots are at f/32; the V. maculifrons I shot at f/25, and the spider wasps at f/22. The tradeoff with increasing ratios is diffraction vs. a more forgiving DoF; as I've gotten better at nailing focus by eye (and usually on eyes, which makes it easier due to their structure), I've found myself able to work with a wider aperture and a narrower DoF - that list is a progression in time, as well as in aperture width; the P. metricus shots are from mid-2019, the A. a. metallicus ones from late 2020. (The P. metricus and V. maculifrons were also shot on a crop-sensor body and the others on full-frame, which also makes a difference, including in DoF.)
You do need to add light at such narrow apertures, of course. I use three SB-R200s on a ring mount, with a controller on the hot shoe - a pretty pricey setup admittedly, but also one well suited to my particular use cases, including quick setup and teardown since everything has to fit in a backpack - I don't leave my cameras behind at home, they're no use to me there. For a rig that doesn't need to be put together and taken apart on a daily basis, you can do as well and much cheaper with a Lepp bracket and a couple of Ebay flashes plus an RF controller.
I don't know what to make of macro rings, if I'm honest. Even with a decent set that shouldn't have light leaks, I always end up with soft, hazy, weirdly defocused shots that just don't clean up well. I'm pretty sure it's not my technique, but I've seen enough good shots made with rings that I have to assume I'm doing something wrong and just haven't yet been able to work out what it is. It hasn't been a huge issue, but I'd like to figure it out someday, not least because a teleconverter is a really expensive way of adding magnification.
Extension rings force lenses to operate far from their original design parameters, so they often result in tons of spherical aberration, field curvature, or astigmatism.
Some lenses work okay with them, others do not.
If you want more extreme macro, Laowa has some rather wild lenses, like their 25mm.
5:1? That is wild! I didn't know about that one, but they do also have a 100mm 2:1 for $450, which is surprisingly affordable - less new than I paid for my used 105.
Granted I might still (eventually...) go with a TC-20 E III since it's only 10% more and I can also use it with my birding lens, but absent that constraint, I'd definitely be thinking hard about that Laowa 100mm.
edit: Well, I can use a 2x TC with my birding lens if I don't mind losing autofocus, anyway - the ones fast enough to AF with it all cost as much as a car...
Lightroom 6 can deal with the raw files it can deal with. Anything newer than the last update needs DNG conversion. (The same thing applies to ACR in Photoshop CSX - it's happy to work with compatible DNGs, which can be created with Adobe DNG Converter, but raw support stops several years ago when your ACR engine stopped receiving updates.)
I like to convert to DNG for future proofing. As a standardised file format, I have a lot more confidence that I'll be able to open DNG files in 10 or 20 years, compared to proprietary RAW formats.
It goes without saying that this year has been really difficult for most if not all of us. Not being able to see extended family especially during holiday season can feel lonely and depressing. Please, please, please don't make this a solo suffering, use FaceTime, Xoom, WhatsApp, Meet whatever to talk to friends/family if you can.
If things feel worse - don't keep it to yourself, for those in the US - 1-800-273-8255's the number for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And remember - this too shall pass, there is a light at the end of this fucking tunnel and we will get through it.
"there is a light at the end of this fucking tunnel and we will get through it."
As someone that was lonely before COVID, there is no light at the end. Makind friends when over 30 is incredibly difficult. Being an big extrovert in isolation is tough. I want to work in an office, but I probably never will again in our industry.
Don't be so downbeat. A lot of execs really hate remote working, they are people-persons who thrive on conviviality. They will soon push again to have proper offices. You'll be laughing at all this in 2022.
I have a few friends who have taken out of state contracts to do development work under the same premise. They've both said as soon as the pandemic is over, they'll finish their contracts and start working back in their home states again.
contributing to FOSS is a good place to make friends. other forms of volunteering too.
the difficulty is to do that without having 'to make friends' as the primary goal. that just makes you impatient because not every contact will turn into a friend.
to approach the office work problem, try finding people who would like to share a video connection while working. there are websites to facilitate that.
another way is mentoring. find juniors in your field, and guide them with your experience. i made a bunch of friends as a gsoc mentor and elsewhere.
any hobbies that you might have often also have online communities. join them.
post your interests right here. someone might respond.
as someone else here said, the light at the end of the tunnel is you.
put up that light and use it to find friends
In a similar but less urgent vein, if you're having a quiet holiday much like myself but could do with a(n asynchronous) chat, feel free to send anything through to the email listed on my profile.
Likewise, I'm sure other HNers may like to announce as such but just need a little nudge :)
---
I'm sure plenty of bios have contact invitations but us humans are pretty bad at the idea of cold calling strangers
I sort of wish there was a service for internet pen pals where the emails were purposely delayed come to think of it
HN can barely keep a check on demon threads[0] with some automated systems to slow posting down and one good, even-handed mod. One uncharitable read and one response would lead to a nightmare realm that would crash Discord.
I've volunteered fairly regularly on one of the member hotlines, and have personally attempted suicide.
Out of 1000 calls I had one person attempt, maybe 10 people decide not to attempt, and the rest were just people who were anxious or sad or scared and were having thoughts.
There's a very broad spectrum, and for someone who is hopeless or just lonely and sad, talking to a caring human who listens and is comfortable with your pain does help, yes.
For people in a crisis, having someone calm who can talk through what's happening without panicking helps, yes.
I'm curious where you're coming from on this, as I don't understand the perspective behind your comment.
It will be also great if you can briefly outline some of the things you tell them. I can't imagine the responsibility on the shoulders of a person who is trying to save a life at the other end of the line. Thank you for your service.
You don't tell them anything, you listen to them and encourage them to talk, and you help them understand the things they're struggling with by expressing the feelings you have in response to what they're saying.
At some level, what people really want ultimately isn't an idea, it's a feeling, and learning how to soothe people is usually about being calm and attentive. The people who want me to provide them a solution to their problem usually get angry because I keep redirecting them back to their own feelings, and then we talk about the anger and see if they can find a way for that anger to not be the end of the conversation.
Sometimes though it's a bit different. The self harming teenager in foster care, for example, responds really well to people not getting upset. People that cut themselves are used to adults freaking out, so for self harmers it's usually some variant of "oh man, I'm sorry. Is the bleeding managed? Glad to hear. ... Hard day?"
I think it’s a fine service , I’m questioning the ubiquitous copy pasta of sharing the number as if that’s what’s needed . The number itself is everywhere
The idea behind resharing it is basically to grab someone's attention who is contemplating self-harm and redirect them. The number is always available, but from the sound of it, someone about to commit self-harm is often feeling hopeless, alone, and has severe tunnel vision. So you have to get the offer of help right in front of them. This is why the number is posted all over bridges.
It's also allegedly a very acute thing. Many individuals contemplating self-harm, I am told, don't really want to, and are in that vulnerable moment only briefly, maybe only ever a few times. So helping them is truly possible.
I can absolutely second the "tunnel vision" aspect of that state of mind. the more you put this number and other resources in front of people, the more likely it is to sleep into that tunnel.
"I don't want to hear about your problem, call these other people and stop bothering me about it."
Just my guess of how some people would hear it. And honestly I find it a a little weird though; if most people calling the line aren't really suicidal, why call it a suicide hotline?
The closer people are to actually attempt the suicide the harder it is to help them. I wouldn't consider a low rate of people openly admitting that they want to kill themselves to be a failure of the program.
When I was a younger going through a very painful time there was a brief period of suicidal ideation and the suicide hotline would have been a very useful resource for me. I didn't know about it at the time, so I just called 911, and they were very kind to me but their response was absolutely awful. It was pretty clear they weren't trained for such conversations, and just send the police to pick me up. The police! Fortunately at the time I just needed anybody in the world to show that they didn't want me to die, and that was just enough. But the hotline probably would have been more effective and not ended in me in a police cruiser.
Same kind of experience here in France. I could only find 7 numbers, 2 of which for women only and 1 for teens. So I tried the 4 others and met answering machines such as (textually) “We are open Tuesday 5pm-9pm”. Needless to say, I wish they’d be at least open midnight-to-1am, that would be more useful, it was my peak symptom time.
Even more seriously, it is really hard to call someone when depressed, let alone nag them until they answer. Because you don’t feel useful. Nor important to this world. So “why would you pull public resources” was the logic.
I don’t remember how I spent the night, but I’m still here. I have the opposite attitude now 2 years later, I’ll take revenge by staying here and consuming public resources. It’s barely more sane, but it keeps me alive.
Just for historical anecdote, the ILO agreement of 1930 on banning forced labour had the same tilt to it: It was for women-and-teens. It is titled « Elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour », but excludes « able-bodied men aged 18 to 49. »
Men have always been at higher risk for suicide and death in general than women (especially at work in dangerous jobs), at least since childbirth was made mostly safe. But men's lives don't matter in most modern societies, since they are easily replaced.
Calling the police is like waving around a loaded gun. It's not what you want in a moment of crisis. It has some value when the crisis has past and the people are gone. Under the US Constitution and law, police have a duty to aid the state, not any specific person living in it.
Having met several people taking calls on similar numbers (in European countries though) and also called a few times myself, I can tell you: They help more than you can imagine.
Most callers are not suicidal, they just need someone empathetic they can talk to. 'Suicide hotline' is just one of the few keywords that are very effective, it catches people in their most vulnerable state right before it's too late for help. Type 'suicide' into google and they show you a number above all results.
To everyone who doesn't have a support structure, please just search for 'suicide/depression/anxiety/* hotline' in your language. You most likely will find someone who will talk to you for an hour at 4am. Don't feel bad about it, you are not bothering anyone, they often do it voluntarily and just want to help others.
It might help folks that can be helped by talking to someone. For someone like me, it would only make me feel bad, like I'm burdening someone else with the knowledge that I'm going to end my life; I know they won't be able to "talk me out of it".
I have no friends, no family, nor any coworkers since July. No one will notice me being dead then any more than they notice me being absent now. When the money runs out, I have the nitrogen tank ready to go.
For some of us, it's not about changing your mind. You're right--life isn't for everyone. Death comes for everyone, one way or another, at some point. Normally we don't pick when, but maybe you're right and this is how it comes for you. That's not up to me.
If you don't want to go through it alone, though, you don't have to. We could look that mystery in its face together. See what's there. I'm not expecting to go through it myself yet, but I'd stand there with you while you do.
I'm not any kind of counselor. I'm a longtime lurker who just made an account to say your confrontation with and even path through your own death isn't a burden for everyone. If you want to talk with someone about it, that option is available to you.
I appreciate the offer. For me there's no great mystery; I die every night, and wake up every morning with that dead guy's memories. Life takes effort, and keeping that cycle going just hasn't been worth the effort for a long time. I made the decision months ago.
I think there are a lot of people who keep putting in the effort only to avoid imposing suffering on their loved ones and others. So, in a way I'm lucky in my loneliness: I'm free to be selfish.
Sincere question: If you already die every night and wake up with the dead guy's memories, why do you think dying this slightly different way would lead to a meaningfully different outcome? Maybe you just wake up somewhere else, with the same memories, but then without even the hope that there might be a way out.
Maybe it's just me, but on the off-chance that dying doesn't actually end any of my sufferings, I'd really rather not find that out until I absolutely have to.
There are obvious strong scientific arguments for how sleep is different from death. If you are willing to bet on the afterlife existing, why not get their is an angry dragon hiding behind every door you open?
Sure, there are arguments for how it's different from the outside. From the inside? Who knows? No empirical evidence there. Not a testable hypothesis.
But I'm not the one betting. I'll find out in due time.
The fear that there might be something there has actually occasionally prevented me from making that bet, so I'm sincerely wondering why this other person is so sure it definitely won't be as bad or worse. :shrug:
I've been in your shoes. I had gradually reduced contact to everyone who at that point was still trying to stay in touch, getting people used to me not answering the phone or replying to their messages for ever longer periods. I figured noone would be shocked this way when they finally learned that i'd ditched life.
I was in a state of permanent daze and confusion then, lots of drinking and whatever substances I could get my hands on.
While I had plans made, I had this spur of the moment idea that seemed pretty sane while I was high: I'd at least get a kick out of my life being teh suck, so I got myself into a situation with basically 50/50 chance of dying and beyond my control. I lived and one of the worst hangovers ever. Since I wasn't exactly thrilled with the outcome, I repeated this kind of coin toss with different setups, in total two more times.
The experiences were definitely less shit than my reasons for getting to this point in the first place. In fact, I'd never felt so alive. My problems were not magically gone but now I was curious what else in life I had never thought of, what else I might be missing out on by taking an early exit. I was pretty young and suddenly realized that as of yet I had no idea what to even expect of the future.
I regard everything I've experienced since then as bonus time. I got over the reasons for everything being shit and feeling like shit. Turned out it was mental illness responding well to medication.
Since then, a lot has happened, both good and bad, but it was worth the ride. I have no more reason to fear death, a luxury few are granted early in life. I know there's always an exit option but so far, I've been too curious about what happens next to consider it again.
Now, I won't tell you bullshit like "hurr durr, life is so beautiful, don't throw it away…". The world can be an utter pile of shit and so can the people it spawned and if you go on living, the only thing certain is that you'll have to deal with more world shit and more people shit.
But consider, if you're a curious person, that you'll be missing out on a once in a lifetime experience. You'd be surprised.
I admire your composture in talking about your loneliness and your apparent reluctance in burdening other people with your problems. While agreeing with some of the other posters on the generic upside of being alive and serving others, I would also like to tell you that God himself, in the person of Christ, has chosen to share in our suffering, and lead us to hope, as a community of believers. PM me if you (or anyone else, for that matter) want.
You need some kind of lonely together COVID pod. Other people in the same circumstances. As long as your circle of contact is a closed loop, the exposure is not a big deal (same as with a family quarantined together).
You might not have a lot of shared interests or whatever, but there are countless others suffering exactly like you- in this, you are not alone. People feel a little better being lonely together. And you know, two key ingredients to friendship are simply shared hardship & routine interaction.
P.S. Ever consider volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters?
I feel like I might have ended up in your position if I hadn't been inoculated against it early.
I'd like to tell you how even objectively bad circumstances do not demand subjective suffering, that there exist treatments and substances that can genuinely help, to try to point you in the direction of Standard Official Resources, and that the future can be better and so on, but I also know that all of that can sound empty or even annoying.
So instead, I'm going to try something that might be unwise. I've only seen it work once.
You're not alone, in the worst possible sense of the phrase. Extreme suffering is common and nearly ignored. Through what can only be reasonably termed negligence, more people die each year to trivially preventable causes than at the peak of the holocaust. Unanswered prayers and extinguished hopes are the sum of experience for a number of people so large that we can't have a proportional emotional response to it.
You have a blessedly uncommon insight in this. Even if your experience isn't the same as all the others, you have an understanding that reality has no safety net.
So now we come to the part that I've always hesitated suggesting to anyone else:
Please help. Please take upon yourself the completely ridiculous and unreasonable burden of doing what is within your physical power, even when it means exposing yourself to even more suffering indefinitely, even when doing anything is already asking too much. It's not a matter of obligation or moral expectation, there's just the brute fact that people constantly suffer and die for no reason, and they could be saved. Just actions and consequences.
I won't tell you that this will help you. It may. I am alive right now. Therapists might suggest 'crying yourself to sleep for a year' and 'having recurring dreams composed solely of uncontrollable sobbing' are not an ideal recovery from severe depression, but if all else fails, turning yourself into a robot that tries to guide others away from the sharper edges is still better than the alternative.
Please stick around and help, because no one else will replace you.
People are dying constantly because not enough people are helping.
Relative to the number of people trying to help, the size of the problem is nearly infinite.
If someone who could help, doesn't, the people they would have saved just die. No one else will save them.
This is the unreasonable burden. This is why I don't suggest it lightly. I'm telling a person who is already suffering enough to want to opt out, that people will die unless they choose to stay and do a truly unacceptable amount of work.
I'd certainly like to see people in better circumstances help, but there seems to be a problem of perspective. The full scope and seriousness of the problem tends to slide off and not stick for 'healthy' people. Not always, and I appreciate everyone who does even the smallest bit, but... apparently it's ignored often enough that it continues.
(To be clear, I don't really blame people who never think about it or shy away from actually engaging with it. No one can be expected to tolerate it or to carry the burden of doing something about atrocity. That the world contains these evils is not really their fault, they're just people that happen to be in slightly different circumstances than the ones currently dying.)
I have not used this number and sometimes when these kind of numbers are included in news pieces I have a big eye roll due to it looking like a rubber stamp. That said, I'm part of other groups that are certainly in on-going crises and I'd love to see our resources plastered everywhere, sincerity or not. At the very least it makes some people stop and think, some may donate, some may volunteer. That's worth my eye rolls.
It's one of those situations in which one organization does it and everyone else realizes there are no downsides. It's probably more sincere that we'd like to admit. Sure, there might be a liability aspect to it, but why wouldn't you plaster it all over, even if it's a rubber stamp? At worst, it has no effect. At best, you help people--people who are likely your customers. Dead customers don't pay bills.
If it trivializes suicide, that just means more people might call. But the same core of people that try need help will still be among them. Out of the countless people in distress that might attempt or succeed in suicide, there is a subset that are on that edge where they're looking for that last bit of help, wanting to try a last hope before taking an irrevocable step.
To be sure, by itself it is not nearly as effective as more personal and substantial interventions, but that is not it's purpose either. It is not there for treatment, it's there to help stabilize an emotional state enough to convince the person to seek those more substantial interventions.
People who comment and provide whatever help they can - they're not doing this out of malice. They have good intentions. Whether it helps or not - people in trouble have the choice to accept the consolation or ignore it.
It might, even if one out of thousand who use it, I’d say it is worth it. A simple act of talking to someone is enough to walk someone off the metaphorical and literal ledge. That one call can lead to long term therapy and counseling. I know where you are coming from - it feels like a drive by post with a phone number.. but I really don’t have any other options to offer.
I feel compelled to share that after 30 years, my social anxiety only started improving once I stopped seeing stuff like this as "corniness" and "artifice" and instead as mundane BS that is step 1 of 100 towards a meaningful relationship. I was not the one blessed person on earth who was going to have lifelong friends fall into my lap from going to work[1] and the grocery store
[1] _Small_ FAANG team, artifact of a reorg of a reorg
Mental challenged? That went from 0 to 100 quickly. It's isn't a DSM diagnosis to decline to be co-opted by feel-good but ultimately vapid, cloy gestures.
No, this is not a simple "thoughts and prayers" thing. This is a national helpline that saves lives.
I have family members that have been Samaritans (UK helpline) that have helped people. It's a bit like fight club and the first rule is ...
Actually it is rather more important than fight club: I know that Sammies never, ever discuss anything they are told in confidence - that is a point of honour and practice.
I thought this for the longest time, and then when I actually went through the kind of thing people offer "thoughts and prayers" for and people offered them to me personally (as opposed to generically on the internet), it actually made a world of difference to know my struggle had even entered the mind of another human being.
So if you can tell someone personally that you're thinking about them, especially in the days/weeks/months/years after the fact, I recommend it.
