Phocus Survey

[rjanso1]

Thanks for the opportunity to participate Nick,

Great to see so much response.

CFV 39

Windows XP
Dual Core
4 Gb RAM

Performance 8
Reliability 9

Tethered 6 (a bit of a struggle - more the computer than a Phocus issue)

I am new to both digital Hasselblad and Phocus. I am in favour of all of the enhancements in Phocus 2. I use Phocus 2.0,  Light Room and Photoshop equally.

I would love to see more tips and training with Phocus 2.0

Comments on this survey may help me decide with my overdue computer upgrade.

Thanks Richard

[David Grover]

MacPro mid-2009 2x 2.26 Quad core Xeon, Radeon HD 4870, 8GB RAM, 30" display, OSX 10.6.2

Phocus is pretty reliable with the occasional crash when opening newly imported files (50 MP camera), and speed is not really an issue in comparison to LR3 or Aperture 3, but to get auto lens etc corrections you do need Phocus.

One real bugbear is the way pictures look so unsharp until viewed at 100% which can really put customers off...... Usually I just use lens auto correct (all 3, esp. with the 28 and ot HTS1.5 - saves a ton of time elsewhere!), set white balance and black and white points before exporting as 16bit TIFF to do other work in LR3 or PS CS4.  More tools would be welcome, but getting sharpness on screen is a real priority (glad to see it's not just me with this issue - beginning to think it was my eyes!

Henry - in Phocus Prefs - What is 'Embedded Preview Size' set to?

[Hywel]

... even with embedded preview set to large, the previews are still unsharp if lens distortion corrections are turned on. (I think because it applies the distortion corrections to the preview JPEG, which isn't of adequate resolution to support this, and doesn't apply any sharpening after that step).

I'm my own client most of the time, but even I find this damned off-putting: it makes it look like you've got a crappy compact with a plastic lens, to be honest. To check if you've hit focus you need to zoom in to 100%, which is slow.

I've found two approaches work:
1) Large embedded previews, turn off distortion corrections until immediately before export. Fine so long as you remember to do it.
2) Perform no sorting at all in Phocus, do just the basic tone curve/white balance/exposure type modifications, export to TIFF then sort and rate these in Lightroom/Aperture. Not ideal, the TIFFs are huge which slows everything down, but at least you get a sharp preview when zoomed to see the whole image.

It is very offputting having these soft previews in Phocus, given that the Image Quality (and sharpness) is a primary reason why a lot of us are shooting with a Hasselblad in the first place. I don't know if the software team can come up with a better way to do this, but it is a real issue even for me sitting at the computer with a model looking at her shots... I cannot imagine letting an art director client see the whole image previews in Phocus!

Cheers, Hywel.

[rsmphoto]

Please would you delete Bernardos post not just because it's offensive but because it has no usefulness whatsoever. I have been on this forum and flex for many years and it has always been a place where people were friendly, often entertaining and above all helpful. This is a forum for Hasselblad users, most of whom are professional photographers and I would consider that the word professional was the key here. Clearly there is some disappointment in the performance of Phocus, which I share, and there is also a lack of understanding as to what Phocus can do. Offensive posting which is common on other forums is not going to serve any useful purpose here.

Monty,

You'll notice that's his first post here. Good intro don't you think? My hope also is "one and done".

I might add that when Nick first started this forum he asked that we all use our real names to identify ourselves, something I found incredibly refreshing. I'm disappointed that this didn't happen. Being anonymous (check out his profile) permits this kind of unacceptable behavior. I suggest that we have a "no tolerance" policy for what Bernardo has so deftly demonstrated. Strong opinions are fine, but if you can't show a modicum of respect for the other members of this site, then maybe one should move on.

Richard

[rsmphoto]

Machine #1:

2 X 2.8 Ghz Quad Core MacPro

10 GB DDR2 RAM

ATI Radeon HD 2600

Speed: 5

Reliability: 9



Machine #2: (used for tethered capture w/H3DII-39)

MacBook Pro (unibody) 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo

4GB DDR3 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce9400M
NVIDIA GeForce9400M

Speed: 5

Reliability: 5

Note: Crashes (black frames) occur when working at a fast pace.

My hope is that the new i7 MBP's will allow a major improvement in Phocus performance.

[jose]

2 x 2.8 GHz Quad Core MacPro Early 2008

12 GB RAM

ATI Radeon HD 2600

Mac OS X 10.6.2


Performance: 6
Reliability:     9

[Olaf Knarvik]

HP workstation xw 8200, Xeon 3,2 GHz
3 GB Ram
ATI Radeon HD 5670

Speed 6 (plus for fast direct export on even older computers)

Reliability 2 (big trouble with tethered, even though graphics card, CPU, Ram and Firewire card should be ok)

I know this is a slightly old computer, but that is also one of my main problems with Phocus: that you need very new computers for it to function properly. Also, there seems to be a Mac-preference built-in, which is not acceptable.
Phocus looks to me like a good beginning and I look forward to see it growing up (and to getting a new computer). I am missing some Lightroom-facilities, while in other aspects Phocus is actually better than Lightroom. I need a possibility to invert images badly, but have to go through Photoshop or Lightroom for that.

[Henry]

David and Hywel,

Thanks for your comments.  David I did have the preview on small and have just put it to large and it does improve matters a bit - now the shots look crisp at 25%, but not at 15% or 20% - not perfect, but a real improvement!  Next time I show a customer pictures in Phocus, I'll have to shift the panels around a bit to get the res to 25% - handy for shots I've not worked on, but which might be of interest, even if only yo get them back to the ones I have processed!

Thanks again!

Henry

[Chris Crumley]

Machine specs:

MacBook Pro 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

8GB RAM 1067 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA Geforce 9400M


Speed/performance rated from 1 to 10, where 10 is excellent and 1 is useless:

10

Reliability rated from 1 to 10 where 10 is excellent and 1 is useless:

10

[horseoncoboy]

1. 2 x 2.8  quad core macpro 10gb ram  nvidia gf 8800gt  = P:  7 / R: 7

2. 2.66 core duo mbp 4 gb ram  nvidia gf9400m gt  = P: 6 / R: 6

[horseoncoboy]

... even with embedded preview set to large, the previews are still unsharp if lens distortion corrections are turned on. (I think because it applies the distortion corrections to the preview JPEG, which isn't of adequate resolution to support this, and doesn't apply any sharpening after that step).

I'm my own client most of the time, but even I find this damned off-putting: it makes it look like you've got a crappy compact with a plastic lens, to be honest. To check if you've hit focus you need to zoom in to 100%, which is slow.

I've found two approaches work:
1) Large embedded previews, turn off distortion corrections until immediately before export. Fine so long as you remember to do it.
2) Perform no sorting at all in Phocus, do just the basic tone curve/white balance/exposure type modifications, export to TIFF then sort and rate these in Lightroom/Aperture. Not ideal, the TIFFs are huge which slows everything down, but at least you get a sharp preview when zoomed to see the whole image.

It is very offputting having these soft previews in Phocus, given that the Image Quality (and sharpness) is a primary reason why a lot of us are shooting with a Hasselblad in the first place. I don't know if the software team can come up with a better way to do this, but it is a real issue even for me sitting at the computer with a model looking at her shots... I cannot imagine letting an art director client see the whole image previews in Phocus!

Cheers, Hywel.

@ david, it should not be to hard to give us  a button on the dac palette "no DAC correction for previews"  i too very much dislike the fuzziness.

[HMi]

Machine

Asus P5Q MB with Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2400 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT display driver
4GB mem
Vista 32

Performance
4

Reliability
8

The performance figure comes from stuff such as: export to 16 bit .psd (yes, I figured it out  ) between 30-40 sec (moire set to 0), redrawing the preview window in 100% zoom takes 3-4 seconds etc. These are quite painful numbers in my view if you want to work on details in 100% and have a non-batch (process one image at the time) workflow in both Phocus and Photoshop.

The reliability figure comes not from Phocus dying but it occasionally killing the display driver (actually I had the screen go black just when I did the speed test for this note), fortunately Vista does not crash when the display driver goes down in flames but you get an intermittent black window.

[jimgolden]

oh - does anyone else have the problem with the preferences when you set initial capture to red but it doesn't work - everything comes in green?? Phocus def. has some quirks but I get good use out of it compared to some of the comments here. Assistants are scared shitless of it tho...

[Alastair Bird]

On my brand-new imac - Late 2009 with 3.06 C2D and 4GB of RAM as well as the 512MB video card and 10.6.2.

Performance: 7
Reliability: 9

On my 2007-era MacBook Pro 2.2 C2D with 4GB RAM 10.5.8

Performance: 5
Reliability: 8

In fact, with Phocus 2.0.1 the image goes black when I click on it to try to view it - it comes back but it's so slow and ponderous that I've gone back to Flexcolor for capture on the MacBook Pro.  It's just so much faster.

[bernardo68]

i do like to come back to my short and maybe defty statement, that some folks felt affended about.
it was maybe a little bit affensive but actually it wasnt more than the result of a longterm bad relationship with hassysoftware.
it is obvious that the handling of flex was already a disaster that slowed down my and everyones workflow,
just think about handling the 2 different files 3fr and fff  and so on.
unfortunately the long long promised phocus was another disapointment in the first year, think back to 1/1.1 etc.
after 1.2 it was getting more useful, also 2.0  but its still a chunky slow and unconvenient software.
and i think one could only agree that working on an bigger production with more than 1000 up to 2000pics a day,
is really a timeeating disaster with that software. at least with my machines 8core macpro 4870 card etc.
everytime big softwaresteps were promised from hassy, at the end it was a dissapointment,
especially if you invested in 1 or 2 cams of their not really cheap gear, and since years nothing than problems occurs.
thats what brings aperture in the race, works right from the start quick and relaible and the results are not so different to phocus.
okay phocusresults are minimal better but that does not weight up the hassle for me.

in germany here most people use phase , especially also the rental places and they know why.
if i would have known all that problems before i definitly would not have invested in 2 hassy backs.
anyway thats my personal opinion and an explanation for my quick first post

cheers
bernardo alias
bernhardhuber.com