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Capture NX-D and View NX-I


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#1
Nikon-Dog

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Hi All:

 

I'm a Newbie to Nikon Forums...   This is my first posting, so bear with me...    

 

I've been shooting with Nikons since the 60's.  First with the Photomic FTN, then an F2, then a D300 starting in 2008, and now a D810 in Jan 2016. 

 

With the D300 I started using ViewNX and CaptureNX years ago.  ViewNX matured over the years with new features added to it to where the latest ViewNX-2

is very functional with the D300.  And CaptureNX-2 also improved.  But there are many annoyances between them, including the fact that once  RAW

files are edited by CaptureNX-2 they can no longer be edited/modified/converted by ViewNX-2.  Really, the two programs should have been merged

into one and the incompatibilities eliminated.   I do prefer the user interface in ViewNX-2 over CaptureNX-2.

 

When I bought the D810 I found that View-NX2 (v2.10.3, 64-bit) is happy with D810 RAW files.  But CaptureNX-2 (V2.4.7, 64-bit) is NOT!  Can't even open the

file for display.  Get that annoying message that it can't find the lens distortion correction data.  But CaptureNX-D (V1.4.3, 64-bit) ) works with the D810 RAW files.

I also installed ViewNX-i (V1.2.4, 64-bit) and it works with the D810 RAW files.  So, what's not to like about this?  Plenty!  Including:

 

   a.  Installing ViewNX-I requires removing ViewNX-2.  I did find, however, a work-around to this problem.  The work-around is to install ViewNX-I and let its

        installer remove ViewNX-2.  Then re-install ViewNX-2.  The ViewNX-2 knows nothing about ViewNX-I and there were no installation conflicts and no

        operational conflicts.  So I now have both ViewNX-I and ViewNX-2 working under Windows-7 in the same partition.   This is very important as I'll

        discuss below. 

 

   b.  CaptureNX-D has no installation conflict with CaptureNX-2.  The CaptureNX-D installer does NOT try to remove CaptureNX-2.  Why Nikon has it this

        way for CaptureNX-D/NX-2 but not for ViewNX-I/NX-2 is beyond me.  Its like two different software teams workings on the Capture and View series programs.

      

   c.  CaptureNX-D and ViewNX-I seem rather buggie.  E.g.:  "CaptureNX-D has stopped working....."   Basically it crashed and hasta be re-started.  Not good.

        And I've had ViewNX-I "hang" with it in "processing" mode forever....  Geez...

 

   d.  Now we get to the functionality issues.  The "downgrades" in CaptureNX-D over CaptureNX-2, e.g.  

 

        I have a collection of old Nikon prime lenses going back to the 60's.  24mm to 300mm primes.  Several of which I had AI converted to use on the D300 and

        then the D810.  And I have modern Nikon CPU lenses, e.g., the 18-200mm, 28-300mm, 24-120mm, 16-35mm, 200-500mm, and the TC14E-III TeleConverter.

        The old prime lenses  work great on the D300 and D810. 

 

        With  CaptureNX-2 I had no problem doing lens distortion corrections on the D300 RAW files with any of the above lenses.  As you probably know, the D300

        does NOT do any in-camera lens distortion correction.  While that is an option in the D810.  CaptureNX-2 allows me to select the automatic mode to correct

        RAW files from the D300 with CPU lenses.  Further, I can manually tweak the corrections.  This is important as in some cases the automatic corrections applied

        don't look quite right.  And when using legacy prime lenses I could always manually correct the distortion, though usually there wasn't much.  Those old prime

        lenses are pretty good, often with less distortion than consumer grade CPU zoom lenses.

 

        The problem is that CaptureNX-D does NOT like the D300!  It doesn't seem to matter if the D300 has a legacy prime lens on it or a modern CPU lens.  The

        D300 apparently has no field in the RAW file to tell CaptureNX-D that it has no lens distortion correction data.  So when I look at the meta data for the

        camera/lens, that field is blank.  And since CaptureNX-D apparently has no "manual" lens distortion adjustment capability like its CaptureNX-2 predecessor,

        I'm screwed....   This is especially bad when using the 18-200mm lens as it has a lot of distortion at the low-end.  Of course, the work-around is to use

        CaptureNX-2 rather than Capture-NX-D.  But CaptureNX-D is supposed to "replace" the obsolete CaptureNX-2!  Right?  And yet it has less functionality.

    

        And, of course, I can't manually adjust the "auto" lens distortion correction with CaptureNX-D like I can with CaptureNX-2.  Why does CaptureNX-D not allow this

        when its predecessor CaptureNX-2 does?   Stupid!  Really stupid!!  Or, is it there and I just haven't found it? 

 

        Now we move on to the D810.  Similar situation as to the D300.  With a legacy prime lens on the D810 I'm screwed for distortion corrections with CaptureNX-D.

        And its even worse as CaptureNX-2 won't even open the D810 RAW files and so I'm really screwed.  When CaptureNX-2 sees a D810 RAW file, it responds with

        the pop-up message:  "These images can neither be displayed as a RAW image nor edited because the distortion control profiles used on them are not found."

        Thus I'd hafta spend a lot of time doing a TIFF conversion and a bunch of monkeying around to do what I previously did so easily with CaptureNX-2 on D300 RAW

        files.  I'm not aware of any CaptureNX-2 versions that will work correctly with the D810 RAW files.  V2.4.7 was the last CaptureNX-2 released before Nikon replaced

        it with CaptureNX-D, IIRC. 

 

        And, of course, when using modern CPU lenses on the D810 I get lens distortion correction in the camera.  And probably with CaptureNX-D, but no manual

        tweaking allowed.  Its either on or off I think.  I've never seen a slider bar pop up to give me a manual correction capability of the CPU lenses.  Maybe a manual

        lens distortion correction slider bar will pop up in CaptureNX-D if I leave lens distortion correction OFF in the D810.  I've got that on my "to-do" list to test.

 

  e.   I also dislike the user interfaces in CaptureNX-D and ViewNX-I.  Much prefer the UI's in CaptureNX-2 and ViewNX-2, though they do need UI improvements.

       But they're better  than the UI's in their replacements. 

 

I called Nikon technical support about these issues last week.  The tech didn't disagree with me -- he's heard a lot of this before.  But he had no answers, no workaround

and no insight on what Nikon mis-management plans to do about these deficiencies/downgrades in CaptureNX-D and ViewNX-I.    All this makes me wonder if the

software engineers ever really use their creations with Nikon cameras.... 

 

Any thoughts, comments, work-arounds, things I got wrong or am missing, etc?

 

TIA,

 

--Nikon-Dog

 

 

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#2
Merco_61

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Your problem lies in that Capture NX is no longer a NIK software product and NX-D is a flavour of Silkypix with a Nikon-developed raw-converter. My work-around is to use NX-D for the raw conversion and do the rest of my editing, if needed, in Photoshop.

It seems like NX-D is a bit more stable on MacOS than on Windows and I have gotten used to it even if I still don't like it.



#3
Nikon-Dog

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Tnx, Nikonian, for the quick reply on this.  I had heard that NIK was bought by Google and stopped working on

Nikon's software.  But was not aware of CaptureNX-D's Silkypix heritage.  Bummer.  I know little about Silkypix,

so will hafta do some research on it. 

 

I'm trying to avoid the time-consuming multi-step conversions, limitations and problems.  So, for now it looks to

me like ViewNX-2/CaptureNX-2 for the D300 RAW images and ViewNX-I,  ViewNX-2 and CaptureNX-D for the

D810 RAW images,

 

I was so happy to get ViewNX-I and ViewNX-2 to coexist in the same partition and Windoze-7 OS, which makes

the above strategy usable for now.  But doesn't solve my problem of the legacy prime lens distortion correction

issue with D810 RAW images.  Fortunately, that is not a significant problem. 

 

People need to beat up on Nikon about the software problems.  I'm going to have a discussion about them

with my Nikon rep  that is coming to my area soon. 

 

Another Nikon annoyance:  The D810 does not have a  mass storage mode to facilitate XCOPY file transfers.  

Only Nikon's file transfer mode is supported in the D810.  While my legacy D300 has both the mass storage

mode and the Nikon file transfer mode.  I much prefer the mass storage mode where the D300 looks like

a memory stick to Windoze.   So, I always remove the CF memory card from the D810 to put in a card reader

to do the file transfers.  Bummer.  So many inconsistencies between Nikon products.    

 

--Nikon-Dog

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#4
Merco_61

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The mass storage mode died with the D300, it was gone already in the D90 and hasn't been implemented in any new Nikon since. I think they removed it as there are routines in place to mount PTP units in Windows, MacOS and all the Linux and BSD flavours and it is a more robust protocol as it won't scramble data if unplugged at the wrong moment. Unmounting before unplugging is no problem for experienced users, but for the others it seems incomprehensible.



#5
Ron

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Nikon-Dog, you're to be commended for trying to hard to bend Nikon software to your will. I, and may others, have given up long ago.

 

--Ron



#6
TBonz

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Yea...I've messed with Capture NX-D and it is fine, but I have used LightRoom for so long it is easier for me to do things there.  So much of the photographic world uses PS and LR that I don't think it is worth too much money to Nikon to improve their tool.  Rather I think it is nice that they provide a free tool for editing even if I don't think it is the right choice for me.  


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#7
Ron

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What I really wish is that Nikon would come up off their proprietary RAW specifications and allow companies like Adobe (and others) to use all of the info contained in Nikon RAW files. As it is, you pretty much have to use Nikon software to access some of the settings buried in their image files. This wouldn't be so bad if their software were better. 

 

--Ron  



#8
Nikon-Dog

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Hi Ron.  Tnx for the great comments.  It would be great if Nikon would do the software "right" -- wrapped around their proprietary RAW file formats to get at everything in them and make for a productive

work environment without having to waste a lot of time doing conversions and work-arounds.  But Nikon just isn't there yet and, sadly, they've taken a wrong turn in going from VNX-2/CNX-2 to

VNX-i/CNX-D.  Maybe, in time, Nikon will get back on track and get going in the right direction again. 

 

And the  dual program schema kinda sucks with their different UI's.  It wasn't too bad with VNX-2/CNX-2 but is worse for me with VNX-i/CNX-D.  Maybe, over time, I'll get used to using all four pgms

with my D810 and D300...  . 

 

I did find that I made some errors in my original post.  VNX-i appears to be more compatible with CNX-D, i.e., fewer problems with VNX-i editing files already edited by CNX-D.  Earlier versions of

VNX-2/CNX-2 had this problem.  And CNX-D is able to do automatic lens distortion corrections on RAW files from my D300 with CPU lenses.  But there's no manual distortion adjustment capability

that I could find.  And no workie with legacy prime lenses since there's no manual distortion adjustment capability in CNX-D like there is in CNX-2. 

 

Kind of a mess where I hafta have 4 pgms to do what I want with the D810 and legacy D300 RAW files.  One pgm should do it all without having to fumble around with four different and confusing UI's,

varying features, etc. 

 

--Larry


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#9
Ron

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Hi Larry,

 

This mess is why I've pretty much settled on using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. There are some adjustments that I would like to take advantage of in Nikon NEF files but the rewards, to me at least, just aren't worth the hassle. I don't even have Nikon's software installed on my work computer. However, I do have Capture NX-D installed on a laptop running Windows 10 and I have been messing with it a little. I'm not sure who designed that program but their thought process is different from mine. Perhaps I need to study Japanese culture. At any rate, the struggle continues...

 

As far as importing files, well I just copy them from my SD cards to my work station computer using it's built in SD slot and then import them into Lightroom from there. For me, there's a lot less hassle that way. Oh, yeah... did I mention that I have an aversion to hassle? I guess I'm getting cranky in my old age.

 

--Ron