Nikon's ViewNX

I recently discovered that Nikon now has a software product called View NX. It appears they added this product in October, and in my opinion it fills a major gap in the consumer level RAW workflow. At least for Nikon shooters. If you shoot RAW the most painful part of the workflow is the conversion from RAW to some other format. And if you have to adjust anything - say, white balance - it can become really painful. If you use Photoshop Elements, it becomes really daunting because you have to view and edit each image, one by one. There may be some short cuts, but they only lessen the pain a little.

Enter ViewNX. It is a RAW viewer and a companion product to CaptureNX. Best of all, it is a free download from Nikon's site. They have a Mac and PC version. (I just checked the new version of their site and it is not easy to find the download now, so you need the link above.) ViewNX lets you view your .NEF files in thumbnail format. It has basic controls that let you adjust white-balance and exposure compensation while viewing the thumbnail, or you can launch a utility to do some fine tuning.

What makes this so great is that you can see all of your .NEF files at once and make basic compensations right there. You can select more than one image, make an adjustment and it is applied to all selected. Then, when you are satisfied with your files, you can select multiple files and convert them to .jpg or .tiff format. That's right, you can batch process your RAW files and you don't have to spend a dime to do it.

Now this product won't compete with Lightroom and the likes. But it beats the other free RAW processors that I've run across hands down and definitely a time saver for any basic Nikon workflow.

About My Hawk Photos

NOTE: I thought I'd cover some of my favorite hawk photos and how I got the shots. This first one is not the earliest encounter, but it was the first in a series I've gotten in the same section of woods in a Columbus MetroPark.

I ran across this hawk while I was walking a trail in a nearby MetroPark. I saw movement across the trail ahead of me and immediately realized it was a hawk. I could tell it was carrying something. The most amazing thing was that it landed on a branch nearby, hardly taking any notice of me at all! I had to move a bit to get a decent view of him and while I was carefully moving over, he ate his lunch, probably a garter snake.

Since he was sitting still and so close by, I decided to try to get my flash out, and grab a few shots with some decent lighting. Before I could really get set up though, he had taken off to another location that was still visible to me. While I kept an eye on him, I finished setting up my lighting gear. I had my Vivitar 285HV on a light stand, triggered by my "eBay" slaves. The hawk's new location was atop a thin, dead tree at the bottom of a ravine. I made a fairly easy decent halfway down the hillside to a location that was somewhat shielded by trees. I set the light stand against a tree and aimed it at the hawk.

The day was overcast enough that the flash did make a difference. I fired a few shots from this location and then decided to venture further down the ravine. The Red-Tailed Hawk kept an eye on me, but didn't seem to mind my presence too much. I probably had a good fifteen minutes of shooting, moving further down, shooting some more. Finally I decided that if I was going to get a better shot, I was going to have to go back up the hill to get my light stand and move it closer, back down the hill. I did just that and even managed to get a few more shots before the hawk took off for a remote section of the woods.

You can see more of my hawk photos at PatterPhotography.com