I'm in the process of moving, or trying to move, from using Adobe Lightroom to Apple Aperture. The reasons for this I'll get into later, but I'm getting the feeling it may not be a fully satisfying experience. It seems that Aperture 2.1 still has serious performance issues. I'm running it on new MacBook Pro, with 2.5Ghz CoreDuo processor, GeForce 8600M GT graphics card, and 4Gb RAM. Should be enough, really. But I'm beginning to think it isn't.

Aperture 2.1 zips along fast enough in image browsing mode, but as soon as I start adding adjustments, things start going downhill fast. The loupe, for example, starts staggering around like an intoxicated tortoise, and strange video artifacts show up, such as half the image blanking out, or the image disappearing altogether when I move a slider.

Most irritating, the histogram in the levels "brick" doesn't display, and frequently the main histogram doesn't either.

Levels adjustment histogram missing in action...

The histogram itself is very sluggish, and cannot be used to evaluate the effects of adjustments in real time. All in all, it is quite worrying, and also a bit baffling. This is the top end Mac laptop. It is used in PR shots for Aperture 2. And yet it performs at a level which, honestly, is barely adequate. Do I really need a Quad Core Mac Pro to run this thing ?

UPDATE: deleting Aperture's preferences has restored the histogram, and, it seems, performance. I suppose the fact that I repeatedly created and deleted a lot of projects whilst trying to get Lightroom metadata to come across may have had some side effects. Hopefully they won't return.

Just spent half an hour scouring the web for any mention of Expression Media 2 (EM 2, or iView Media Pro v4 as it might have been). Microsoft have released a public beta of EM 2, but it seems to have excited almost no interest. It's really difficult to see what the development team have been doing for nigh on 2 years. EM is still totally dependent on QuickTime and the Mac OS X support for RAW formats, so unlike competitors Extensis Portfolio or Adobe Lightroom, it cannot preview Olympus E-3 files. It has gained a hook to Microsoft's Google Earth clone. Yippee. Always wondered where I took my photos. Oh, and I can catalog Office 2008 documents. Wonderful. Changes to the light box view to support a second monitor are great, but they seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to single monitor support. There are still vestiges of a once great piece of well supported software in there, but all the evidence is that the customer base has collapsed. Incredibly, there's still nothing quite as good out there for Mac at least, at least assuming you have file formats supported by OS X. I'm going to try Photo Mechanic again. It does seem to do a lot of things I use iView for, and it does seem to be edging towards full DAM functionality.

Lightroom doesn't quite hit the target as a DAM yet. And it isn't quite as useful as Photoshop/Camera Raw for RAW processing. I'm on record as being somewhat skeptical about the principal LR enthusiasts, as they almost all have a vested interest (books, DVDs) etc, and I find it unlikely that they're really as deeply into LR as they say they are in their real work. However...as far as I can see, there isn't anything better. There are alternatives, and all have their pros & cons. LR 1.0 is a leading RAW converter with some interesting extras tagged on - but it doesn't really match the marketing hyperbole. For DAM, iView MediaPro is, or possibly was, a much better solution, apart from one major, major flaw - it can't handle versions - and one less major flaw, that it is all a bit clunky and old fashioned. The versions limitation can be worked around in a very clumsy way using multiple catalogs, but the potential for screwups is all too high, and iView's rather arcane terminology doesn't help. The worst thing about iView is that since acquisition by Microsoft, the priority appears to be rebadging rather than investing into turining it into a real competitor. The future does not look promising for "Expression Media" as a pro tool. There just isn't really a solution yet. I've invested in LR in the hope that it will improve. The fact that is is sickeningly overhyped does not blind me to the fact that it has an excellent engineering and product management team behind it. Aperture is, in theory, better, IF you like it's non-workflow approach (I do), if you have a Mac (I do) and if you have the patience of a saint (I don't) and can put up with it's very limited range of RAW format support (I can't). Great concept though, but somehow it doesn't seem that Apple is nimble enough to turn it into a winner.

Well, it took long enough for Steve & co to see the light. Whatever next ? Revival of Newton ?

The new Panasonic L1 has been previewed by Reponses Photo (excellent French print magazine). As they say, on paper, a collaboration between the makers of the Lumix compacts, Leica and Olymous should be something special. But they're disappointed. Whilst they are quite enthusiastic about the general concept, the build quality, and the degree of control, there are a series of downsides.

• The "Live View" feature simply isn't as useful as the version on the Olympus E-330, mainly because the screen is fixed. However, unlike on the E-330, apparently you can use auto-focus without restrictions.
• The optical viewfinder is dark and cramped, and the physical design, which sticks out 1cm at the back, is simply asking to be damaged. They reckon that the eyecup will be lost within days.
• The handling is a bit clumsy, as balance, with the kit lens attached, is front heavy. Which exacerbates the viewfinder design issue.
• The "Leica" kit lens is interesting, but the aperture ring is awkward to use, it is very heavy, and whilst its performance is good, it does not meet the expectations associated with Leica.
• The camera is very expensive, twice the price of the E-330, which they consider to be a better camera on balance.
• Still stuck with that rather tired old Olympus AF module
• Did I mention too expensive ?

On the plus side:

• Panasonic provide Silkypix RAW software rather than reinvent the wheel (poorly), although arguably it would have been better to also use DNG format.
• The lens isn't all bad: as RP points out, this is the first stabilized zoom lens from any company with a decent maximum aperture.
• They describe the flash design as "genius": it has two positions, the first pointing 45 degrees upwards for bounce flash.
• The image quality is reported to be good up to 800 ISO.
• The camera also includes 3:2 and 16:9 ratio setiings, and this is where Panasonic's implementation of Live View adds an extra dimension. But of course these sacrifice resolution.

At half the price, well, maybe. But at 2000 Euros, though, it looks like Panasonic have screwed up this one. Pity.