dko22

I can't "get" X-Transformer. Sure, the files are more detailed than with Lightroom but the colours are often uninspiring. Also the sharpness seems exaggerated and unnatural with default settings or not sharp enough with the smooth one. Far too many people don't seem to really notice what foliage actually looks like to the naked eye -- it actually looks neither like the analytical Iridient, nor the smudged Lightroom --incidentally Lightroom is also soft with other cameras which tends to be ignored though there seems to be somewhat fewer issues boosting the sharpness of Bayer v XTrans. Every RAW developer has its strengths and weaknesses. I'm actually coming round to Photo Ninja again after being frustrated for a while with the slow development. Eventually v.2 will see the light of day and I'm sure there will be interface improvements. There are no glaring weaknesses I can see in the actual development side. Highlight recovery can still a be bit funky but it at least tries to go further than LR. The slighly cartonish HRD effect which the default occasionally produces can easily be modified or just turn off smart lighting. To the OP, I actually prefer the LR to the oversharpened C1 version though C1 is a good package. Its very individual colours for Fuji are a matter of taste.

I quite recently added a D600 to my Fuji X-Pro2 to bring my old AIS lenses back to life. I would say that Nikon has certain advantages in IQ: 1. better shadow boosting in contrasty scenes, retaining colour better. 2. overall more natural colour and a bit more colour microcontrast. Even if Fuji colours are often very pleasing, they tend to overdo green in landscapes. 3. a little cleaner at high ISO though XTrans 3 is pretty decent. The above are in general for a landscape situation. Smudged foliage with TransX is much discussed and is still there in JPEG's and to some extent in LR but I wouldn't make a meal out of this as, unlike with colour and overall tonality, you hardly notice something like this unless really pixel peeping and the situation is certainly less bad with TransX3 than previously. In other types of photography, the differences may be reduced or vanish. Of course Fuji has all the advantages for general photography which are well know such as accurate exposure preview through the EVF, lighter weight, attractive controls and overall haptics. I imagine I'll stick with both systems for the moment though the clear dominance of Fuji at present may change. On the other hand, if I had to choose only one, Fuji has to win overall even if I feel the Nikon FF sensor has an advantage. All my Fuji lenses are also excellent. David

have to say that many of these photos look actually better in the original -- the processing is often tasteless in the extreme although there are a handful of decent ones.

indeed it does which is why I wondered whether you might have any similar observations or tips as regards high ISO compared to previous models. Most specifically as to whether uncompressed RAW can give a greater highlight recovery than compressed (which I wouldn't instinctively expect) or camera DR400 is better than DR100/200

I was able to borrow the X-Pro2 for a day and overall impressions very positive. However there was one thing in particular that left me rather confused and it's the following. I did a number of tests at high ISO, generally ISO6400 in contrasty low light scenes such as a church, trying to chose an exposure which would be able to recover highlights such as stained glass but also bring out the shadows using LR6.4. I found that the amount of highlight recovery to my surprise varied depending on the DR camera setting and in general was noticeably less than an identically exposed X-E1 shot. DR100 and DR200 or AUTO (which defaulted to 100 or 200) to recovered fewer details than DR400. This would be expected in JPEG but I thought not in RAW? My X-E1 performed similarly in highlight recovery irrespective of the camera DR setting. The question is really - and one which I'm sure Rico in particular will probably be able to help with: does the Pro2 adjust its DR processing according to the in-camera setting. If that is the case, does a) the X-E1 either ignore it -unlikely it would seem as even with the X-E1 there are some difference in lighting-- or is lightroom buggy in highlight processing in some way? As regards the latter, it does look like Silkypix RFC works to some extent the same way though as this software is poor in HDR functionality, it is hard to draw definitive conclusions so we need to wait for other apps to add RAW support. c) some other explanation. Is it possible that using compressed RAW's causes the seeming compression of the highlight range? Regrettably, I forgot to test with uncompressed before returning the camera but I think it could be an important issue for those who do a lot of low light shooting. Perhaps someone else has already tested the difference or could do so? I should state that shadows are very noticeably cleaner with the Pro2 at high ISO and overall, the sensor seems to have made significant strides forward. David

works well -- thanks for the new option

just to say that the EXIF from leaked Magnum photos from Paris do appear to confirm that the X-Pro 2 has a 24MP sensor. Exactly which one isn't yet clear but I would guess the Sony one in the D7200 with the usual magical Fuji filter array. We'll see on jan 15th anyway (unless there is a delay for some reason) and it's all but certain that any X-E3 will use the same sensor.

have played a round for a few hours. Find the default colour rendering pretty decent -- not very different from Provia JPEGs -- and so far see no major issues with the demosaicing. Speed is acceptable. As for sharpening, as with LR, some adjustments need to be made to default settings. Put the detail slider all the way to 100 and the radius up slightly to around 4. Amount then according to taste but in general a bit more than default 25. The main issue I find is that the programme is a dog's breakfast with sliders not always doing what you expect and not too well thought out. Highlight enhancement alters other tones as well and is not one of the better ones around for recovery --LR certainly better here. Fill light also brightens lighter areas --why? What on earth is the point of "strength" in white balance? Exposure only +/- 2?? And so it goes on. The "edit" tab appears to duplicate many of the "develop" tab ones (though I think the former is more designed for JPEG editing. Also a number crash my graphics card. I find that ACDSee does a pretty good job with general conversion with certainly fewer issues than LR in the general demosaicing. As a whole though, it doesn't seem to have been very well designed from the ground up. There are no film simulations. Still, the price is reasonable and is worth trying out for those already convinced by the DAM (which do NOT require a catalogue unlike LR) or other features which are far more numerous than with a "pure" RAW developer such as Photo Ninja or Irident. Personally, I'll likely stick with LR overall and check out PN, Raw Therapee or OOC JPEGs if I need a second opinion.

Yes, Ken raves about the X-T10 in his review but in the RX100 blog, he suggests that Fuji (and other mirrorless) are about the same quality as his iphone.......

I've been in Kiruna and Abisko but never made it into the remote wilderness. I wonder whether I will ever make it --as you say and show, it is one of the few really wild places left in Europe!

hmm, of the lenses I actually own a two lens set is easy --23 and 60. For three, I would have problems choosing between the 23 and 35 to add to the 14 and 60. If I were allowed to choose primes from scratch and zooms didn't exist in the system then 14, 35 and 90 would be the most useful. Travel light then 14,27 and 60.

Just a quick comment on this. I think PN with Noise Ninja 4 is more sophisticated than LR with luminance noise reduction though set carefully (typically around 5 and generally no more than 10) LR does a decent job with colour noise suppression. As for the "old chestnut" of foliage, I find it instructive to compare Photo Ninja with Raw Therapee. Although the latter has pretty good demosaicing algorithms, there is generally less detail in some kinds of foilage, particularly in the distance. I find that RT better corresponds with what the eye actually sees in this respect and PN tends to have a somewhat too strong microcontrast or clarity setting. Both are better from a purely technical point of view than Lightroom but then when I look at the overall image from LR, it is often the one I prefer and I suspect this is partly what Rico is getting at when he discusses the results from his workshops. It's the whole package which counts and this is probably why the majority stick with LR despite some weaknesses.

exactly. There has been a lot of crap written about LR and transX, some of it indeed written by me until I really gave it a good test. The essential points for me are: 1. Lightroom is not the best for detail at standard settings compared to the likes of PN or Irident which can make it a bit harder to use. 2. Lightroom can be made to give results close to the above with a bit of work 3. There is no preset that works with every image. It took me a while to realise this. Different radius and amount settings in particular are required as are careful setting of contrast and clarity depending on the image. In conclusion, it is easier to get a decent result with PN in terms of clear detail but then we have the likes of dodgy highlight recovery, suboptimal shadow recovery and fewer film or colour presets. Not to mention all the, by LR6, quite substantial local editing features. I still use PN as a reference but have now switched back to LR as a first default simply becuase it does some things better and does far more overall. David