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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 05-15-2017, 05:21 AM  
Fuji X-Trans Colors
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 21
Views: 2,430
I think your suspicion was well founded!
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 05-14-2017, 07:34 AM  
Fuji X series club
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 5,576
Views: 395,022
I rented the 50-140 F/2.8 for an event and got it for a few extra days so I could shoot some ducks with it. I also rented the 1.4 TC.







This shot of my cat taken at 1/10th of a second at 140mm! The OIS works very well.

Very nice lens. Autofocus is very fast and accurate in good light but gets noticeably worse in overcast light or early evening light. The TC works very well and doesn't have a huge impact on image quality although it is noticeable, especially in the edges and corners. And it does make AF performance a bit worse, more so in lower light than in good light.

After a few days of shooting with it at the pond, I've got about 70% of shots in the perfectly-in-focus to not-noticeably-out-of-focus range. I've been using the X-Pro 2 with the newest firmware.

The lens was great for the event I rented it for. If I did that sort of event more often I'd buy one of these. For the pond, I want something longer. So I'm going to rent the 100-400 later this summer.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 05-14-2017, 07:23 AM  
Best Buy has allll the cameras (except Pentax)
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 46
Views: 4,764
My local best buy has more empty shelf space than used shelf space. Seriously, it looks like the day after the zombie apocalypse in there every day of the week. And all they have on hand for cameras is a few sonys, the most entry level model from Canon and Nikon, a bunch of Go Pros and a huge display of Fuji Instax cameras and film!
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 05-14-2017, 07:18 AM  
Fuji X-Trans Colors
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 21
Views: 2,430
Lots of articles popping up on the internet lately bashing / hating on X-Trans. In a lot of cases, I think it's people who guilelessly bought the marketing hype about X-Trans coming back down to earth after discovering that it doesn't make their apsc sensor camera produce image quality better than the best full frame sensors.

People keep repeating that you need special software to process Fuji raws but, as of today, the only widely used raw processing software package that doesn't support Fuji raw is DxO.

And, Fujis raws are very good. Are they magical? No. But they are very good apsc sensor raws.

I know jpgs are a huge selling point in Fujis marketing but, I've only seen a few come out of my Fuji cameras that made me think "Oh wow, that's great!" I shot jpgs for a few weeks after getting my first Fuji and then switched to raw as it became apparent that their jpg software is good, but not as good as I can do with a raw, and that their raws are WAY better than their jpgs.

Lenses and body ergonomics are the best arguments for Fuji, in my opinion.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 05-11-2017, 09:40 AM  
Highlights recovering with RawTherapee
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 19
Views: 4,662
But also, if you are shooting raw, most cameras, and raw converters, will show that highlights are blown well before they are actually blown. You can check this quickly by simply lowering the exposure adjustment in your raw converter. If details magically appear in formerly "blown" out areas then the image is *not* blown. If those areas just turn from white to gray well, there's nothing there except totally blown pixels and that's the case you are talking about. I am not talking about the times where the highlight details are actually totally blown to white.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 05-11-2017, 08:26 AM  
Highlights recovering with RawTherapee
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 19
Views: 4,662
Yeah, I simply try to avoid blown highlights as much as possible but it's not always possible and when it isn't avoidable it tends to be in worst case scenarios which makes the recovery issue even more of a challenge.

And, in a lot of cases, I don't really care if there are blown areas as much as I care that the transition from detail areas to blown out areas happens in a pleasing and non-eye catching way.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 05-11-2017, 05:53 AM  
Highlights recovering with RawTherapee
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 19
Views: 4,662
I've been reading about methods of highlight recovery in RT for a while now, in search of a method that works well and is reasonably amenable to presetting. No luck yet. In my experience, the only raw processor that handles highlight recovery in a less manageable (and successful) way is Silkypix. That being said, I can usually do a fairly good job of recovery in RT but it takes a lot of time. I end up iterating changes between the 5(!) tools RT offers for highlight recovery until I achieve some reasonable result. This can take five or ten minutes in worst cases. I still run into images that I can't do anything useful with in RT but I can trivially fix in C1 or LR. I'll be watching this thread in the hope that someone posts an excellent method for highlight recovery in RT though!
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 06:06 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
Ha! That's crazy I arrived at what I suggested through trial and error, err, I mean systematic scientific experimentation :-)

My cameras are only supported in LR 6 / CC so I own the most recent CC version. I only said anything because I saw the old "x-trans requires its own special workflow" come out and I thought I'd try to clear that up since it doesn't seem to be true in the Adobe products anymore. It's never been true in Capture One or Silkypix as far as I have seen. I should have also mentioned that while a lot of my work has foliage in it, I am not a landscape photographer.

Both Silkypix and Rawtherapee are capable, I agree, but I find that I am simply unable to do anything good with blown highlights in Silkypix (I'd love to learn an approach that works though, seriously.) and Rawtherapee just seems to crash all the time when I try to run a full shoots worth of images through it. So I handle my personal work in C1 Pro which is a really nice raw developer and handles fuji raws very, very, well. I own LR because I need it for a few specific projects that I do for one client.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts :-)
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 02:24 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
No one was talking about lenses in regards to raw processing. You completely imagined the connection.

We were talking about raw processors and fuji raw files. You came into an ongoing conversation, dropped a complete non sequitur that was rude and condescending and now you've derailed the conversation entirely.

So, well done.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 10:47 AM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
You clearly didn't read, or didn't understand, my post.

In the future, you could avoid this embarrassing situation by reading the actual words in a persons post instead of lecturing people about things you imagined.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 06:49 AM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
It's easy to set presets in LR to apply to different cameras and also to make different cameras have different default settings. Both LR and C1 Pro can do this. You can do this with ACR and Bridge too.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 06:30 AM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
In lightroom, the approach I use is to set the radius to it's lowest setting, .5, detail in the 80-100 range (I usually start with 100 and only lower it if I have to), and the amount to a very low value, around the mid-to-high teens at the highest. Then use the masking slider to make the sharpening only be applied to edges rather than the whole image. Using the masking this way makes sure LR won't sharpen any noise in the image.

In my experience, the "it's full of worms" tipping point is around high 20s to low 30s on the amount slider with radius at .5, and detail at 100. Obviously it changes a bit on an image-to-image basis depending on the ISO, how far the exposure has been adjusted in LR, the lens used, type of scene, etc.

If you hold the alt/option key while moving the sliders, LR changes the preview in a way that makes it a little easier to see what is going on. For Amount, Radius, and Detail it turns the image black and white, for Masking it shows the parts of the image that will be sharpened in White and the parts that will not be sharpened in Black.

My default preset that is applied to all fuji files during import has sharpening set to 15, .5, 100, and 50 top to bottom in the sharpening section. Then I adjust a bit from there.

Also, LR's output sharpening is still garbage and will introduce artifacts in almost every image it's applied to, even on the "low" setting. So, avoid that at all costs :-P

If anyone is a C1 Pro user, I'd be happy to share my approach in that program too.

Hope that's helpful :-)
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-20-2017, 05:15 AM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
Seriously, this is simply not the case. Adobe products do fine with Fuji raws. The only difference from any other workflow is that if you sharpen a Fuji raw in Lightroom and ACR in the same way that you would a bayer raw you will get gross artifacts. That's literally the only difference. C1 Pro, Silkypix, Rawtherapee, Darktable, On1; they all support Fuji raw.

The only case I can think of where you would be forced to work out a unique workflow for Fuji files is if you are a DxO user as that processor simply doesn't support x-trans files at all.

Barely any coffee in me yet, so, please forgive / ignore any cranky vibes :-)
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-18-2017, 04:50 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
Yeah man, the 90 is a great lens.



Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-18-2017, 04:21 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
It might. They seem to be adding OIS to all of their high end lenses these days. I honestly would prefer it didn't though, since I never use it and I'd prefer the lens to be as light as it can be.

I'd be buying this lens to shoot wildlife, especially birds, OIS works best below the 1/125th to 1/200th shutter speed range so I'm unlikely to *ever* use the lens with a shutter speed where the OIS would actually be a benefit. And, conversely, OIS systems can degrade image quality at higher shutter speeds, where I am likely to use the lens 99% of the time. So, I'd prefer they keep it simple and not include it.

I would love an F/2 but I fear the price and weight would be prohibitive. An F/2.8 is likely to be more affordable and lighter. I will be happy either way.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-18-2017, 03:30 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
I am also looking forward to Fuji's long fast lens. I'm hoping it's a match for the 90mm, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and is compatible with both of their TCs.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-18-2017, 01:19 PM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
When it comes to comparing the physical size and weight of different camera bodies, camerasize.com is very useful although it isn't always perfect.

Compare camera dimensions side by side

So for example, it's easy to see that the K3 and the X-T2 are about the same width across but the X-T2 is 10mm shorter, and the K3 is 28mm thicker than the X-T2. Also, the K3 weighs 58% more than the X-T2 (800g vs 500g). The KP has basically the same exterior dimensions as the K3 but it weighs 700g, or about 40% more than the X-T2.

The X-T20 weighs only 383g and that makes the K3 just over twice it's weight and the KP around 85% heavier.

I used this website extensively when I was on my quest to cut the weight of my equipment in half. Sadly, I never found an equivalent for lenses.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-14-2017, 06:04 AM  
Seriously looking at Fuji X options
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 71
Views: 6,038
I use an X-Pro 2 for my event work and for my bif hobby shooting. My experience is that you want one battery for every 2-3 hours you'll be shooting. If you are super careful and turn the camera off when you aren't using it, and use the OVF rather than the EVF, you can stretch that time out an additional 45-60 minutes.

In my experience the battery life only loosely correlates with the number of shots taken. Yesterday I took 309 raw+jpg shots at an event that lasted three hours. I used one battery to ~10% and about ~15% of a second. A few days ago I was shooting ducks at the local pond and I took 446 raw+jpg shots in an hour and 45 minutes and the battery was not in the red. Red happens at about 15%. I've taken over 900 shots on a single battery but that was in a 45 minute period shooting birds at 8fps.

There's quite a few guides floating around on which settings to turn off or avoid using to make the batteries last longer on Fuji cameras. In my experience, not using the LCD, turning off pre-focus, not riding the half-press shutter for constant AF, and turning off the camera if I'm not going to be using it in the next minute or so all contribute to increasing the battery life. Limiting the information shown in the EVF can also increase battery life.

All of my examples are from an X-Pro 2 in high performance mode. So if you use the normal or power saving modes you can get longer battery life.

My carry around camera is an X-E2s with the 27mm pancake. I take it with me everywhere and take at least a few pictures every day with it. I charge its battery once every few weeks and it has a 3rd party battery in it that has about ~75% of the capacity of the Fuji batteries.

The X-Pro 2 is barely pocketable with the 27mm on it, the X-E2s is a lot smaller.

Hope that helps!
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 03-17-2017, 11:58 AM  
The Squirrel Mafia's RawTherapee thread. Now with 50% more excellence & win!
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 574
Views: 85,001
Still not super stable on the mac, haven't tested on the windows machine yet. I guess my two main mac issues are bugs that have been fixed in newer builds and it's easy enough to not do the things that cause those crashes. But, this morning I was working in RT and it crashed to desktop when I changed to a new directory in the browser. After restarting RT I was able to work in a number of different directories without crashes though.

I see on the RT forums that there is a link to daily builds for windows but there aren't any for the mac version. I'd be happy to run a daily build and test things on the mac if it'd help to get that version more stable and polished. I'm not willing to go through the hoops of compiling and all that though. I have little enough spare time as it is.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 03-17-2017, 05:42 AM  
The Squirrel Mafia's RawTherapee thread. Now with 50% more excellence & win!
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 574
Views: 85,001
Thanks very much.

On the mac the equivalents are in ~/Library/Application Support/RawTherapee and ~/.Config/RawTherapee

---------- Post added 03-17-17 at 05:46 AM ----------



Amazing.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 03-16-2017, 01:51 PM  
The Squirrel Mafia's RawTherapee thread. Now with 50% more excellence & win!
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 574
Views: 85,001
Ok, great. Thanks.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 03-16-2017, 10:42 AM  
The Squirrel Mafia's RawTherapee thread. Now with 50% more excellence & win!
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 574
Views: 85,001
I love that RT has such an active group of users here.

I've experimented with RT over the years and, while I find it's output to be quite good, one thing or another has always pushed me away from it. Version 5 seems quite nice but on both the Mac and Windows 10 platforms I'm getting various issues, mostly crashes, that make it unusable.

On Windows 10, RT (version RT 5.0-r1-gtk3 for Windows Vista/7/8/10 64-bit - fast) will not save processed files onto the desktop (this bug goes back to version 4 in my experience). It processes the file and then nothing happens. It never actually puts the final jpg on the desktop. The first time I tried to select a different location via the batch processing window, RT crashed. Weirdly, having RT save the files into a folder on the desktop works fine.

On the Mac (I've tested it on two different Macs, one iMac running 10.11.6 and one MacBook Pro running 10.12.3 both using RT version RT 5.0-r1-gtk3 for macOS 10.8/9/10/11/12 64-bit - fast) when I try to point RT to the install location of Photoshop in RTs preferences, the program crashes to desktop. Also, when I try to change the location where processed files are saved, the program crashes.

Given that my experience has been that RT is more or less unusable, I'm fascinated that other people seem to have no problems, or at least, I haven't seen any one complaining about the issues that I keep encountering. So, am I just particularly unlucky? Are other people seeing the same issues and just working around them? What's going on?
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 01-02-2017, 06:49 AM  
Why is there such a huge difference in colours between Photoshoot and Windows viewer
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 17
Views: 3,717
Color management with the windows photo viewer is a real crap shoot. What those images look like to me is that the original is in AdobeRGB 1998 color space and the windows photo viewer is using some default color space which is probably sRGB. If you use a colormunki to calibrate your display you need to make a version 2 ICC profile. It defaults to version 4 and the windows photo viewer only understands version 2. Adobe bridge is a good application to use since it is color managed. Also, soft proofing in Photoshop is the best method for print proofing. The Photos app in windows 10 isn't any better than the old photo viewer either.
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-19-2016, 09:27 AM  
Micro Four Thirds Club
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 6,127
Views: 526,371
Thanks! :-)
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 04-18-2016, 07:36 PM  
Micro Four Thirds Club
Posted By Homo_erectus
Replies: 6,127
Views: 526,371
Thanks for responding. I appreciate your sharing your experience.

I've been reading and experimenting with the af settings on the E-PL6 and I am actually able to do quite a bit better after just an hour or so. I've also now got about 50 shots of my stupid face from trying to fool the continuous af and eye detection. :D

Maybe I am being too conservative, but I am considering a used E-M5 to experiment with some more and then, if all goes well the E-M5 can be my backup for a current gen body.

Sorry to muck up the picture thread with so many words.

Here's a shot I took a while ago with my E-PL6 and the Sigma 60mm.

I have no idea why the forum keeps rejecting my image link :-( Here's a direct link Vivasecting the Robot - Abe Olson Photography

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