P: Display Focus Points

CaptureOne has a sharpness topography feature that is very useful for selecting one of many similar shots based on actual focal plane and sharpness.

I agree with PECourtejoie: which focus point was selected doesn't much help with photo selection after the fact, since focus point guarantees nothing regarding actual focus and sharpness. However, focus point display is extremely valuable as a learning aid to enhance one's focusing skills in the field - for the next time...

PS - its not difficult to display Nikon focus points in Lightroom. I keep NX2 open while I work in Lightroom. And opening a file in NX2 to view focus point(s) is just a keystroke away with the help of NxTooey (a few clicks away if you're on a Mac).

PPS - One could also just use a generic "openamous anythingamous" plugin (it exists, but I forget the name) and open NEFs in ViewNX to view focus point(s). Again: one keystroke, or a few clicks...

I don't know it if is related to your request, but I've seen once a software (don't remember which one) that could show a map of the areas that were in focus. That might be more useful than to show what focus point was used, for instance in the cases where one does a slight focus and recompose.
What do you say?

While I don't find the need for this feature ... I'm not opposed to it being added, if it can be done ... though I think that maybe efforts to have a more complete list of DSLR's compatible for tethering (and other items) would take priority.

Like Rory, I've been using Lr since the get-go ... and have processed well over 200,000 images since in Lr with the lion's share of those images from action sports ... not once did I need to reference a focus point in post processing ... with the average monitor size used today in the 22-24+ inch size, it's rather easy to determine if an image is in proper focus ... so not seeing a representation of the EXIF referred focus point wouldn't be a deal breaker ... there are far too many advantages in the glass being well over half full to seek other options that will reference the focus point ...

I'd much rather have a focus mask to show which areas are actually in focus than to know which areas I wanted to have in focus.

http://youtu.be/0QTkyM_J6O0

I didn' t mean it could cause me to abandon lightroon. I do as you suggest. When I want to check the focus point I start ViewNX. But I would find it more convenient if I could stay in lightroom. I thought it was not such a big thing if Apple can do it.

Why do you need to see the focus point? I've been shooting action for years and do not use it - there are too many moving parts in nikon focus acquisition algorithms to reliably draw conclusions from this data. I can see you maybe wanting to see which pocus point was used once in a while to trouble shoot - just use View NX - which is free.

This is a big feature creep area - it would be a lot of work to implement this for every manufacturer and model. Even Nikon cannot do this for their own models. When confirming View NX showed the focus point it would not show it for some of my older D2h files.

I find it difficult to believe this feature is so important you would switch software. I suppose we all have different priorities.

I#m coming from apple's aperture where the feature is available. Miss it a lot in lightromm. Always have to switch applications to check the focus point.

I just checked the Nikon SDK: focus points are *not* provided directly via SDK and must be read from Exif metadata. Also, the focus point info is different for different cameras and is not documented in the NEF doc included with the SDK. Its not rocket science to get at and interpret that data, but it would need to be "reverse engineered" for each camera model...

Definitely worth considering your motivation, IMO.

Being miffed at Adobe, or frustrated while learning Lightroom, or missing a few camera features, may not be good enough reasons in the long run.

I use CNX2 regularly by the way, and think 95% of the time Lightroom does a better job with those NEF files.

Back when Lr was at version 2 (and the Nikon camera profiles for Lightroom were young), I more often favored the NX2 rendering, but now - just the opposite.

Now I mostly use Nx2 for cooked editing (as external editor after raw conversion in Lr) because of the U-points. If Adobe invented a better auto-masking technology, or Nik allowed multiple adjustments to be tied to U-point selections in their Photoshop plugins, I'd ditch Nx2 altogether, but alas: that is not the case...

Anyway, if you want to consider a split workflow (some Lr, some Nx2), and you can get around the mental block to using lr-plugins, consider NxTooey.

PS - If there's an NX3, the table may turn again... ;-}
(or if CaptureOne decides to compete seriously with Lightroom for non-PhaseOne camera customers. (CaptureOne only supports tethering and automated lens corrections... for PhaseOne backs/lenses).

On the focus point issue ... I'm all for it ... however ... the Nikon SDK can be quite convoluted and Adobe has had a habit of not crossing certain lines that others will in accessing certain data points in proprietary image files ... why? ... I'm not sure ... just sayin' ...