Fuji X-T1 - Greens and jpg files - help please?

[jonoslack]

All my buttons work as they're supposed to. Looks like you might actually have a bad sample of the camera there. Sounds like a trip back to the shop is in order.

Bill

hi Bill
thanks for that. . . . . and if they aren't working, what else?

the guy in the shop is talking to Fuji, and I'll take it back in tomorrow. I was offered a refund, but I don't give up that easily! Hopefully they can get a replacement before too long.

Ricardo, thanks for that, I'd read all about RAW converters before I began, and was planning to use Aperture, concentrating on JPG until RAF is supported (hopefully before too long)

Jim - thanks for chipping in, to be honest, your splendid photos were a strong incentive to get the camera (the colour).

 

[Elderly]

I have true sympathy with you Jono.
This morning I am exhausted,
I had a dreadful night,
endless turbulent anxiety dreams of how I could solve the mushy green JPEG problem ......




...... and I don't even own an X sensor camera!

 

[jonoslack]

Thanks Ian
I'm rather exhausted too!
I haven't given up though. this saga will continue!

 

[raist3d]

Sure, I guess so..Trust me, I was just about to hit "Buy" today after seeing the Chris Nichols and Kai Man Wong videos and hearing many many folks heap praise. I actually really liked my year with the XPro-1. I found Fuji colors to be supreme, but the camera's AF was laggy at the time, and I was never satisfied with the smearing that I saw in LR conversions.

I am totally a LR guy, and I am hearing many of the same comments that I saw nearly 2 years ago, when the camera was fresh and full of promise.

I suspect that there's just something about X-trans that folks haven't figured out yet (at Adobe/Apple) yet. Clearly, Fuji's JPEG engine can mostly get it right, and so that leaves me puzzled...why other's can't do it, or why Fuji hasn't provided the keys to that kingdom. They have responded in many other ways, and have provided a true shooter's camera in the XT-1....

All of that said, I am plenty happy at the moment with the A7, which also has its flaws....

We are all in search of a perfect camera....Fuji is close, but for me, until the IQ issues are tidied up in LR, I would struggle with it....plus, I really trust what Jono sees in things, as we see much in the same light....

I am sorry but I can't agree with you at all on the Xtrans image quality. And you do mention you use precisely raw converters that do not make the best of it. Yes, if you must use Adobe, and that has to be your workflow, then look elsewhere. But that doesn't mean Xtrans is bad, it just means Adobe hasn't done their homework yet.

- Ricardo

PS: Everyone is talking about greens and what nots. Think about this- Xtrans has *more green* photo sensors than Bayer. It's supposed to resolve *more*- not less, detail in leaves, greenery. It's also better for extracting B&W detail and is what the human eye responds the most to for luminance.

As someone who uses now regularly an AAless Bayer camera (Ricoh GR) I can vouch that the Xtrans does keep a lot of the "bite" of not having an AA (particularly in B&W) while making the output very resilient to color moire. I have even shot veils on mannequins that are perfect shots to show moire and while you can still get it with an Xtrans it's pretty darn rare compared to an AAless Bayer.

 

[raist3d]

Thanks Ian
I'm rather exhausted too!
I haven't given up though. this saga will continue!

So I downloaded the first shot and put it through Iridient and I don't have much problem recovering lots of detail. If the mushy area is the upper left, I suggest you take the exact same shot with a Bayer camera- take your pick (EM1) and compare because I think what's going on here is simply there's grass cut, at lower to the ground and a lot of little leaves in the distance which will make the whole thing prone to mush.

The trees and leaves in the distance look quite detailed. Same with the green leaves in the front. Capture One 7 doesn't support the XT1 AFAIK yet so can't try that at the moment but they will certainly add it soon as they already figured out the de-mosaicing.

Here's one 100% crops - left is the JPEG you uploaded and the right is a conversion in Iridient. Sharpness and noise reduction can be further tweaked to taste. The files are being compared side to side using Lightroom 4.3, and no processing is used for Lightroom. Screenshot taken and saved as PNG to keep what the monitor shows me here 100% intact and lossless.

http://raist3d.typepad.com/files/screen-shot-2014-02-27-at-2.29.56-am.png

To me this is a solved problem, but Adobe needs to up their game. I am not going to try to convert the 2nd shot because the 2nd shot to me has obvious focus and/or blooming problems of some sort, and certainly not the super sharp typical results I get with the same lens on my X-E1.


- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

Here's another crop comparison. I am going to take the liberty of posting this one in the thread directly as it is about 1MB.

Original uploaded JPEG left, Iridient right.

- Ricardo

PS: If you look hard enough YOU WILL notice at some point or another a minor artifact. Bayer cameras *also* have artifacts. Just keep that in mind.

 

[DavidL]

Couple of shots with greens and 100% crops from each image. X-E1 with 18-55 "0" sharpening.
If I were Jono, with the other cameras he has, I think I'd get a refund and continue with what he has which give him results he's not happy with. So I am impressed he's pursuing the issue:thumbs:
David

 

[Ario Arioldi]

Here's another crop comparison. I am going to take the liberty of posting this one in the thread directly as it is about 1MB.

Original uploaded JPEG left, Iridient right.

- Ricardo

PS: If you look hard enough YOU WILL notice at some point or another a minor artifact. Bayer cameras *also* have artifacts. Just keep that in mind.

Ricardo, may I ask you which settings you have used in Iridient? I have tried myself and with the default settings I get a lot o reddish/purplish artifacts on the bark of the tree and very few also on the grass; to remove them completely I have to push to the far right the ChromAdaptive slider and a bit also the Chromalogic (5) recovering then some sharpness with RL Deconvolution (0.4 - 16). I am sure there are also better combinations but this is what I found in 10 minutes.

 

[docmoore]

I guess if you want to call when I first joined dpi in 2011 new; so be it.
I am definitely new to the Fuji forum.
The only area I was in for most of my time was the Dante's.

This was not an attack on Ashwin, I don't know you or your work.
I am informed you are very knowledgeable and that's great.
The original post just appeared to be piling on when Jono reported an issue.

docmore; I will be shooting more greens when greens finally reappear from under the damn snow. Now that I know Jono is a guy, great. I apologize for the inadvertent gender swap.

I don't usually post unless there is something I can add or help with.


I have tried every bloody raw processor on the planet tying to get the x-trans images the way I want and finally have them printing large and beautiful (to me) with capture one and photo ninja.

So just relax everyone, if you feel it is necessary to chastise me, have a great time.
Don't condescend to me. Don't write me off as a newbie. I may mistake your gender. I may take umbrage with a comment. I will always try to help if it is within my skill set. I will not call you names (sticks and stone and all that.). I will continue to enjoy GetDPI.


Regards,
Jon

Jon,

Let me apologize for the rather brusque response to your post...not typical from me and in the light of day seems harsh...again not the best wording.

This is a great place to learn about equipment from folks who stress it to an amazing extent in shooting and post process. An occasional wonky piece of gear can lead to a lot of handwringing and bandwidth. But overall we learn what works and what to avoid.

I so want to find a Fuji product that will answer all of my petty desires and "needs" - IQ like my Alpa TC and Rodenstocks, color like my S2-P, ease of carry and use like my Mamiya 7 (NO scanning please...:ROTFL Fuji glass is great and this sensor is - like the Sigma - an attempt to improve on a kludge that the Bayer sensors have in common. Did I say battery life....and should I mention I have 8 batteries for my Df 5 for my A7r and 4 for the Leica M-E.

Small size, dead on accurate AF and a VF that mimics the Nikon F3HP.

Oh I would like to swim with it occasionally....

Fuji glass is wonderful and inexpensive, colors are fabulous ...

And I should admit I would be in the midst of this had either of my local camera stores not sold out of the X-T1 in less than two days...no one on their pre-order lists backed out...all previous Fuji owners.

I look forward to this resolving and admit I am a bit surprised that two years into the X-Trans most of the big players are still chasing Fuji OOC JPGs...

I too spent a lot of time in the MF forum but when my Epson 4900 died I realized that all of the expense for an occasional 11x17 was unwarranted...

Now ... just need to find one camera that will allow me to do all the above...got to be one out there!

Again, no offense was intended and look forward to your input.

Regards,

Bob

 

[sc_john]

Here's another crop comparison. I am going to take the liberty of posting this one in the thread directly as it is about 1MB.

Original uploaded JPEG left, Iridient right.

- Ricardo

PS: If you look hard enough YOU WILL notice at some point or another a minor artifact. Bayer cameras *also* have artifacts. Just keep that in mind.

It is not just the greens that have improved. The entire image is sharper and more "life like"… plowed field, buildings in background, trees in background.

John

 

[Paul2660]

After converting the 1st image to a dng, I then was able to use LR 5.3.

Actually I don't see a lot of problems in the grass. May be my eyes. The trick I have found to greens in LR or ACR is don't load up on the sharpening while in LR or ACR, instead just do enough to make things being to show the effect. Later on in CS I will use focus magic to finish.

LR/ACR seems OK in the crops I have added on the greens, however the 2nd crop shows the tree buds against the blue sky and here you see a issue that I have noticed since day one with LR. It can't handle the light tree buds against the blue sky and creates a strange effect. This happens for me with any bare trees or winter trees with leaves. C1 will do a better job here, but I don't think it will open a dng? I am not able to find a exif converter than will work on the raf extension, if anyone knows of one that works in windows, please let me know.

Paul C.

 

[sandrahmart]

Jono,

here are four shot with green in it, all OOC JPEGs from the XE2, all imported in Aperture and exported for reducing size.

I cannot see any artifacts, maybe you do? I can of course also send you the original JPEGs if you want to try.

Peter

NICE PHOTO

 

[jonoslack]

Here's another crop comparison. I am going to take the liberty of posting this one in the thread directly as it is about 1MB.

- Ricardo

PS: If you look hard enough YOU WILL notice at some point or another a minor artifact. Bayer cameras *also* have artifacts. Just keep that in mind.

HI There Ricardo
Many thanks for your efforts - I had tried Iridient, but I was having difficulty with colour artefacts (as Ario mentioned).

Anyway, you encouraged me to carry on. Basically what I did was:

1. turn off the lens corrections (may need them sometimes, but not all the time)

Then I set the detail tab like this:

I then saved a 16 bit tiff and compared with the jpg in Aperture (my poison).

Here is the comparison:
JPG vs Iridient Tiff

(like you, it's a big png file so I've linked to it).

To me it's like chalk and cheese - it's not often I'll need it, but it does the job (happy now).
:chug::ROTFL::salute::salute:

Now all I have to do is get the camera replaced because the the AE lock, AF lock and exposure mode controls aren't working :face smack: But that's a whole different thing!

All the very best - and thank you again. I've bought Iridient

 

[greypilgrim]

Jono,
Cool that irridient is going to work out for you when you need it.

All,
Here is a test from a scene that I found issues with. The default processing in LR definitely looked icky (technical term) to me. I reprocessed the file the way I normally would in LR and compared that versus the file processed in Irridient, and here is the result. This is a 100% crop. Just for fun, unscientific poll, which is which and which is better? (For the record, I see a difference).

Doug

 

[jonoslack]

Couple of shots with greens and 100% crops from each image. X-E1 with 18-55 "0" sharpening.
If I were Jono, with the other cameras he has, I think I'd get a refund and continue with what he has which give him results he's not happy with. So I am impressed he's pursuing the issue:thumbs:
David

Hi There David
I really want to make the right decision about which mirrorless system to use, but the only way to do this is to get to grips with each of them. So I have an A7, an E-M1 and the Fuji - I won't finally decide until the Weather resistant Fuji lenses appear, but there isn't much point in giving up too soon.

I have the kit lens with each - and I certainly have good versions of the Sony and Olympus lenses - I haven't really tested the Fuji lens yet, but if the kit needs to go back because of the non-buttons, then I suppose the lens will be changed as well.

Personally this thread has been really useful, if time consuming. I tried Photo Ninja (don't like the software or the results) and also Iridient - which I think is a lovely simple and intuitive program. Hopefully it will have helped others as well.

Do you want a cat?

 

[rayyan]

Whew! After reading this thread, and the related expert and anecdotal opinions,
I thought my Fuji camera/s were a bum purchase.

The I remembered..The grass is greener etc. etc..

Green..not with envy, but thankful. Real thankful

I do not have to deal ( except very rarely ) with green grass and foliage.

I am lucky, if I find green around here.

The browns seem perfect for me. My kind of browns.

I think I shall take something else when visiting greener pastures, and use Fujis
around the desert.

Sky and sand dunes. Fuji colour. I am sure Fuji know something about colour.

Now, where is that expensive Leica Lux 35 that cannot focus correctly past f 1.4.
I keep it as a momento of that great brand.

 

[Sapphie]

Jono

Sad to see your angst but hopefully being resolved. I have the original X100 and found the JPEGs to be so good that I could rarely better them in RAW. When I bought the X-Pro two years ago (at vast expense) I was very disappointed with the JPEG quality for detail rendering and still am. At the time there wasn't much available for RAWs, apart from Silkypix, RPP and then Accuraw. The first LR attempts were dire. It was some time before C1, Iridient and Photo Ninja gave us some salvation!

During last summer I even went for a m/43 camera again in frustration but found that the Fuji images from RAW were better in almost every way, in spite of the 'foliage issue'. So I sold that camera and got myself a nice 14mm for my Fuji instead! I believe that the latest versions of LR are now pretty good, actually, and have almost decided to just go with LR as a default and then may be pop out to Iridient or Photo Ninja when I really need to.

I have tried your first RAW image in Iriridient, Photo Ninja and the latest ACR beta via a trial version of Photoshop CC and it looks good in all of them.

So, I think the moral of the story is not to rely on JPEG as a measure of X-trans landscape quality and to make sure you use an up to date version of RAW conversion software that supports it.

My remaining issue with the Fuji system is purely due to the fact that I also have a collection of Sigma DP Merrills. Now there's a camera if you really want to see what blades of grass and foliage and sky and water etc look like …

Lee

 

[jonoslack]

Jono

Sad to see your angst but hopefully being resolved.
snip
My remaining issue with the Fuji system is purely due to the fact that I also have a collection of Sigma DP Merrills. Now there's a camera if you really want to see what blades of grass and foliage and sky and water etc look like …

Lee

Hi There Lee
Well - it's no final decision, just not a final no.

I don't do the Merrills, just like I don't do Medium Format, because I just can't be bothered with a camera which gets in my way . . . The reason for persevering with the Fuji is because it really doesn't!

all the best

 

[jonoslack]

Whew! After reading this thread, and the related expert and anecdotal opinions,
I thought my Fuji camera/s were a bum purchase.

The I remembered..The grass is greener etc. etc..

Green..not with envy, but thankful. Real thankful

Hi Ray
I hope you didn't read it all. . . but the truth is that the Fuji does lovely greens . . . it's the detail that's the issue!

All the best

 

[nostatic]

Hi There David
I really want to make the right decision about which mirrorless system to use, but the only way to do this is to get to grips with each of them. So I have an A7, an E-M1 and the Fuji - I won't finally decide until the Weather resistant Fuji lenses appear, but there isn't much point in giving up too soon.

I have the kit lens with each - and I certainly have good versions of the Sony and Olympus lenses - I haven't really tested the Fuji lens yet, but if the kit needs to go back because of the non-buttons, then I suppose the lens will be changed as well.

Personally this thread has been really useful, if time consuming. I tried Photo Ninja (don't like the software or the results) and also Iridient - which I think is a lovely simple and intuitive program. Hopefully it will have helped others as well.

Do you want a cat?

How is the cat cooked?

Sorry - it was a joke. I am owned by two cats and they would laugh. Actually, this is perhaps appropriate: Sad Cat Diary - YouTube

Funny, because I went to my local shop to check out the XT1. I haven't liked the ergos of any of the previous Fuji bodies, but have admired some of the shots. I love my A7r, and the RX1r works when I need a quiet camera, but would be good to have something a bit more flexible. I've migrated away from u4/3, so having an APS-C for shooting longer could be good.

Anywho, I found the shutter on the XT1 to be quiet enough that it could replace the RX1r for silent shooting. Win. The EVF on the XT1 is nice - a tad bigger and brighter than the A7r. And I really need an EVF with my aging eyes (another strike against the RX1r unless I want to give sony another $450). Win.

But then I brought the jpg shots home to look at and wasn't really impressed. No green grass as it was inside a store, but instead blown highlights that I couldn't recover in LR. By contrast, the raw files of the same scene from the A7r held up just fine. Part of that is just physics I guess. I used to shoot my Oly at -0.3 or -0.7 to preserve highlights - maybe that is necessary with the XT1?

I'd really love to love this camera, as the 18-55, 55-200, and 56/1.2 would be a great general purpose system. But I fear I may have been spoiled by the Sony FF files...