Now I'm getting the point/One More Question!

[tashley]

The Phase Gods smiled more kindly on me today - I went out with the loaner Mamiya 80mm 2.8 and shot side by side with my P1 kit lens and am now satisfied that I'm not mad, sloppy or picky: the Mamy gives the results I expect, sharp to the edges at all low-mid apertures even if it's a bit softer than my lens on centre wide open. At F5, even where my lens has mostly sharpened up at the edges, and even though mine is worse in the corners than the edges, the Mamiya has a clear advantage at the sides of the frame of these crop shows: (full frame first - I won't identify the lenses cos the answer is clear!)

View attachment 9167

View attachment 9168

View attachment 9169


Finally a centre crop from the Mamiya shot shows me just how much detail will be available when I really start to dig! This with LR default sharpening:

View attachment 9170

One more question though: why do all my shots seem underexposed by 2/3rds to 1 1/2 stops? The camera meter agrees with my Sekonic but every single shots looks too dark and in some I have had to boost exposure so much that even at low ISO shadow noise starts to creep in.

I know that many popular SLRs have real ISO about 1/2 stop faster than nominal but I'm guessing that the real ISO on the P45+ is 1/2 lower than nominal, maybe more - and this when there's not a lot of sensitivity to play with in the first place. Anyone else found similar?

T

 

[carstenw]

Doesn't the Phase One backs have a tendency to lose the highlights, if overexposed? I seem to recall reading something like this on John Black's 645 blog. In that case, it would make sense for Phase One to tune their backs to underexpose slightly, to reduce the risk. Could that be it? The ISO 50 shadows are apparently good enough to just pull up the image to compensate, without getting noise. Have you tried this at ISO 50?

 

[Bob]

Tim,
This is because Lightroom really can't figure out the Phase metadata. Take a look at them with Capture One to wee what I mean.
I bet they will look just fine there. What you can do to compensate (to some extent) is to define a lightroom develop preset that applies this perceived exposure bias at import time.
-bob

 

[Jack]

One more question though: why do all my shots seem underexposed by 2/3rds to 1 1/2 stops?

Tim: One more time, cause you are still not "getting it" or at least all of it ---

IF YOU WANT THE MOST FROM A PHASE FILE, USE C1 TO CONVERT! As Bob indicated, Adobe has not figured how to utilize Phase metadata yet. By insisting on using LR, you are leaving detail and color on the table, likely clipping highlights that don't have any clipped channels AND adding chromatic and/or pattern artifacts that aren't there...

Okay, last time I tell you to use C1 instead of LR -- promise!

,

 

[Dale Allyn]

Tim, just to pile on : I prefer Bridge and PS soooooooooooo much to C-1, but I can see a HUGE difference when my Phase files are converted in C-1. I do what I can in C-1 and then jump ship A.S.A.P. to PS because I really do not like C-1. It's my hang-up because it's just not designed for the workflow that I prefer.

You might like to at least do a comparison by converting a few files and exporting them as TIFFs (some use DNG) and then looking at them in PS or your tool of choice. There is a bit of learning curve (or un-learning curve) to make C-1 feel a bunch better than first impression IMO, and there are some helpful VDOs on the P1 site.

Congrats on the break-throughs.

 

[Jack]

FWIW, I *hated* C1 prior to version 4. IMO, the net C1 Pro 4.2 workflow is not all that different from LR/ACR, once you get the hang of the menu structure/locations. Once you learn a few of the secret handshakes (shortcuts) it blows the doors off LR/ACR

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

Tim: One more time, cause you are still not "getting it" or at least all of it ---

IF YOU WANT THE MOST FROM A PHASE FILE, USE C1 TO CONVERT! As Bob indicated, Adobe has not figured how to utilize Phase metadata yet. By insisting on using LR, you are leaving detail and color on the table, likely clipping highlights that don't have any clipped channels AND adding chromatic and/or pattern artifacts that aren't there...

Okay, last time I tell you to use C1 instead of LR -- promise!

,

Jack is right. I used nothing but LR until recently - and now I will never use it for Phase files. Ci is just way ahead - as it ought to be, after all. They are the manufacturer of the back.
Bill

 

[tashley]

Okay Guys,

I was using LR for convenience and familiarity sake, having tried the various versions of C1 that came with my various Leica cameras and found it very slightly better but a royal PITA to use. SO I just took everyone's advice and WOW is there ever a HUGE difference when the files are dealt with in C1. Just vastly better and no way I can find to make one set of LR tweaks that works for all files.

So one the one hand, great - the file quality is awesomely better than I'd yet seen and in particular the colours are so nice. But on the other hand I am a LR addict for its cataloguing abilities and it really is where I keep everything. So now I have to process each shot from a 40mb image to a 235mb image so I can keep it in LR for reference purposes. Which kind of sucks.

Hmm - really gonna have to take far fewer and far better shots or my drives are going to clog!

Thanks for the advice guys!

Tim

 

[Dale Allyn]

FWIW, I *hated* C1 prior to version 4. IMO, the net C1 Pro 4.2 workflow is not all that different from LR/ACR, once you get the hang of the menu structure/locations. Once you learn a few of the secret handshakes (shortcuts) it blows the doors off LR/ACR

Jack, I know that part of my "issues" with C-1 are my incompetence and a propensity to resist change. I am using v4.x, but not the 4.5 flavor yet. To be fair, there are some features that I really like with C-1, and the relationship seems to improve with time.

Frankly, P1 could get me to stop whining about the app if when I opened a folder of new images they weren't all set at 4400ºK WB and "Flash" profile (a Preference setting). I'm sure there's a way to select all images and change them to 5500K or so, but every time I think I've figured it out I miss. The process (from the VDOs) of adjusting one image, uploading the adjustment settings, and then applying those images to another image is a pain (and extremely tedious). I just want to see them all in a color temp that's halfway close to daylight. I was going to start a thread in the Processing forum to ask this question anyway. I'm sure I'm missing some bone-head key combo or something that will allow me to start with images not all looking ice-blue. If I could push them all to a new color temp to start (with a select all or similar, until they fix the preference option) I might not enter into the process in a grumpy mood.



All that said, I repeat, I still much prefer the conversions of C-1 for the Phase files.

 

[Jack]

Okay Guys,
WOW is there ever a HUGE difference when the files are dealt with in C1. Just vastly better and no way I can find to make one set of LR tweaks that works for all files.

Glad we finally got that one settled

Hmm - really gonna have to take far fewer and far better shots or my drives are going to clog!

Nope. Hard drives are pretty cheap now --- you can regularly buy 1TB Samsung, WD or Seagate drives for right around $110 each, or roughly 11 cents per gig of storage... That nets out to about 2.75 cents per converted image and less than a penny per raw image. My guess is that even with fully duplicated storage that won't even dent your morning coffee budget

 

[Jack]

Jack, I know that part of my "issues" with C-1 are my incompetence and a propensity to resist change.

Yep, I get that cause that's me too... But now that I have the benefit of many years of hindsight, quite often I found that kind of stubbornness proved to be limiting...

Frankly, P1 could get me to stop whining about the app if when I opened a folder of new images they weren't all set at 4400ºK WB and "Flash" profile (a Preference setting).

Agreed that it's ridiculous to not allow us a set of default preference settings for initial WB --- but my spies assure me it is coming soon

I'm sure there's a way to select all images and change them to 5500K or so, but every time I think I've figured it out I miss.

This is easy --> Work the first file to your preferred WB and camera profile choice. Then hit the top bar icon that looks like a grocery list with an arrow pointing up and out of it -- that is the "Copy image Settings" icon. Now select all the other images you want to apply those settings to -- Shift+Click selects all in a range, CMD/CTRL+Click adds each to the total selection. Then hit the grocery list with the arrow pointing into it -- that's the apply copied settings -- and presto, all your images have the new settings. (FWIW, LR works almost identically.) You can also select the similar list/arrow pointer icon and then each frame you click on gets the saved settings. Note that ALL settings including WB, sharpening, etc are copied by default, but in the settings tab you can modify what gets copied/applied.

All that said, I repeat, I still much prefer the conversions of C-1 for the Phase files.

Yup!

:thumbs:,

 

[Dale Allyn]

Agreed that it's ridiculous to not allow us a set of default preference settings for initial WB --- but my spies assure me it is coming soon

That's encouraging news. (Though I think we were expecting it with 4.5, still great to know it's on the list.)

This is easy --> Work the first file to your preferred WB and camera profile choice. Then hit the top bar icon that looks like a grocery list with an arrow pointing up and out of it -- that is the "Copy image Settings" icon. Now select all the other images you want to apply those settings to -- Shift+Click selects all in a range, CMD/CTRL+Click adds each to the total selection. Then hit the grocery list with the arrow pointing into it -- that's the apply copied settings -- and presto, all your images have the new settings. (FWIW, LR works almost identically.) You can also select the similar list/arrow pointer icon and then each frame you click on gets the saved settings. Note that ALL settings including WB, sharpening, etc are copied by default, but in the settings tab you can modify what gets copied/applied.

Jack, thanks for this. I knew that it was there, but I was clicking/holding something out of order. I think maybe my wrist was turned out just a bit too far to the right.

And with regard to the "difficulty with change" trait, I agree completely and fully acknowledge the shortcomings. I'm working on it. Might have it handled in time to accept a change in the lining material of my pine box.

Thanks again for taking the time to fix my misunderstanding. I just haven't been willing to really troubleshoot it like I normally would because of... well... I have no excuse.

 

[tashley]

Jack, isn't there a way to import images so that they have the default settings (for e.g. WB) as shot?

t

 

[Bob]

Yes,
When images import they are indeed "as shot"
I usually set my back to wb "daylight" unless it is obviously "tungsten" or "flash" and take care of differences in post. Remember that daylight is not necessarily 5500. well it might be under standard conditions, but the number displayed is more of an arbitrary scale than you might like since there are few if any standards that normalize a kelvin temperature and an offset with the sunmbers in a bayer sensor. One programs's 5500 might be sortta kinda like anothers 4300.
-bob

 

[Jack]

Jack, isn't there a way to import images so that they have the default settings (for e.g. WB) as shot?

t

For right now, only if you're shooting tethered. Otherwise, they all come into C1 with the "Flash" camera profile setting. However, with Pro, you get whatever WB you have set in C1. I generally use "shot" and have my back set to daylight or one of my custom functions. You can also save your preferred sharpening setting as defaults.

So for me, the irritation is the camera profile defaults to flash instead of daylight. The upside is those two camera profiles are virtually identical and if you have to default to one, then flash makes sense as as studio setting is usually when you'd want the most accuracy.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Tim: One more time, cause you are still not "getting it" or at least all of it ---

IF YOU WANT THE MOST FROM A PHASE FILE, USE C1 TO CONVERT! As Bob indicated, Adobe has not figured how to utilize Phase metadata yet. By insisting on using LR, you are leaving detail and color on the table, likely clipping highlights that don't have any clipped channels AND adding chromatic and/or pattern artifacts that aren't there...

Okay, last time I tell you to use C1 instead of LR -- promise!

,

Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Did I say Ditto, Ditto.

 

[Bob]

For right now, only if you're shooting tethered. Otherwise, they all come into C1 with the "Flash" camera profile setting. However, with Pro, you get whatever WB you have set in C1. I generally use "shot" and have my back set to daylight or one of my custom functions. You can also save your preferred sharpening setting as defaults.

So for me, the irritation is the camera profile defaults to flash instead of daylight. The upside is those two camera profiles are virtually identical and if you have to default to one, then flash makes sense as as studio setting is usually when you'd want the most accuracy.

Jack,
I get the camera wb settings, it is only the camera profile that is stuck at "flash", but that does not matter much.
-bob

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yes,
When images import they are indeed "as shot"
I usually set my back to wb "daylight" unless it is obviously "tungsten" or "flash" and take care of differences in post. Remember that daylight is not necessarily 5500. well it might be under standard conditions, but the number displayed is more of an arbitrary scale than you might like since there are few if any standards that normalize a kelvin temperature and an offset with the sunmbers in a bayer sensor. One programs's 5500 might be sortta kinda like anothers 4300.
-bob

Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto,Ditto, Ditto.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Jack,
I get the camera wb settings, it is only the camera profile that is stuck at "flash", but that does not matter much.
-bob

Yea it is kind of meaningless but annoying . That is coming in the next fix

 

[woodyspedden]

Jack is right. I used nothing but LR until recently - and now I will never use it for Phase files. Ci is just way ahead - as it ought to be, after all. They are the manufacturer of the back.
Bill

Bill

It is not true for only Phase backs. The M8 files are noticeably superior when processed by C4.5.II! I hate the workflow, interface et al but you can't argue with the results. Just MHO.........YMMV

Woody