This was my first real play with darktable. It’s a fairly new “virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers” but if you are into photography and into freedom, you need to RUN (not walk) to the install page now.

My first real use of it was for a simple image that I took from my hotel room when I was in Hong Kong last week. I whacked the fisheye on the D200, walked up to the window (and then into it, because that’s what you do when looking through a fisheye) and snapped the street scene below as the sun was going away.

I’d welcome feedback… but I kinda like the results, especially for a shot that wasn’t thought about much at all (it was intended as a just recording my surroundings shot).

The second shot I had a decent go at was one I snapped while out grabbing some beers with some of the Rackspace guys (Hi Tim and Eddie!) in Hong Kong. Darktable let me develop the RAW image from my D200 and get exactly the image I was looking for…. well, at least to my ability so far. Very, very impressed.

Being a photographer and using Ubuntu/GNOME has never been so exciting. Any inclination I had of setting up a different OS for that “real” photo stuff is completely gone.

(Incidently, I will be talking about darktable at LUV in July)