Apple Pro Labs Aperture Berlin

Some time ago we visited the Berlin Apple store for a talk by Berlin photography company 'EyeEm'. It was at this talk (and also the process of registering for the talk) that I saw the store also offers what they call 'Pro Labs' - 8 hours of (FREE!) training on a specific program, spaced over 4 weeks. The training is for Aperture (Photography Editing and Management Program), Final Cut Pro (Video Editing) and Logic (Music Production).

As a PC and Lightroom (Adobe's competing software to Aperture) user, I initially thought that these Pro Labs would have nothing to do with me. But after thinking about it I got really interested. Firstly, I know almost nothing about Aperture, so its good to learn new things right?! The main reason for my interest though is that my current PC is coming up to 4 years old, feels a little sluggish when operating Lightroom, its hard drive gets noiser each year and a few times I've had overheating shut-downs. As much as I avoid upgrading for the sake of it, I like to know what's out there and I've always wondered about shifting back to Mac (I used to be a Mac user). So - the Pro Lab would be a good way to get some quality time with a new Mac and learn the software that I may consider switching over to. Plus it sounded like a bit of fun :)

In the meantime I also used my existing computer with Lightroom to create my photographic eBook Berlin - A Photographic Experience ... and this was quite a challenge for various reasons. I wondered if the Apple workflow would be better for future work.

So I registered for the Aperture course for April, and it was full :( I got put on the waitlist but was never
contacted so couldn't go to that one. I registered again once the May courses were available - waitlisted AGAIN! geez. However, the week it was about to start I was contacted by the trainer 'Guido' to see if I still wanted to come. Of course I said yes. One little issue though, I thought this thing was in English (as the 'EyeEm' talk was), but Guido had written to me in German. We had an email exchange in which he confirmed all of the Pro Labs are in German (makes sense!) but he would be happy to explain anything I didn't get in English. He sounded like a nice guy willing to help me out so I went for it. After all, I live in Berlin, should probably do more things in German!!

The Apple store in Berlin (Kurfürstendamm 26), is a beautiful former theatre and this is where they hold their talks.

 Just as with the talk, you need to tell the staff in the ground floor shop what you are there for and they direct you around the corner and up the stairs of lift to the training room. 

A gripe I had with the whole four week thing was that each session I had to keep explaining myself to multiple staff members as I went to class (as a stranger walking through these areas looks so suspicious as it leads to 'staff only' areas). Every week I would tell one staff member I was there for the Pro Lab and they would say 'ok' and point me to the side entrance, and then as I walked through at least one other person would stop me with an accusatory 'Entshuldigung!' (Excuse me) - and I would have to explain myself again.

The training room was a beautifully bright grand ballroom type place with large windows looking out to the Kurfürstendamm. 

A large table with nice symmetrical layout of laptop, external drive and mouse awaited us. 

Guido the trainer had his own laptop, connected to a big monitor behind. I sat directly in front so I could have a better chance of understanding what was going on.

Once everyone had arrived (8 'students' - 7 male 1 female) we got to the introductions. I gathered that most of them were there out of general interest and looking to see if the program had anything to offer in their professional work and for making home happy snaps better. One guy proudly announced that he was a Apple user since 1983 and I gathered he was a real Mac enthusiast!

To summarise the 4 weeks very briefly,

• Week 1 - Orientation with the program, and setting up 'Projects' and a little bit about importing from the external drive.
• Week 2 - Mostly about importing images from external devices and drives, keyword application and cataloguing.
• Week 3 - A closer look at the features of Apertures adjustment capabilities.
• Week 4 - Running through the light table and book production features

Each week we had the same computers to us, a 15 inch Mac Book Pro, retina display, Intel Core i7 running the Mavericks OS X blah blah blah...the latest Mac Book Pro basically and what I would be looking at if I decided to jump over to the iSide.

For the most part I understood what was going on, able to keep up as my German is getting better, I already understand this field pretty well and the huge display in front of me helped me keep up visually when audio comprehension failed me. I did get a bit lost quite a few times but could catch up relatively easily, ask a question in German, or occasionally ask Guido to explain something in English. I felt very conscious about 'wasting' the others time if I hijacked the course into English so I really avoided that, not that anyone minded when English was spoken. It's also a good challenge for me to be (almost) completely immersed in the language rather than falling back on what's comfortable. Should do more of it!

Back to the course, so the things I was most interested about was what it was like to use the latest Macs and if the Aperture software could offer me something that Lightroom doesn't.

What was it like for me using the latest Macs?

To answer the first question about using the Macs, I found it annoying! This is mostly because this computer is bigger than my one and so the ergonomics feel 'off'. This is something you would get used to over time, but I didn't get used to it over the 4 weeks / 8 hours. My annoyances were the wrist pads too big, the enter key too small and the 'power off' button was directly above the backspace key - I accidentally turned the Mac off a few times just by mis-hitting the backspace key!

The other thing I was surprised about is the performance when playing with the adjustments brushes. On my home computer (in Lightroom), after 'painting' on some adjustments, the ability of the processor to keep up with the adjustments in real time really starts to lag.

In my basic test on the Mac with a similar feature, I also noticed similar lagging from the first stroke. The lag certainly was nothing to get frustrated about, but made me wonder about the power boost upgrade from my old computer to this one. No doubt the Mac is much more powerful and I wasn't really able to put it through its paces in these sessions. I just want a computer that does what I want it to do - and at this stage, barring any catastrophic fatal failures, my current computer is still performing well enough.

The major thing I noticed with the Mac was how the photos looked. These photos were supplied to us and were mostly of cheesy fake model families on fake holidays - but they looked fantastic. Unzoomed, the details looked nice, sharp, creamy bokeh and most of all really vibrant colour. Playing with these photos I was a bit disheartened about my own photography, thinking that compared to these photos, mine looked a bit flat.

I thought about this, what makes those photos better than mine. I had snooped into the meta-data of each photo, and of course these were all taken using professional level full frame cameras with professional lenses (mostly Canon 5D & 6D with Canon L lenses!). No wonder I thought. But I didn't stop there, I started pixel peeping, zooming in 100%, 200%, 500%, 100% and so on. I do this all the time with my own photos during editing, and see the pixelation start to occur sometime after you go past 100%. Doing this with these 'pro' stock photos I encountered the same thing - these photos did the same thing, despite their higher pixel counts and 'superior' equipment. 

So it wasn't necessarily the equipment that was the difference. Was it Aperture, was this somehow doing an amazing job on colour and detail? I seriously doubted it, especially seeing how Guido and the others made adjustments and the sometimes cringey results - Aperture certainly isn't a panacea for fantastic photos. Maybe it just came down to the stock photography, maybe they curated some great shots from good photographers for these examples we were using. I was feeling a bit dejected and after the second session I went home and pixel peeked at some of my own pictures. They were sharp and detailed but something was different. It then occurred to me....what about the 'retina' display the Macs have? Could that be 'the thing'. Then I thought, yea, maybe so, because when Guido's screen is duplicated on the non-retina TV screen behind him, the images look quite a bit different there!

So when I was back at the next session I loaded up my own photographic website theintentionalinstant and started making some comparisons with their 'stock' photos and my own. Sure enough, the retina display gave my photos the same 'pop and vibrancy' that I had been concerned was lacking from my own photography. This was immediately satisfying! But now I have to give more consideration about my current display and its affects on final image.

And this brings me to my second question:

Does Aperture offer me something Lightroom doesn't?

The short answer is NO. In my 4 weeks of Pro Labs I didn't come across a single thing that I thought 'I wished Lightroom had that'. To be fair to Apple and Guido and the whole Mac'o'sphere, I do need to reiterate that I was missing a lot of the nuances of the discussions around the features of Aperture (As my first language is English and these Pro Labs were entirely in German). Maybe I missed something, but I am almost positive that the feature sets on both Aperture and Lightroom and very similar.

One thing that was a stand out is that Aperture has no graduated filter. I use graduated filters in Lightroom all the time, so not to have it in Aperture seems like a huge misstep. This has been complained about on forums for years. I don't know why it isn't added. Lightroom even added a radial filter in its latest iteration (LR5) which further leaves Aperture behind.

When I first learnt how to use Lightroom, I found it difficult and annoying - but once I got over the initial 'what's this do?' phase, I now find it very straighfroward with everything I need for adjustments easily at hand. Maybe its the initial stages of annoyance that I have for Aperture talking, but I very much disliked the way I had to go into drop down menus to access certain features that are intuitively available in the Develop module in Lightroom.

My next great interest was the book features. After my struggles making my own eBook, I was keen to learn about the Aperture book capability. In this feature I was very unimpressed. Using the themes created very tacky looking results and it didn't look like the themes were interchangeable (such as using the tacky but sometimes useful map feature in one theme and applying it to another). I understand that you can make some custom themes but we didn't get far into that. Exporting the book was also limited to pdf only (Lightroom exports to PDF & JPEG) and both programs upload to a third party printer in order to make the hard copy books.

I am not saying that Lightroom's book module is perfect - I just have much more experience with that now , I did not like the Aperture book themes, and that the JPEG export function of Lightroom is very much worthwhile.

Fundamentally though, making a photographic eBook from both Lightroom or Aperture is fraught with problems - though at least with Lightroom you can use its third party printer (Blurb) to create a iPad viewable eBook (for a fee) while I understand Aperture does not offer the same ability.

By now, we were coming to the end of of last session and Guido and the Germans were all playing with the horrible Aperture book themes. With some time left I decided to go on my own tangent and open up Apple's apparently wonderful iBook author program. I had a play with this program and WOW my life would have been easier if I had used iBook author. The program makes it so easy to insert photos (direct import from Aperture or iPhoto), add text that automatically wraps around the photo and so on. You can even easily preview your book as it would look on an iPad within the program. It was easy peasy for me to create a little demo book in just a few minutes. 

BUT - there's a problem, the iBook author only exports to a Mac OS only .iba format - meaning your book can only be uploaded to the iBookstore, and read only on iOS (Apple) devices. Not cool if you want that book to be available elsewhere (such as Amazon) or for other devices. Basically, if you want to make a great iPad (& iPhone) only book, then this program is fantastic and avoids almost all of the problems I had when creating my own photo eBook.

Conclusion:

In the end I was very grateful to be a part of this Pro Labs experience. I was happy that Guido invited me to attend despite not being fluent in German, and I was impressed with myself for going through with a German only course.

In terms of the structure of the course, I would have liked to get in-depth with the editing side of the program, and really refine editing techniques with Aperture (and Lightroom) to professional levels. This is where the Pro Lab is mislabelled, it's more an introduction to all of the features of the program, what they do and how to use it. There's no artistry involved and you won't necessarily improve your retouching techniques if you already have some experience.

For my purposes it fulfilled what I was after. I now know what to expect with the program and ownership of a Mac. I really enjoyed my 4 weeks there (would have enjoyed it more if I could comprehend more!) and would recommend it to anyone that has the time and interest.

*Note - as I am not an expert user of Aperture, if any readers find any of my statements regarding the function of the program, limitations etc are incorrect - please let me know in the comments!

Olympus OM-D Photography Playground 2014

Last year, Olympus ran a clever marketing campaign for their then flagship micro four thirds camera, the Olympus OM-D E-M5. Unfortunately we missed it because we weren't in Berlin at the time.

The basic premise is that you go to this place and you get to borrow a camera, walk around a big building full of art installations - having fun and getting exposure to the Olympus brand at the same time. All free, pretty genius I think.

So this year when I heard it was on again I didn't want to miss it!

As soon as you walk into the playground building you come to a front reception type desk with a wall of cameras behind. Luckily as we were early the wait wasn't very long.

Because they are handing out some quite expensive gear, they want some serious identification from you - only a passport will do. Our Anmeldung's and German drivers license weren't enough, so luckily one of of our group had their passport, and with each valid form of ID they will loan out two cameras.

Since last year the OM-D line has expanded to three cameras. A new entry level OM-D (the E-M10), the E-M5 remains, now as the mid level camera and a new 'pro' level camera tops out the line (the E-M1).

I wanted to try the pro one, with the pro lens (the 12-40mm constant aperture f2.8) and was very pleased that there was no problem getting the gear I was after. As an E-M5 owner I am certainly curious about the new camera and also have been considering augmenting my lens line up with this 12-40mm lens (which costs 1,000 Euros alone).

Once registered you freely walk around multiple levels of this grand old disused (and apparently soon to be demolished) industrial building.

The highlight of the installations was a building scene optical illusion in which, through the aid of a very large mirror, you can position yourself over the building façade an appear to be perched perilously close to death!

Some of the other stuff was pretty 'arty'...

Which is the point I guess, to get you thinking creatively ...

You also have the opportunity to have a light painting done around you. We just did one of them...with pretty drastic 80's consequences...

We look a bit stunned, because basically you stand in the dark, and then the guy uses a flash gun to freeze your position in the frame - complete dark to blinding flash is a recipe for the above drop-kick look. The guy then proceeds to run around you, painting with light. In our case attempting a Berlin scene (TV tower left, Brandenburg Gate right and 'berlin' above our heads).

There was another one in which you lay upon a chaise lounge and the guy does a similar thing. The people before us were a group of young girls, all wanting their glamour portraits done consecutively - it took ages and the poor guy was exhausted. As was all his batteries.

One of our party had her portrait done, and the guy, desperate to do something different, arranged her on her back with mouth open, and drew her soul spewing from her mouth. Looked pretty cool.


There were some more arty installations...

Interactive camouflage...

And plenty of open space...

With a final exhibit being a intense light and sparse audio show in an otherwise large space. Being very dark it was very mysterious. The girls from the chaise lounge shoot were in there just before us, hogging the interactivity of it all. It was a challenging scene to photograph as the unpredictability of the lights in the otherwise darkness cause metering and focus issues - especially when you are going pro off Auto :P

When they give you the cameras, they ask you to be back within two hours. We took longer than this, mainly because the building facade illusion and the chase lounge things had long waiting lines.

By the time we returned the cameras there was quite a line waiting to register, and not too many cameras to give out. So being early is better!

So you think - if they loaned you the camera, how did I get the pictures? Well, they give you the SD card (4GB) to take home with you. All for free. Pretty cool huh.

Like I said earlier, I think this is a pretty genius marketing idea. I wonder how much of it actually turns to sales for Olympus? In regards to what I though about the E-M1 and the 12-40mm f2.8 lens? Well the E-M1 is nice, but after using it I felt no desire to upgrade. As for the lens, well it's certainly a nice lens, but my main reason for wanting it was as a wide lens and I found that at the 12mm end it wasn't as wide as I was expecting (for stuff like indoor photography) - which left me thinking that that lens isn't for me right now.

So thanks Olympus, I'll stick with what I've already got :) Maybe next year I can try a super-ultra-mega-wide lens and see if that's what I'm after.

Olympus OM-D Photography Playground 
Opernwerkstätten Berlin-Mitte
Zinnowitzer Str. 9
Open Daily 11am - 7pm
Runs from 10 April to 25 May 2014

Love lock Oberbaumbrücke UPDATE

I wrote earlier that for Valentines Day 2014 we put a love lock on the Oberbaumbrücke, and were so dismayed to see it removed just one month later!

Well this week we were innocently riding by the bridge and saw one guy crouched over the remaining locks and another guy carrying a bucket, looking suspiciously like cut-off locks.

I wanted to know more so I stopped to talk to the guy, firstly asking if I could photograph the bucket of locks. 'Ja Klar'.

I wanted to know a bit more about what was going on (though it's pretty clear what was happening, the city is cleaning up the bridge), so I asked the guy if he worked for the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district. He said he didn't and then that's when my German failed me, he said twice something that sounded to me like he worked for (Nord-Berlin). I apologised that my German wasn't good enough, and he said he English is bad too...a chuckle together and he walked off.

So it remains unclear who they worked for, either a contracting company or perhaps the Ordnungs Amt. Whoever they are it is obvious that the city doesn't want the locks on the bridge and this time ALL of them were removed.

Passing by the next day I noticed that a solitary lock has made it onto the bridge...

Good luck to Sofie and Juha, the next generation of naive lovers, whose gesture is destined to have the same fate as our short lived love-lock.

And the canvas is blank once more...

Szczecin (Stettin) Poland

It has been a while since we've been outside of Berlin, so we decided on a weekender somewhere. Friends were coming to Berlin which gave us an opportunity to have someone look after Barney (the dog). They would only be there for the weekend, so we needed to pick a place that was nearby enough that we didn't waste too much time travelling, not overly expensive and somewhere worthwhile going to.

This place tuned out to be Szczecin in Poland, hard to pronounce we much preferred and used the German name 'Stettin' instead. The VBB / Deutsche Bahn offer a Berlin-Stettin ticket, which for 10 Euros gets you one way transport there. The ticket includes local transport in Berlin and Stettin. So for 40 Euros we had our return trip tickets. These can be bought at the VBB machines in the main train stations, but buying them one at a time was a bit of a pain, so we just went into the DB travel center and the lady at the counter could arrange it much quicker and easily that way - all in one 40 Euro transaction (rather than perhaps multiple transactions with the machine).

We love travelling by train, and this whole journey was so simple. The main trip requires just one change (at a place called Angermuende), however we needed to get from home to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. No problems as with these tickets we could get a bus from down the road to the Ostbahnhof and then the S-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof.

The main train is a regional one, which provides a comfortable smooth ride. The first train was a double decker which gives great views of the outside.

Changing at Angermuende (about half way through the trip) we got onto a smaller regional train, not a double decker. Here our tickets were checked by a conductor.

A total trip time of just over 2 hours later and we were in Stettin.

The Stettin train station is not quite the grand European railway station I had envisaged, but hey it does the job I guess!

Even though our tickets allow transport on the local Stettin public transport, our hotel was only a short way from the train station, so we walked - helps to get ones bearings.

Outside of the station everything felt very Eastern European, crappy roads and a general run down vibe.

We also started to notice that there was hardly anyone around and that all the little food stalls and shops on our way were shut. This was early afternoon on a Saturday? What gives? It felt very Zombie movie like...empty.

At the hotel we checked in, and hearing that Stettin had a couple of shopping centres I asked where they were. The lady showed us on a map but said they would all be closed, that EVERYTHING was closed because it was a Polish national holiday (Constitution Day).

What a rookie mistake not to check the holidays beforehand! At least, she said, things would be open on Sunday.

Once settled in, our first task was to get some Polish money (Zloty, PLN - 1Euro = 4.2PLN, $1AUD = 2.8PLN ). The hotel lady said there were some ATMs nearby so we went to check them out. The first five or so (Banks AND ATMs) we came across were completely closed, shuttered, not operational. This was a bit of a worry until we found a larger bank with working ATMs. Phew.

After that we went for a walk around, the 'Centrum' area and the 'Old Town' area. It was all pretty much spooky quiet with only (presumably) other tourists walking around looking for something to do.

The old town, which was completely destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in the 1990's was similarly deserted with similarly bemused tourists. We didn't think much of the old town. It has no real 'vibe' to it, though not having any people certainly didn't help!

In the old town is the Pomeranian Dukes Castle, where the rulers of Pomerania ruled from 1121 - 1637.

And inside some amateur bands were practising.

Part of the reason for picking Poland as a destination was to get some good Polish food - so we hit up a Pierogi (dumpling) house called Pierogarnia Kaszubska.. We got two of the largest portions (12 dumplings each), which cost a total of 32.40PLN, about 8 Euros.

 These things were/are delicious but beccause you can only order one 'type' (mushrooms and spinach, meat, cabbage, etc) the samey taste can get to you. Of course we shared our two types and it was all very filling. We were very happy to have had our pierogi.

With our transport tickets still valid (apparently) we caught a tram as far as you can go to the east, across the Oder river. It turned out that it isn't actually that far away, and the area it passes through is all industrial and shipping. It's not that nice of an area but if you keep going (by bus where the tram ends) then you get taken into another part of Stettin, no idea what that is like. All I know is that the bit we saw looked very Eastern European, and a bit Chernobyl'ey.

The next day we checked out the two modern shopping centres. The Galeria Kaskada and the Galaxy Centrum. Both were very nice but contained most of the stores we are used to. We were just happy to see people!

We did a little price comparison shopping here, seeing what the difference between Germany and Poland was like. For major branded goods and groceries, with the conversion, things seem mostly on par. Fast food (Burger King, McDonalds) is significantly cheaper in Poland (up to two thirds!!) and our experiences of dining out also indicated things were cheaper. 

One of the other foods I was keen to try out is called Pasztecik, a dish apparently native to Stettin. This is a deep fried filled yeast thing, made with special Soviet Army field kitchen machines. I spotted the oldest Pasztecik shop in Stettin...but it was closed. Inside the Galaxy Center was a place selling them though, using the proper machine. I had to get one. Each one costs 3PLN, under 1 Euro. They taste like a donut with savoury filling. YUM!

If we had more time I would certainly have overindulged in these things!

Out an about in the streets, there was definitely more activity than the Saturday public holiday, but it was still quiet. The hotel lady had said that many things would still be closed on Sunday. So we went for a walk through a park...

And down to the river and the promenade...

And then back through the park to check out some of Stettin's city planning. An interesting thing about Stettin is that some of the city layout was designed by Baron Haussmann, who is known for redesigning much of the layout of Paris. The main features of his design in Stettin is the inclusion of roundabouts and radial streets and wide boulevards (where the trams travel down the midde)

The largest of the roundabouts (Plac Grunwaldzki) and its radial streets are very nice. The main boulevard has a series of three fountains and pavillion type cafes. The whole place would be very nice if visited during a time where people are actually out an about!

Stetting really is a mismatch of architectural styles, reflecting its historical struggles - prominent grand architecture of the Prussians, classic European stone architecture up to WWII, the French influence, Soviet communist blocks and now modern steel and glass structures.

For dinner we wanted to get some really hearty Polish food. I had a place in mind, but we asked the hotel lady again for recommendations. The place she would go to, as a local, was shut. She then insisted that we go to the old town where we could find something. We'd already been there, and the Sushi restaurant and pizzerias put us off from the notion that Polish food was its thing.

So instead we went to the place I had found, a micro brewery, part of an apparent resurgence in what was once a common thing in Stettin. Housed in a former military building, the Browar Stara Komenda was a little hard to find. Inside was smaller than expected but very nice. And of course it was very quiet with only a few other people there.

We already knew what we wanted (after seeing the menu online) and ordered the roast pork for 2 (39PLN), a soft drink and one of the house made Dark Lagers (9PLN for 500ml).

We wondered what our pork for 2 would come out like, and we weren't dissapointed. It came on a huge dish with three joints of roasted pork, on a bed of speck laced sauekrat accompanied by a bowl each of horseradish and beetreet. It was superb :)












Including a small tip, the meal came to 60PLN (15 Euros).

The next day we didn't have much time for more sightseeing, so we spent the remaining time we had walking around the centrum area. Being Monday and no more public holidays it was much much busier than before. There was a better atmosphere and the place was buzzing.

With out tickets home valid for the local transport too, we could hop on a bus from the centrum direct to the train station, then the train to Angermuende, another to the Hautbahnhof, another to Ostbahnhof and our bus home. Sounds like a lot of changing but it is really painless.

Stetting was quite a nice getaway which would have been better if we had seen it on a non-shutdown-weekend!