[Canada_Rockies]

I received a notice from DxO labs that they had resolved the lens recognition problems with their software and Pentax K10D. They did say that it was not successful on all platforms, but I can say that it works fine on Windows XP SP2.

Now that I can actually use the thing, I can say that it is absolutely marvellous. It knows the flaws of the lenses and corrects for them perfectly with no user intervention other than enabling it.

I tested only a few images, but enabling the distortion correction on some 16-50 shots resulted in near perfection. Curved doorways suddenly became straight.

I then tried an image with the architectural distortion correction, and it works like a whiz. You draw lines down two in the image that should be parallel and all of a sudden they are. I ended up with a weird looking image - almost triangular with the crop, but the keystoning was gone.

I checked out the CA and PF on both the 16-50 and 50-135, and it works just like that. One image with the 50-135 that included a far hill side with evergreens against snow was night and day. With neither PF nor CA correction enabled, you could barely tell that it was a forest. Afterwards, I could see individual trees and branches.

It has been a long wait for me while they sorted out their software, but it is finally worth it.
I'll try to upload before and afters, as long as you fellow Pentaxians don't consider the subject composition.

[Canada_Rockies]

I have now uploaded three test photos at full res jpegs to my flickr account. They are before and after DxO treatment of shots taken this afternoon at 16, 28 and 50 mm.

Flickr: Photos from Albert Pentaxian

[falconeye]

Great news!

Since you are using the software, I got a question to ask: Does the "reduce blur" option in DxO apply a kind of USM only or does it feature a real deconvolution algorithm?

EDIT:
By "reduce blur" I do mainly mean blur because of a slightly wrong focus and mild shake.

[Canada_Rockies]

Great news!

Since you are using the software, I got a question to ask: Does the "reduce blur" option in DxO apply a kind of USM only or does it feature a real deconvolution algorithm?

EDIT:
By "reduce blur" I do mainly mean blur because of a slightly wrong focus and mild shake.

I have not yet tried the blur reduction. I have tried the PF, CA, Distortion and keystoning algorithms with my 16-50, and they work superbly. I did find late late late last night (Played bridge until 11, home at 11:30) that there a a few film treatments in it as well. I have to read up and study up. I have not used it while awaiting the lens modules fix.

[benplaut]

Aww, shucks! They don't support the FA50!

Here's to next year... I played around with DxO on my nikon, and it worked like a charm!

[Canada_Rockies]

Aww, shucks! They don't support the FA50!

Here's to next year... I played around with DxO on my nikon, and it worked like a charm!

They currently support - for those interested - DA 18-55, DA 50-200, DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135 and DA 50/2.8 macro, and the k10d body.

[falconeye]

They currently support - for those interested - DA 18-55, DA 50-200, DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135 and DA 50/2.8 macro, and the k10d body.

Oh dear!

I would need it for the Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG which is listed as compatible lens in the "Canon EOS 10D" section. Would that mean that it will be supported by DxO if mounted to a K10D, too?

On the DxO website, the Sigma lenses are missing from most sections, e.g., even the "Canon EOS 40D" section. SO, their absence in the K10D section may not mean much...

EDIT:
It actually may mean that it isn't supported, indeed. Because in http://www.dxo.com/var/dxo/storage/fckeditor/File/photo/List_DxO_Modules.pdf they display a table of lens/body combinations where they explicitely leave out many bodies for a given lens!

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Last edited by falconeye; 02-27-2008 at 02:54 PM.

[gpaual]

Test drove that application for the past two weeks.....loved it as an additive, but still prefer the adobe flow.....one thing the trial version seemed not to open the noise reducer module, ( which was my true reason for running over it. i wrote the dxo people, but never heard from them, do you have any input on the noise reduction module? how does it compare to noise ninja ? 'preciate any input on that.

[Canada_Rockies]

Test drove that application for the past two weeks.....loved it as an additive, but still prefer the adobe flow.....one thing the trial version seemed not to open the noise reducer module, ( which was my true reason for running over it. i wrote the dxo people, but never heard from them, do you have any input on the noise reduction module? how does it compare to noise ninja ? 'preciate any input on that.

I have not yet gotten any where near that part of it yet. I am just working my way through the 16-50 bit by bit. My next update will be the distortion corrections, and then the keystoning correction. I have tried one quick shot, but would like to add something with a better demonstration. I hope to have it up tomorrow.

I'll add noise reduction to the list. I have a shot taken under bad lighting conditions at 1600 ISO with the 16-50. I'll run that through sometime this week, I hope.

[dylansalt]

DXO is brilliant for many shots - but it is not perfect by any means

If you have ANY lens others than listed for the K10D in DXO then you will have to resort to another PP software

It definately corrects lens distortion & vignetting etc, better than PT Lens

If you have very good exposed shots to start with it is a very fast PP tool (even PEFS) as a batch processor

Its noise filter is iffy (much better out there) as is its unsharp mask

I prefer to have a several pp tools on hand - most are free/cheap and are more specialized for certain tasks.

[Canada_Rockies]

DXO is brilliant for many shots - but it is not perfect by any means

If you have ANY lens others than listed for the K10D in DXO then you will have to resort to another PP software

It definately corrects lens distortion & vignetting etc, better than PT Lens

If you have very good exposed shots to start with it is a very fast PP tool (even PEFS) as a batch processor

Its noise filter is iffy (much better out there) as is its unsharp mask

I prefer to have a several pp tools on hand - most are free/cheap and are more specialized for certain tasks.

Agreed, but if the lens module is there, it is absolutely stunning in its results. I also have as tools Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (for layers), and Pentax apps that came with the camera. The Pentax browser is great for the EXIF display, Lightroom's organization and quick fixes are brilliant, but I needed Elements for the layer functions, as rarely as I use them.

[falconeye]

I checked out the CA and PF on both the 16-50 and 50-135, and it works just like that.

I revisited this now and had a more careful look at the DA* 16-50 @ 16mm example.

Having seen that all CA/PF tools I had tested meanwhile mostly play around with the saturation for some narrow color channels, I retested Canada_Rockies example.

The removal of CA & PF is far superior to those other tools! You most easily see this when comparing before/after images -- in b&w! In most tools, the effect of so-called CA & PF "removal" will be invisible in b&w. Not so here: the images gain substantially in contrast and sharpness even visible in b&w. Of course, could be deconvoluted correction of other lens defects, but who cares.

From what I see, if DxO supports a lens, using it (or a directly competing product) is a must. The improvements are too obvious to be ignored.

[Canada_Rockies]

From what I see, if DxO supports a lens, using it (or a directly competing product) is a must. The improvements are too obvious to be ignored.

My sentiments exactly. I paid a bunch of money for the two DA* lenses, flaws and all, but after DxO, the flaws are gone. It's magic! The Standard edition (no point in going higher for Pentax) is about US$100. Considering the $2K or so I paid for the two lenses, a $100 upgrade is nothing.

[Rickster]

I originally posted this in another thread about RAW files, but I think it deserves a place here too.

OK ... I decided to check out DXO Labs new version that has more Pentax lens support and compare it to the K10D out-of-camera JPG, an Adobe ACR 4.3.1 RAW conversion and a SilkyPix 3.0 RAW conversion.

Click on the thumbnail for the full size image. (1.8MB PNG) These are 100% crops. All programs were set to their defaults.



I think I am going to plunk down some $$$ for DXO. Wow!

By the way, the lens used is the Pentax kit lens 18-55mm @ 28mm f/8.0 ISO 100 ... DXO almost makes it look like the 40mm limited.

[falconeye]

Maybe, here at the forum, we can work out a procedure how DxO can support Pentax better. Maybe, they need leased lenses. Maybe, they need test shots (I've seen it with another product). This forum could organize this help for them. If they decide to care