Holiday season discounts!

Capture One (both Express and Pro) are now support Fujifilm XE-2 and available at 30% discount, ==> link

My favourite raw developer, Iridient (also with XE-2 support), is on sale too (enter code: IRIDIENT9), ==> link

 "In celebration of Iridient Developer's nine year anniversay and a great year in 2013 I am happy to announce a rare sale on Iridient Developer! Get 29% off your purchase of Iridient Developer by using coupon code "Iridient9" now through Decomber 27"

I have no affiliation with PhaseOne or Iridient Digital, I just like both products and can recommend them to any Fuji X-trans user. My reviews are here, here and here. But as always, I encourage you to download trials, test and draw your own conclusion:)

Cheers!
vkphoto

Golden hour

X-Pro1 + Fujinon 35/1.4 + Capture One Express

Thanks,
vkphoto

Lightroom 4.4 (ACR7.4) vs. Capture One Express 7.1.1 vs. Aperture 4.05 (X-Trans)

Hi All,

As usually I do not pretend that my test is a scientific research. I was looking for a Fujifilm X-Pro 1 raw file converter  that works for me and would like to share my findings. I excluded supplied RFC (SilkyPix) from this comparison simply because I don't  like its interface and hardly can imaging using it in the future. But don't  get me wrong, RFC is very capable raw converter.    

I leveraged Raw Photo Processor 4.7.0 (excellent free raw converter) to see how much details Aperture can resolve.
For test purposes I used my own files and raw files available from DPReview and Ryan Williams (Respective Owners, thank you and let me know if you would like to remove them from this review)

The file above was processed (with some adjustment) with three different engines  but results look very similar. Why? 

ACR 7.4 (RC) vs. Capture One 7 Express

Today is a special day for Fuji X-Trans users. Finally, Adobe has released ACR 7.4 with an improved X-Trans support, and, on the same day as Phase One released their affordable Capture One 7 Express. So what's so special?
Here is some background.
Since Fujifilm launched its revolutionary X-Trans in early 2012 the only software that properly supported raw file conversion was bundled RFC (aka SilkyPix). Almost immediately after the launch Adobe released their update to include Fuji X-Pro but it came out with important deficiency. Some converted files could suffer from "water colour" effect and / or "colour bleeding".

Nobody wanted to admit that issue does really exist. Fuji pointed fingers at Adobe, Adobe at Fuji and so on and so forth. Apple Aperture and Phase One didn't even mention Fuji X-Pro1 as their supported camera.  Open source solutions (mostly DCRAW based) were good but suffered from so called "zipper" effect. The game changed in December 2012, when Phase One came out with really good demosaicing algorithm (Capture One Pro 7.0.2).

RPP vs ACR vs Capture One 7 (Fuji X-Trans RAF)

* 2013-01-20 Important update about "zipper" effect. Please see new test results below.

Finally I had a chance to process Fuji raw files with highly regarded  Raw Photo Processor
RPP is "no frills" free converter developed by Andrey Tverdokhleb. I recommend to read RPP for Beginners, it is really a good starting point to learn the basics of the tool.

For my RPP vs ACR vs C1 comparison I used the file provided by DPReview, here is the link . All "Tram 1051" pictures are property of DPReview.com

Capture One Pro 7.0.2 (beta) with X-Trans support

I was "raw only" shooter since I purchased my first digital camera in 2001. In the past 12 years I used almost every professional or high end digital camera offered by Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic or Olympus but never liked "out of the camera" jpegs , until the Fujifilm X-Pro1's arrived. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that in most cases OOC jpeg files were just perfect and didn't require any further post processing. But we all know jpeg limitations and advantage of using raw files. Sometimes I was missing the flexibility of raw files when the image was required additional fine tuning of white balance, highlights, etc.  So I decided to shoot in RAW+F mode and process raw files only when it was needed. Supplied Raw File Converter EX (powered by SilkyPix) produced fair results but I didn't like its interface. In-camera converter worked well but the workflow become an issue.  Lightroom's  workflow was excellent and output was very good, but with one important exception. Pictures with tiny foliage exhibited a very strange "water colour" (a.k.a. "smearing") effect. Let me illustrate the issue with one of my typical photo.

The scene with foliage

Shooting conditions: Fujifilm X-Pro 1, Fujinon 35mm @ F8, RAW+F (std), Auto WB, ISO 200, tripod, cable release. Now lets open RAF file in ACR 7.3.