I agree it is really not a fun program to work with. The sky looks more like blue sky in the ACR from what I am seeing and in NX more to the magenta side.
Uwe love to hear your impressions so far. I need to catch up to your review as well.
Yes, NX isn't very much fun and when the number of files to process grow very large, well, I turn and run....LOL!
Guy, I am seeing the same thing in the last set of images you posted and also see a bit more saturation in general in the ACR image. I finally got back to a real computer (being on phone/ipad all day yesterday) and had a chance for last few hours to look at and play with all comparative files posted by Guy and tweaking by Elenore and others. From what I see, I completely agree with what's been observed and expressed here regarding differences between Phase and Nikon cameras and/or differences between post processing software.
In my personal opinion, what's difficult is there is often more than one set of simultaneous variables being looked at, at the same time, so it's hard to ascribe to what is responsible for what changes or differences we see in a comparative set of images. In one case it was Phase/IQ160 with Phase 28mm lens, processed in C1 vs. Nikon D800, with 14-24 lens, processed in NX. Determining which of the many image elements (hues/colors/tones) in a picture is more accurate, may simply change by changing out one of these variables....whether it be the lens, back (camera) or processing software, etc. Narrowing down which singular component(s) are for the most part responsible for what differences are being observed, can be quite important.
Additionally even if you used a coke can for it's representative colors to determine a standard for accuracy or comparison (even considering just the reds), what's not to say other colors go astray in the process of getting that element (the reds on the coke can) right.
These comparisons are immensely useful for determining what parameters and settings are needed to be applied to one particular system (camera/back and lens) with its resulting files processed by using a chosen post processing software in order to get as close a representation to a given scene as possible. Yet attempting to determine which system is able to reproduce as many elements accurately as possible vs. another system, would require the number of different variables being used in such a comparison, significantly reduced as so to equalize such a test (so to speak). I realize this is not generally possible, in a practical sense. This is not a criticism, as these tests have been extremely informative and very much appreciated by all, but simply something to think about when analyzing all these differences.
Dave (D&A)
