DxO Optics Pro v5

Several months after its launch, DxO Optics Pro v5 continues to be a right royal pain in the ass! This is beta software inflicted on the public, a trick normally practiced by Microsoft. Which is a pity because a) the previous version of DxO is a fabulous tool and b) I really want to be able to use some of the new feature in v5.

The software is criminally unstable: I can't process a batch of RAW images (usually 500-600 from a real estate shoot) without it crashing multiple times. For the sake of my sanity, I'm now in the habit of saving the project after every minor adjustment to an image, which just makes the whole process even slower. And once it has crashed once, it seems to need a reboot to come back to a state of tolerable stability.

What bugs me the most here is that DxO appears to have burned up resources on making the new version pretty: it slavishly imitates the now de rigueur LightRoom interface. And in the process the workflow model took a giant step backwards. If, instead, they had kept or (just updated) the previous UI and concentrated instead on the clever stuff behind the scenes...

Ah, well! They've promised a new release in February, so I'll just have to be patient while I soldier on with the previous version.

Love you, Nikon! But...

I'm going to be ordering my Nikon D3 any day now. Great machine, great features, crippling price, etc. But there's one feature that really perplexes me:

They've built an electronic spirit level into the body. Great idea for levelling the camera without squinting at the bubbles in the cheapo plastic spirit level I use. But how come you only get left/right levelling? There's no front/back levelling! So the landscape photogs will be happy, but what about us poor architectural types? The left/right levelling is irrelevant without front/back feedback. So I've got to mount the pesky little plastic bubble on the hot-shoe, which means I needn't bother with the fancy built-in left/right leveller.

Silly Mr Nikon - an epic piece of professional camera engineering with just one (as far as I can see) half-baked, not-properly-thought-through gimmick feature.