LR4.4RC is out, specifically calls out improved demosaicing for X-Trans color filter array.
Initial comparisons make it look like a significant improvement. No more water color effect, no more color bleeding, good detail. I'm sure one can obsess over various improvements from other converters, but it now looks like LR/ACR workflow will work well with the X-Trans.
Samples anyone? I'm interested in the "no watercolour effect" that you mention Ken - are you saying it's completely gone?! I'd be impressed, but surprised, given that you can see this in the JPEGS.
Here is a difficult image (my first) that was underexposed of a sunset down my street in January, taken with my Fui X-E1 with my Leica 35-70mm F4 Vario Elmar lens and processed through LR 4.4RC.
ricardovaste wrote:
Samples anyone? I'm interested in the "no watercolour effect" that you mention Ken - are you saying it's completely gone?! I'd be impressed, but surprised, given that you can see this in the JPEGS.
Please do share, I'm interested.
Sorry, what I probably should have said is "no additional watercolor effect compared to JPEGs". It appears to be a significant improvement over the previous LR/ACR handling and gets much closer to what JPEG processing looked like.
Personally I think the whole X-Trans thing causes more problems then it solves, but at least now it seems going to an ACR/LR workflow won't make it significantly worse.
kwalsh wrote:
Sorry, what I probably should have said is "no additional watercolor effect compared to JPEGs". It appears to be a significant improvement over the previous LR/ACR handling and gets much closer to what JPEG processing looked like.
Personally I think the whole X-Trans thing causes more problems then it solves, but at least now it seems going to an ACR/LR workflow won't make it significantly worse.
Ken
Shoot a lot of work at 6400 and tell me the X-Trans isn't helpful.
kwalsh wrote:
Shoot a lot of work at base ISO and tell me the X-Trans isn't hurtful
But yes, fair point, and the reason I was happy to see the better LR/ACR support.
Ken
Ahh fair enough. See, to me I feel like the X-trans cameras weren't necessarily aimed at all photography pursuits like landscape/cityscape/still-life, but at the same time I do get what you mean.
I mean, when I buy a camera I want to use it for whatever idea/image presents itself, not just what I "usually" shoot.
On the other hand, doing a lot of events and low-light work with the X-Pro1, it has proved to be an invaluable tool.
I loved my D700, M8, and 5DmkII (well, the 5D not as much as the other two) but I don't think I would have been able to pull off everything I've done with my X-Pro1.
For me, it's sort of a best of both worlds camera. Small, discrete but still a powerhouse of IQ.
Still, it's probably been the most frustrating camera to own as well.
I mean, I bought it last April and now almost a year later we're still getting the problems worked out.
But when I think back, was buying the X-Pro1 the right choice?
Yes, for me I'd buy it a million times over.
I only hope the X series of cameras continues to grow and gain popularity.
My next camera will probably be whatever replaces the XE-1 (I mainly use alt lenses and find myself using the OVF less and less.)
I'm pretty darn impressed with Adobe's update but still think C1 and SP5 might have the upper hand.
Either way, I'll probably stick with LR. It's just so dang easy to use.
I think the low ISO shots look pretty darn good. The non-fixed Adobe RAW conversion could lead to garbage from time to time, but the 4.4 update fixes that. Looks really good to me.
jtchuk wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something here but what is it about low ISO performance that is hurtful?
I don't own a camera with X-Trans so I don't know much about low ISO performance, I've just heard that high ISO performance is pretty amazing.
The sensor loses fine color detail at low ISO. And LR/ACR4.4, C1 or the JPEG engine can't fix this. It is inherent in the filter array. It is by no means the end of the world, but it is a trade off. Regions of fine color detail go monochrome or suffer other issues with the X-Trans when they are perfectly rendered by a standard Bayer CFA of identical resolution (e.g. NEX5N).
So, comparing say to the NEX5N you'll see that the XE1 has a bit less chroma noise at high ISO but also less chroma detail at base ISO. And this is exactly what you'd expect from two nearly identical sensors with different color filter arrays. The Fuji optimizes high ISO over low ISO performance in they CFA choice - and that will be very good for some photographers and less good for others. And really, the differences are not that huge in either case.
Ken
P.S. You can examine for yourself with the DPR studio comparisons:
kwalsh wrote:
The sensor loses fine color detail at low ISO. And LR/ACR4.4, C1 or the JPEG engine can't fix this. It is inherent in the filter array. It is by no means the end of the world, but it is a trade off. Regions of fine color detail go monochrome or suffer other issues with the X-Trans when they are perfectly rendered by a standard Bayer CFA of identical resolution (e.g. NEX5N).
So, comparing say to the NEX5N you'll see that the XE1 has a bit less chroma noise at high ISO but also less chroma detail at base ISO. And this is exactly what you'd expect from two nearly identical sensors with different color filter arrays. The Fuji optimizes high ISO over low ISO performance in they CFA choice - and that will be very good for some photographers and less good for others. And really, the differences are not that huge in either case.
Ken
P.S. You can examine for yourself with the DPR studio comparisons:
Look especially at the overlap of the blue and green feathers and the blue and gold pattern on the currency on the left edge of the board....Show more →
There appears to be a fair amount of color difference as well as exposure difference and possibly contrast difference between the images. I would guess by sight that there is about 1/3 stop difference between the exposures. The Fuji image appears to be cleaner than the NEX image.
