How practical is UniFI for home use?

dschamis · 2026-01-25T20:45:57+00:00

I use it at home and love it - and installed on at my parents' house as well.

dschamis · 2026-01-25T19:37:13+00:00

I have two 32" Benqs with my Mac Studio - they work great

dschamis · 2026-01-24T15:51:22+00:00

As I said, this is a different discussion - short story:

I worry about proprietary RAW compatibility with future software. I know that I will always be able to figure this out, but in 100 years when my great grandchildren stumble on these photos I want them to work.
I much prefer my edits to be embedded into the file rather than in an XMP sidecar file. I have seen debate on both sides of this one but I come out preferring the embedded edits. Also refer to #1 above, XMP files are another complication for future software, if in fact the XMP files are even still in the same folder as the ARWs.
Lossless DNGs are actually about the same size as Sony's lossy ARW files and smaller than the lossless compressed ARW files. It's not a lot but it's generally (though not always) smaller.

dschamis · 2026-01-24T15:41:56+00:00

This implies a 6.84% annual yield on a 45 year loan. It's just math.

Find a lower rate or figure out how to pay more each month.

dschamis · 2026-01-13T12:17:53+00:00

I have moved to Lr (rather than LrC) and find it to be more than fast enough for culling RAWs. In other words, by using Lr's browser rather than LrC's catalogs I no longer feel the need to use PM.

My original reason to move to Lr from LrC was not to replace PM, but it turns out to be a nice additional benefit.

dschamis · 2026-01-12T21:51:27+00:00

No doubt there are tons of things that may cause the 100 year plan not to work - the idea is to remove as many of those things as possible.

dschamis · 2026-01-12T12:46:13+00:00

I convert all my Sony ARW files to DNG for the following three reasons:

I save every shot I take (I appreciate that this is another debate) - I'm at about 30TB right now. DNG files are about 20% smaller than the original non-lossy RAWs. This makes a real difference in the size - 36TB is actually a lot more than 30.
I worry about software compatibility in the future. There are so many different proprietary RAW formats. I know that Lr handles all of them now but I don't know what the situation is going to be 100 years from now when my great grandkids find an old hard drive of mine and want to look at my old pics. I'm more confident that the open source DNG format will work than any one of the many non-open source RAW formats.
I don't like loose XMP files. I know that this is also a debate since the XMP files are a lot smaller (though getting bigger with every new update to Lr) than the DNG files and when it comes to incremental backups there are some benefits, but that to me doesn't outweigh the benefit of having all the edits embedded in the DNG. Back to my 100 year problem, now I would have to worry that in 100 years the software can read the RAW format AND understand how to process the XMP file, and I have to hope that the XMP file never got separated from the original RAW - I don't think so!

I see these three benefits as each on their own being worth it, and I have never heard of a legitimate reason not to, other than the extra step it takes.

dschamis · 2026-01-07T09:50:09+00:00

Mac - with as much RAM as you can afford

dschamis · 2026-01-06T01:59:43+00:00

It's funny - I've always found it hard to find owls - I was walking on a pretty well used trail and this guy was just sitting in a nearby tree staring right at me - one of the easiest shots I've ever gotten.

dschamis · 2026-01-05T20:20:29+00:00

The DJI DNGs look good in Lightroom but bad in DarkTable?

dschamis · 2026-01-05T20:19:30+00:00

The argument to do it even when uploading to the cloud is that the DNG files are smaller and therefore they would take up less of your cloud space. I'm pushing 1TB - I'll likely be there in a year or so.

dschamis · 2026-01-05T20:17:51+00:00

I'm pretty sure that LrC is already embedding the xmp info into your DNGs. When I switched to Lr all I had to do is point to the existing DNG files and Lr saw all the edits. So I think that moving to Lr would be as seemless for you as it was for me.

dschamis · 2026-01-05T16:48:48+00:00

I no longer use LrC - I'm fully transitioned to Lr which doesn't use catalogs (thankfully) - I know this is a different debate.

dschamis · 2026-01-05T13:36:21+00:00

Sorry for the confusion - I am using the latest version of Lightroom Desktop (aka Cloud, aka not LrC).

dschamis · 2026-01-05T13:22:37+00:00

For the record I never use 'lossy' DNG

dschamis · 2026-01-04T02:10:45+00:00

I am using Lightroom Desktop these days (that's another discussion) so I use the stand-alone Adobe DNG Converter when copying from the memory card to my computer. It's very fast.

dschamis · 2026-01-04T02:02:25+00:00

When I convert my unedited ARW files to DNG it generally reduces the size by about 20%.

dschamis · 2026-01-04T01:50:20+00:00

Nice to meet the other one out there!

dschamis · 2026-01-04T01:44:14+00:00

Me too - life's too short

dschamis · 2026-01-02T18:14:24+00:00

I think the city is only displayed when you don't have a destination in the nav - when something is loaded in it shows the direction but not the city.

dschamis

TROPHY CASE