I've used Linux for over 20 years and have found it to be excellent. The support for printers is really quite good (HP being my choice, but other makers are also good), unless you want fine prints, at which point there are commercial print driver packages out there which are supposed to work.

I actually run Windows virtualized under Linux to do my image printing. All else I do with Linux apps. It sounds like these things are not an issue for you though.

Others have chimed in about distributions like Mint, Ubuntu, etc. I use Debian myself, which is one of the foundation distributions out there. Any will work well on an older laptop, but I'd caution about using the normal window managers like KDE or Gnome as they tend to be resource hungry, meaning your older laptop will run like Windows (sluggish). I use XFCE--much lighter on such a system and more frisky.

The only problem I've had with them came when they sent me a new 7-14mm lens. It came in a much larger box with virtually no cushioning. Bounced around like a nut in a tin can. There were indications that it may have been opened as well.

I never even peeked inside at the lens. Sent it back (well packed), and bought from another place. Won't get expensive items like that from them again unless I'm comfortable with its durability.

Heh. When I got my first phone I did not cave and get a Nokia--I went elsewhere and had no issues at all with the other, "inferior" interface.

I use Windoze under Linux with VirtualBox for exactly this reason--the printing I manage through that while I do all my work in darktable under Linux. At work (where I do none of this, since I teach) I run Linux under Windoze with the same. This would allow anyone to use Linux apps in that environment.

Sorry--I realize this is off track now.

... For a while there I thought I was permanently stuck in laughing mode. Thanks goodness it calmed down--my abdomen was cramping up.

Thank you, Dave. This was one of the best laughs I've had in quite a while, though my other side feels so sorry for your experience. I'm well into my sixties, yet also continue to pull some of the nuttiest stunts out of the bag.

Cheers!

My usual is a doubled 1/8" or so bungee cord around my wrist, to which I attach the camera through a tether with a small bolt snap (single-eye) : https://www.divegearexpress.com/sssnaps

The bungee is not tight, but cannot slip off either. The tether (strong line commonly used with camping) ties directly to the case.

Don't leave out the follow-up with including three sheets and a tennis ball in the clothes dryer, low heat.

Wow. Whatever your lighting was, it and your exposure did a wonderful job of bringing out the 3D character of the spiral. Really nice!

Really one of those "perfect moments." I'm waiting for the aliens or dragons to appear...

I'm from the Linux world, though I also own Win10 and use a few apps there as well. The program I almost always use is Kdenlive, which does have a beta Windows port (I have Not tried the port).

It is a fairly nice program with features probably similar to all others. I use it all the time when recording lectures at home for my chemistry classes. It works well and has the transitions I like to use (fading in/out) and well as many, many more.

Learning curve? Yes, like any other. Decent help? Also a yes.

HTH,

Kenward

Keep your aperture small with either...

I'm mulling over another camera myself for reasons relating to underwater photography. The Z6 is a possibility, as is the new Fujifilm X-T3 (assuming UW cases are made for these by a company I'd trust). It's nice to see that your choice is on its way!

Regarding other posts... it's such a shame. Times used to be where people who didn't find a post interesting would simply move on to the next one. Fortunately for the rest of us it's in their karma, not ours.

I believe the most direct (and cheapest) route to an answer has nothing to do with the camera. Figure out what the problem is with the SD card route. It may be something as simple as "Who formatted the card?" (the camera is the correct answer) or allowing Win10 to change something that shouldn't be changed. (I hate the Windows knack of telling you that something is wrong [when it isn't] and that you should allow it to fix things. Windows has always been good at setting its own standard, outside the rest of the world's norm.]

Suggestion: use another computer which is running an older Win version or some different system (Mac or Linux).

Cheers!

After much playing around with Nikon's software and other RAW handlers, I stumbled onto wavelet denoise algorithms. Another one using "non-local means" gave similar results. Some small amounts of sharpening afterwards helped recover from the issues the denoising introduces. The best routine (wavelet or non-local means) appears to depend entirely on the image, as well as any subsequent stepps.

It's been quite a learning curve, and I figure I'm only a short way up that slope. But it's sure interesting!

One of my better results is below.

Cheers!

(Download)

To all who have replied--I thank you for the alternative approaches! I'm in the middle of jury duty right now and have been unable to reply quickly to everyone's thoughts, but perhaps can summarize what I see here.

I'm well aware of the effect on light from shooting underwater. The fact that post production allows one to at least partially recover from that is a change from film to digital that some people should love! ;-) The shots I took that day were all with an INON UWL-100 wet lens with a dome, attached to the front port, effectively creating something close to a fisheye effect at 10mm. I used no strobes on that dive. The subject of this shot (the coral) was likely no more than a foot or so from the front of the camera. The ISO was 400, so not too high as well as I understand things.

When I made the statement that a lot of red was involved in that recovery, the following two screenshots from darktable perhaps show what I mean. The first is after application of a base curve, the second is after spot WB. Notice the shifts in T and colors. A higher relative proportion of green, and distinctly more red than before.

The issue with the spottiness is presumably due to my choice of steps taken, and the algorithms used by the tools. I can rationalize what happened with mine, since haze is whiter spots in a darker background--those spots becomes redder when adjusted since they have more red to begin with than the blue background. Being quite new with PP I am searching for other approaches to achieving the results. The different examples offered by people (thank you! :) show varying levels of achieving that balance.

I REALLY appreciate people sharing with me what they did to get their results!

Plans include attempting WB through a selective mask, and also dehazing first to minimize the haze "high points" in the background. Saturation may be a better way to take the last stage of white balancing, if I want to leave blue in the picture (in the corners). Any sharpening (standard step in the default) may be played with only as needed.

An amateur/hobbyist here...

I take underwater shots using either a Nikon J2 or J3. A common issue I am having when processing the raw file is the obvious speckles of color, most easily seen in the background water in the example below. I have tried both darktable and Affinity.

Following is one such example. To get the color correct I adjust the WB, usually resulting in a large red influence as expected for UW photos with poor balance (no filters and I couldn't preset WB with a slate). The Nikon-produced image (the 1st one, without the "_01" extension number) does not show this to anything near the same degree.

While I speak of underwater shots, it is also seen in regular pictures (out here where the rest of us breath). The WB adjustment is not the same in those cases, but the effect is still there.

A link to the raw file is https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tj5vopxl36bs42/_DSC0312.NEF?dl=0

My usual approach (in darktable, at least) is to do a normal sharpening, adjust the base curve, do a spot WB (darktable seems quite good at this), and adjust saturation/exposure if I want to brighten things up a bit. This effect does not change if I remove sharpening, change the order of the first few steps, etc.

I'm not including the EXIF information, as that can be found in the files. This does not seem to be based on that. I have not seen such effect with my D750 images (no UW housing for that one yet anyway..).

I'm guessing that this has to do with the nature of the sensor, and some method to smooth that out?

Many thanks in advance for constructive comments! :)

(Download)


(Download)