Thank you for all you r encouragement and comments. When I originally posted, I thought I might be able to tell a few people about the sale. Foolish me, I forgot the next UHH post would be after the sale ended.

But I'm glad for the comments. I appreciate the advice I've gotten for learning the software, and hope that advice might continue in this thread. I don't have Lightroom (I'm actually working with PS Elements 18), and I'm presently planning to stay with Win 7, so I've barely scooted under the table on ViewPoint 3 and FilmPack 5. I have to stay with PhotoLab 2.

My background is love for a 6x9 view camera and classic B&W nature photos. Also color for nature animal and bird photography. What brought me to UHH was buying a Canon 70D. I'm very excited to learn of ViewPoint's ability to bring the rectilinearity I'm accustomed to in a view cam to the digital format. And of course (as a dyed in the wool film guy), it's exciting to see the different sensitivities to light that FilmPack and the Nik collection offer. But now I actually have to learn how to do all that! Yikes!

Any further comments will be most appreciated (and noted for future action). Thanks again for your comments.

The link to Pascal's series of tutorials you provided is an excellent staring point. Although the date indicated is 2017, he has always kept it current and it was updated a few months ago for version 3, which was released towards the end of 2019. I don't know whether he has already incorporated the updates from the most current version, PhotoLab 3.2, which was released very recently, The tutorial was originally written in French. English is a second language for him and he had some assistance with the English translation which may occasionally be a bit confusing for some people.

In addition, here are a couple of side notes for those not familiar with DXO or PhotoLab. DXOMark, the lens and camera rating company, and DXO Labs the publisher of PhotoLab, were divisions of the same business entity until late in 2017 when they split in to two separate companies.

The current version of PhotoLab is 3.2. However, it is a very mature product. Photolab 1, introduced in late October or early November 2017, was a rebranded upgrade for its predecessor Optics Pro which was in its 11th version. The rebranding coincided with the split from DXOMark. It also was a major upgrade from Optics Pro 11 since for the first time it included local adjustments using U point technology taken from their purchase of the Nik Collection from Google in 2017.

Why would they "build it in" when most people are used to focus being assigned to the shutter button, and possibly most people don't use bbf? I tried it, but found my thumb wasn't naturally sitting on the button. For me it's no good. I do find it works well for changing the focus mode from group to single point, for me it works because it's an occasional thing. Otherwise, why would you want an extra button press for action shots when speed is crucial? Just my opinions of courses, many will differ. Photography is fun as long as we all agree we are all different, and what works for me may well not work for you. 😊

NIK and DxO popularity is irrelevant, they are two completely different things. That's kinda like asking if mustard is more popular than hotdogs LOL

DxO is a photo editor, and NIK is a collection of plugins that will provide functions not included in most photo editors. NIK will work with various Photoshop editors, with Corel PaintShop Pro, presumably with DxO, and probably other photo editors I'm not familiar with.

If you Google "google NIK collection" you can find a copy of it to download.

The war of the viewfinders may be coming to an end. Interesting article on DP Review. Some quotes: -

"This year we sat down with leaders from (in alphabetical order) Canon, Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, Sony and Tamron to learn more about how they see the market, and to get an indication of what might be coming down the road.

Full-frame mirrorless will become the norm, and it will happen pretty soon

This year, almost all the executives we spoke to seemed to agree on one thing: full-frame mirrorless will become the norm, and it will happen pretty soon.

..... One is the mirrorless market: new, energetic, and increasingly packed with advanced autofocus systems and high-end video features. And the other is the DSLR market, dominated by increasingly non-essential iterative updates at the low-end..... "

Nikon seems to be conspicuous by its absence.

You can read the whole artiicle here. https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/5014039475/cp-2018-interviews-the-reign-of-the-dslr-is-almost-over?ref_=pe_1822230_279979850_dpr_nl_308_5

Im trying to get my D850 to bracket exposures by adjusting ISO only. I have my camera in manual mode with shutter speed and aperture set as desired. ISO Sensitivity Control is "on", ISO Sensitivity set to "64" and max sensitivity set at "3200". I have played with all the options in custom controls, e6, for "Auto Bracketing (mode M)" and as expected the camera adjusts aperture and shutter speed according to which options is selected. I would have expected with "Flash Only" selected for e6, the camera would have no choice but to adjust ISO only, holding aperture and shutter speed as set. While aperture and shutter speed are held as set, the only setting that the camera adjusted when bracketing exposure was the exposure compensation value, not ISO. In fact, ISO as well as aperture and shutter speed were held constant under these settings. And since I record RAW images only, Exposure compensation has no effect. Any ideas on how to get the camera to bracket exposure across multiple shots by adjusting ISO only? Thanks in advance

Mark