X-Pro 1 Auto ISO and blue cast challenges...am I being a muppet?!

[KateR]

Hi knowledgeable peeps,

 

I swapped over from a Canon 60D to the X-Pro about six months ago. I've just got back from a trip around South Africa, where i'd sworn off my previous obsession with tiny DoF due to far too many out of focus shots, and as this was mostly going to be scenery and bright light, i went for the f10+ end of things. I usually shoot in Aperture priority mode, with Auto ISO enabled because i tend not to notice when the shutter speed drops and it all looks fine till i get to the big screen and...bleurggh, blurry shots.

 

However. I'm still not happy with a lot of my shots, the clarity i was hoping for just doesn't seem to be there.

 

Auto ISO seems to be one issue; it seems to be fixated with unnecessarily high ISO values. I used to have the max set to 1600 but i pulled it back because of this issue, but it still uses the new max of 800 far too often. Attached image 1: bright sunlight (to the point where i couldn't really see what i was doing when taking the shot!), but we have a shutter speed of 1/1100 at f16 and..yes...ISO of 800. DR set to max of 200, possibly 100. WHY?! a much lower shutter speed would still have been fine and maybe there'd be less noise in the final shot. Which is exhibit B - img2.jpg, 100% crop, how horrible is that?! god it looks like it's been taken with my old mobile phone camera. That is the jpg straight out of camera - right now i don't have the latest version of Lightroom which will handle the raw files, i had a play with Silkypix development and it wasn't any better really.

 

Second thing is a big tendency towards very blue colour cast. I've seen this in a few places where there was a lot of blue sky / water in the shot...maybe I should know to correct / set WB manually under those circumstances but I don't think i ever had to with my Canon. Example in img3.jpg - yes that was a white shirt he was wearing.

 

What am I doing wrong? Feeling pretty frustrated right now as my swap was driven by never carrying the DSLR kit because it was awkward and heavy. Having solved that problem, the shots i'm getting are often worse quality than my other half's, who whipped his iphone out, pointed it at random and got nicer looking (albeit smaller!) images than I did with the "proper" camera standing next to him

 

any thoughts much appreciated.

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[flysurfer]

ISO 800 is perfectly normal for DR400%.

 

Looks like the white balance isn't set correctly.

 

You can redevelop the RAW in-camera with a different WB setting (even with Auto-WB) or process it externally in Lightroom or whatever converter you prefer.

[cug]

Also, with very small aperture you might already be loosing detail due to diffraction. 

 

It would be interesting to know the other exposure settings. Auto ISO works roughly like this (Rico, please correct me, if I'm wrong):

1. The camera choses the lowest ISO value possible for the other variables, at least ISO 400 with DR200 and ISO800 with DR400.
2. The camera drops the shutter speed down until it hits the "lower soft shutter speed limit".
3. The camera will then start increasing the ISO to the "hard upper ISO limit".
4. As the last resort, the camera will drop the shutter speeds more.

If you are seeing 1/1100th of a second and ISO 800, my guess is that you selected DR400 for the shot or you had fixed your shutter speed accidentally and ISO 800 was necessary to get the exposure right.

 

Oh, and if you want someone to take a look at the raw file, upload it to Dropbox or so and share the link so people can take a closer look and don't have to guess that much.

[gdanmitchell]

First, with a cropped sensor camera you'll generally want to avoid the smaller apertures since they can soften the image by introducing diffraction blur, which increases as you stop down. I'd generally avoid stopping down past f/8 unless you really need to, in which case f/11 is probably fine. I almost never shoot at f/16 on a cropped sensor camera like the Fujifilm X-series bodies. (With 35mm film or full frame cameras the larger format allows smaller apertures before the diffraction blur effect kicks in.)

 

Regarding a blue cast, several things can be going on. 

 

First, I think that we are somewhat used to slightly warmed up color balance these days, so even an "accurate" image may appear to be a bit blue by comparison. You might consider just warming the color balance a bit, perhaps by pushing that yellow-blue slider in Lightroom or whatever you use a few small steps in the yellow direction.

 

Second, midday light tends to be bluer and harsher. 

 

Third, when the subject includes a lot of white (such as the man's shirt or portions of the sign) and there is a lot of blue sky overhead, this functions like a giant blue soft box light. The effect is even stronger when your subject is in shadow (again, as in both of your photographs) since now the direct whiter light isn't playing a role and almost all of the illumination comes from that blue sky, which is, predictably, blue! There are ways to reduce this: use some fill flash if practical, perhaps try to photograph when the light is less harsh and you don't need to place the subject in shadow to soften the light, and/or make some adjustments in post to counteract the blue. 

 

Fourth, in my experience with the X-series cameras, there can be some slightly odd colorations in outdoor photographs in daytime light. I get just what I want from this system in low light, indoors, and with night street photography. However, when I shoot landscapes with it (which is not what I mostly use Fujifilm for) I can see a color quality that reminds me of old slide film that wasn't exposed quite right or which sat in the can a bit too long. I can often make it better in post — again by denaturing the blue channel a bit and by moving color balance a bit toward warmer yellow tones. 

You mentioned switching from Canon. I use Canon full frame cameras for my landscape and wildlife photography and a few other things and I use Fujifilm for my travel, street, and night street photography. I actually prefer the Canon colors for landscape...

 

Good luck.

 

Dan

[cug]

Diffraction has not that much to do with sensor size and more with actual resolution in lpp/mm as far as I know. Ken Rockwell has a pretty good article with examples and math about it:

 

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/diffraction.htm

 

If you use a 36 mega pixel FF sensor, which has similar pixel density to a 16MP APS-C sensor, you'll have roughly the same problems at the same f/stop, but due to the higher pixel count, you will still get more detail, but you'll see the same effects and 100% magnification. The higher the pixel density of the sensor, the more you see it at 100%, but at typical viewing distances and sizes it's generally not that much of a problem.

 

Add to this that most Fuji lenses have their sharpest aperture at f/4 to f/8 and often falling of very dramatically beyond f/11, super small apertures aren't that great an idea. 

 

The other thing is: there is no better white balancing camera I know of than an iPhone. 

 

So, my suggestion still stands: please make the raw file available somewhere for us to take a closer look. Maybe there is something that stands out.

[Aswald]

Both of the examples you've posted looks severely "back lit" or with non ideal/harsh lighting. If you want to continue to shoot without timing your shots or considering the quality of available light, some sort of reflector may be good to light the subject up to even things out.

 

Blue cast or auto WB results will depend largely on the overall background, incident and reflected light the camera sees. So, some post processing tweaking may be in order. Under some circumstances and depending on the lens used, I too find the Fujifilm to shoot slightly blue.

 

I'm assuming that you are using the xf27 F2.8 lens. This lens is pretty sharp with good dof. For most of your shots, I don't think you'd need to get past F8 to F11.

[KateR]

Thanks everyone for replying! This is a great group.

 

I will post the .RAF in a bit if it doesn't foul up the upload limits. Right now my laptop is downloading Lightroom which seems set to take all night!

 

Couple of things...I know both shots are suboptimally lit, but that is a fact of life for me when travelling. I am always with my partner and trying to grab time to get anything..if I get 20 seconds to check settings before I take the shot, that's luxury! This is one of the things that makes me wonder if I should take a good phone camera for travelling and save the less idiot proof camera for when I'm not under pressure to be done with it

 

I have been dealing with the colour cast in post processing. WB set to Auto or Daylight ("blinding light that can flay the skin off a rhino" not being an option) gives near identical results..still a bit poor I think.

 

Well the f16 thing is news to me! Am I losing it or do other systems go up to f32? ,I didn't think that f11 or f14 was that extreme, and assumed I just wouldn't get the DoF in that huge expansive landscape on a larger aperture. Rats. Somewhat too late to fix that one now

[cug]

It's a matter of where you have your focus (what distance) and where the background is. The problem with diffraction is that it affects the whole image. So keeping it the aperture at "optimal setting" for what you want to achieve is probably a good idea.

 

Here's a page to play around with DoF for various settings to get an idea:

 

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

 

It also explains the lingo a bit. As said, it's really hard to say what went wrong, it could be flickering air due to heat or moisture or haze or ... there are so many variables that we don't know about, it's really all just guess work.

[Guest Ridgeback]

Reset your camera to factory settings (pg 80 in the latest om) and take it from there. A couple of test shots and then start making your custom settings again, taking test shots after every change/adjustment if you want to be pedantic.

[idwilson]

Diffraction is, in fact, related to sensor size, albeit indirectly. This is because, for the same angle of view, a crop sensor requires a shorter focal length. Since diffraction is related to the ratio between the circumference and the area of the circle formed by the aperture blades, the smaller the circle - physically - the worse the diffraction. A 16mm lens on a Fuji camera will always have a smaller aperture circle at a given f/stop (and, hence, greater diffraction) than a 24mm lens on a full frame camera. In this example, f/16 on a a Fuji 16mm lens gives a 1mm aperture diameter, whereas the same aperture on a 24mm lens would be 1.5mm. This also explains why diffraction is always worse with wide-angle lenses, as the physical diameter of the aperture is a directly related to the focal length.

 

Ian.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[KateR]

Hi all
 
Have got the raw file up at if anyone wants to have a look.
 
I can't see any info about DR setting in Photoshop, but i probably just don't know where to look. Would be interested to see what you think about the Auto ISO results and settings, and whether i did have something set there that would justify ISO 800.
 
Re. the more general principle of big DoF for landscape photography, what would be the optimum settings for something like the attached? (taken as ISO200. f16, 1/105sec)  Assuming i'm using the 18mm or 27mm lenses, I'm mentally getting caught in a tradeoff between wide angle to capture the panorama, and not being able to go very small with the aperture because of diffraction. Are all the amazing front-to-back pin sharp shots i see using 35mm or even medium format, or is it reasonable to expect great results from my Xpro setup if i'm using it right?!

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Edited February 21, 2016 by KateR

[Aswald]

1/250, F8, ISO100, Daylight

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[Aswald]

1/100, F8, ISO100, Auto WB

 

On both these shots I employed the use of hyperfocal distance to help with the DOF.

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[Aswald]

1/800, F5.6, ISO200, Daylight. This is a stitched (2) shot with the XF18mm F2 @ F5.6, X-Pro1.

 

Sorry for the poor stitched results but I wanted to show that on the 18mm, at F5.6 it was very sharp with enough dof to carry the pic all the way to the mountain top.

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Edited February 21, 2016 by Aswald

[cug]

Have got the raw file up at if anyone wants to have a look.

 

Where? Do you have a link?

[KateR]

Where? Do you have a link?

aaargh, it was right there after the "at". Presumably

the genius forum software removed it. Am out on phone now, will have to find the link when I'm at my desk tomorrow

[KateR]

Trying again with the link for the raw file, for the noisy Auto ISO image:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ly3pl488wtm9jzw/AACIBZxPjKQjf8W6K3rdCZ4Qa?dl=0

[Aswald]

Try using a UV filter.. there is haze and UV all over on a day like this. Try a polarizer too to saturate colors. I'd try to avoid large amount of reflective surfaces like the road at the foreground. It will cause stray reflection into yr lens if you're not using a hood.

 

You have 2 exif data. Both are F16 but on one, 1/250 sec and the other 1/1000 sec iso800. Almost noon lighting.

 

I would have started with F8, ISO200 and as high a shutter as possible.

 

More about technique than gear.

[KateR]

Hi Aswald - I was shooting in Aperture Priority, with Auto ISO and the limit set at 800. The mystery is why the camera picked ISO800 under conditions like these - the light couldn't have been any brighter!

 

I take your point about UV and hoods - both things I have but in the gloomy UK weather they'd been in the bottom of my bag for so long i forget to pack them for Africa - total rookie error!  Have also discovered "dehaze" in lightroom since then, which might rescue me a little bit.

[cug]

I need to verify this but it looks like you used DR400 for this shot which automatically results in ISO800:

little-one:Downloads cug$ exiftool FUJI1665.RAF | grep Dynam
Dynamic Range                   : Standard
Dynamic Range Setting           : Manual
Development Dynamic Range       : 400

I took the photo into Lightroom and did a super quick "adjust random sliders to taste" after I set the white balance to a more reasonable value. I wasn't there so not certain how it is supposed to look like.

 

Here's the result of the super quick hack:

 

 

This is really a quick and dirty "adjust to taste" on my non-calibrated 12" MacBook where Lightroom is a bit of a pain to use. I'm traveling right now, so take a look and let me know whether you like this version better.

[Jackalized]

I went for a lower saturation, higher contrast look in CaptureOne 

Your picture is perfectly fine, only needs some postprocessing

 

[Aswald]

I need to verify this but it looks like you used DR400 for this shot which automatically results in ISO800:

little-one:Downloads cug$ exiftool FUJI1665.RAF | grep Dynam
Dynamic Range                   : Standard
Dynamic Range Setting           : Manual
Development Dynamic Range       : 400

I took the photo into Lightroom and did a super quick "adjust random sliders to taste" after I set the white balance to a more reasonable value. I wasn't there so not certain how it is supposed to look like.

 

Here's the result of the super quick hack:

 

 

This is really a quick and dirty "adjust to taste" on my non-calibrated 12" MacBook where Lightroom is a bit of a pain to use. I'm traveling right now, so take a look and let me know whether you like this version better.

 

Nice.

[Aswald]

Hi Aswald - I was shooting in Aperture Priority, with Auto ISO and the limit set at 800. The mystery is why the camera picked ISO800 under conditions like these - the light couldn't have been any brighter!

 

I take your point about UV and hoods - both things I have but in the gloomy UK weather they'd been in the bottom of my bag for so long i forget to pack them for Africa - total rookie error!  Have also discovered "dehaze" in lightroom since then, which might rescue me a little bit.

 

It happens to all of us. It's just impossible to pack for every occasion sometimes.

 

There was a suggestion to reset your camera to factory default. Maybe a good idea. CUG pointed out that the shot may have been shot on DR400 which is unnecessary.

 

From the post edits samples, I'm glad that your shot is useable.

[KateR]

Thanks guys - i couldn't figure out how to find the DR setting in the exif. Maybe I leaned on something in the Quick Access menu, really odd as this is the only shot that appears to have those settings and I certainly don't remember putting in DR 400 deliberately.

 

Your versions look much better I have just started with Lightroom... i used to use PSE but an old version, which wouldn't handle the XPro raf files, so i was processing from the jpg. Lightroom seems to be hugely better at cleaning up stuff (noise / sharpness) so will start again in LR with the raw file and see what i can do. Looks like Gradient Filters might be my friend to stop the sky washing out, too!

 

Thanks again for all your help

[cug]

I still have to verify that these entries actually mean DR400, but it looks like it. I can verify later today.

 

I used a gradient on the sky, a local brush on the sign, and then some white balance, exposure, shadows, highlights, black and white point, sharpness and clarity, set the film simulation to Astia and worked a little bit in the HSL area on some colors. Overall fairly quick when you are used to the tool.

 

Good luck with sorting the photos out!