Still Kicking
OM-D E-M5, Leica DG Summilux 25/1.4
Yes, I'm still around on LJ. Been a very busy couple of months for me and I haven't had time to post. I'll try and post more regularly though.
On the gear side, the NEX-7 kit is gone. I found that the OM-D simply handled what the NEX was good at (street/carry shooting) pretty well. I still prefer the NEX overall for that sort of work but I couldn't justify keeping it when the OM-D was more than acceptable at the same stuff. Conversely the OM-D was purchased specifically because the NEX-7 wasn't good at other stuff (tripod work, handling with larger lenses). NEX kit went and funded some network upgrades (better backup system) and a PS3 rather than camera kit. In hindsight I should have bought a 45/1.8 instead of the PS3.
The next question is my workflow strategy, specifically what software I use. I've been using Lightroom with the Nik plugins for my workflow for the last year or so (just LR prior to that). It's a great workflow but LR was producing mediocre IQ, I needed the Nik plugins to approach what CaptureOne could do with the same files. I'd picked LR because it quite frankly handled the DAM side very well, while C1 has issues with regards to file handling. But Adobe's recent cash grab and moves towards a subscription-only service kicked me to looking for a replacement for Lightroom. I've looked at a few options, Corel AfterShot Pro (Bibble Pro), PhaseOne's Media Pro & Capture One, Paint Shop pro X5, Photoline and a few others.
Aftershot Pro has the best UI and is reasonable as a combined DAM/RAW converter. But it crashes regularly and the IQ of the output is worse than LR. Media pro kinda sucks as anything other than an Archive Manager, but C1 produces the best IQ IMHO. PSP and Photoline both aren't really usable as RAW converters but could suffice as my occasional host for post-conversion editing (replacing PS CS3).
Frankly, I'm going to go with C1 for now, probably will get a Media Pro license and use that for Archive management (I get upgrade pricing as I took advantage of the free Expression Media 2 for C1 users). At some point I will also upgrade to C1 Pro as it has some very nice additional capabilities over C1 (and it will also get me from v6 to the current v7 at the same time). As I've got the Aftershot license, I may keep that around for quick & dirty editing. Luckily metadata changes come in automatically between C1 and Aftershot as they both support XMP sidecars.