Canon 5D Mark 2 shot taken with the very good 100-400 IS and now, after some debating with myself, I tried more developers to see what would give the very best feeling for this shot. I used two developers that I think people use and you have them above. The RAW is also available if you want to try your way. Please leave your result as a comment. Now, Sigma. Please bring that SD15, or perhaps even that SD16 too? Look how bored I am. :)
Movie below shows what I mean with bleeding colors in Silkypix and how you solve it – but I must admit that in many pictures, this type of noise reduction is clearly visible in a way that I really don’t like – especially in bokeh areas. Lucky for us you can reduce and perfect it to your liking, but only almost. Sigma Photo Pro has a better way of noise reduction. I guess they should have being the master of everything Foveon but still.. Also, Sigma has a really really nice sharpening that is somehow not affecting areas out of focus in the same way as the rest of our developers. (RD, Silky and LR included). The Video below tries to somehow show what I mean. Also the RAW is available in this post.
I’m sorry for not being very clear when speaking. I hardly hear myself sometimes. grr.
EDIT: Now LINKS ARE FIXED FOR REAL! Man that was tricky. :D Now you can switch between shots easily. Raw file for download here!
It’s quite a big difference if you click between. Especially at skin tones / skin contrast and the blue thingi. In Silkypix you have so many options – and it’s easy to loose yourself in all possibilities. The blue has been desaturated using the special color wheel and lightened and all green tones has been moved towards a greyish saturation as well as little magenta. Also noise reduction has been reduced quite a lot as blue has a tendency to bleed. Why I have no idea, something with the noise reduction in Silkypix. Raw Developer has a better solution I think.
To be fair, SPP (Sigma Photo Pro) is made with more or less one click. Nothing really changed. I use florescent WB with a warmer touch using color wheel. Other than that it’s “out of the box”.
Updated! Now including the RAW from Flyingrooster and Biggydogs english fix.
Movie is now OK. ;)
I also baked a nice little raw pack for you so that if you don’t currently have a Sigma, you can at least play around with some files. It’s a small collection of recent pictures taken with SD14, DP1 and DP2.
The above movie is recorded as HD (1280×720) so view full screen with HD turned on for best experience. It’s currently processed and might be done when you watch. :)
Here’s the RAW from the video if you wanna play some yourself. All Raw developers links can be found on the right side. –>
Playing some with RD’s monochome settings. It gives something cool. Pretty dirty if you press the original, both is higher ISO too – a little bit above iso200 (so no extreme amounts) mostly because they came out underexposed.
After much playing to fully understand ACR I realized that I better call Bob. Bob is not only a good friend of mine, he’s also a very good photographer and designer. In this video he’s showing us (me) how to start with a picture in ACR to get the best possible result. The picture is also availible as RAW so that you can play along. Download RAW now! (right click and save as)
Presented in 1280×720 HD and is best viewed in full screen and HD mode. Enjoy!
Here’s the RAW file used in the movie: Right click and select save as. This is a naked RAW and might be read as some text junk.
Alright, this is my very first public test of ACR 5.4 and as you will hear this is a test done in realtime! Which also means that whatever I say might have a different solution. I have never been a fan of how Adobe reads any of my Sigma raw files (with Lightroom or ACR) and I thought that perhaps this time would be different. I saw many comparisons made over at the dpreview Sigma forum but none of them really sticked (whatever that means).
So I selected a random shot from yesterday, a 6s exposure done in evening just before sunset, you will see how I develop in SPP (might give you a few clues to how things are done my way) and you will see what I do in ACR in order to really make a mess. ;)
This movie is uploaded with a very very carefully compressed x264 codec (open source) so that gamma info is correct and uploaded with 1280×720 to youtube – I’m corny as usual but you can live with that!
Sigma shots needs your attention! They’re not ready to go just like that – but more something like in the old days when you had to care for the image to be rewarded. You can spend seconds or hours inside Sigma Photo Pro to get “that” – Sigma shots rarely start out perfect when opened, you might wanna change WB and perhaps color mode to get the most out – or add some contrast or even saturation if that’s your thing. The thing is that Foveon images become magic in a whole different way compared to bayern alternatives – especially when taken in RAW.
This pack also includes some tricky shots for educational purposes!
(or just because I didn’t set correct settings before taking the picture)
Here’s one from the pack, taken at ISO100 at f2.8
And a 100% crop from the above shot. Pretty impressive detail and thickness don’t you think from a “point and shot” sized camera?. Image is perhaps a bit dark and maybe WB could be better, hmmm – Open the pack up and deal with it! :) – I don’t mind you posting your version of these, but please tell where you found them.
No people inside more than inside the movie. Will make another pack with some skin. You’re free to play around with these for noncommercial purposes only. If anything else, please contact me. Also note that these are taken with a pre-production camera but using the “final” firmware.
It’s my pure pleasure to present to you my friend Magnus. He came to one of my photo lessons and for this lesson we rented a smaller studio and he was maybe the best target I could ask for. I used the DP1 most of the time even though I did have the SD14 with me. I’m pretty sure the DP2 will become a very good friend to both me and my DP1 ones it’s out. For your info I used one big softbox and a white backdrop. I tried to have the light straight behind me so I kneeled under it to take these shots. (it also made sense to go down, this guy is 14 years old and not very big). Wanna see this image at full resolution?
I felt for some time that the DP1 have much better battery life than I expected or felt at first – mainly due to the fact that my initial shooting habit changed some with time – my interest in zooming into every single detail in every image has now matured and I can relax more.
I decided to make new test.
I turned off the LCD, turned on full AF and put on the external view finder. In order to take as many shots as possible I also turned on continues mode. Three pictures was taken each time. (95% of the time). ISO100 used on the first 400 – then ISO400 after that. I restarted the camera 30 times in a row to make test more real. I shot some indoor and some out door. It does take some energy to take as many shots as I did. :D In one day.
[updated] It’s time for the first RAW pack! I think it’s an interesting selection of handheld shots (mirror image on tripod) that shows the ability of the Sigma DP1 in different environments. Make sure you have the Sigma Photo Pro 3.1 (mac) or Sigma Photo Pro 2.4 (PC) installed. The new DP1 raw format is different from the SD14′s. Photos taken in all different ISO speeds and different light. Good for SPP training. :)There is a video out where I play with these shots as well as others. Go to video.
I got lots of questions / full size sample requests about the first black and white portrait so I decided to make it available not as RAW this time but resized to match 14mp. All noise reduction is completely turned off (possible using Raw Developer) which gives extra detail and realistic, film like qualities. – I also saved info in the darker portion of the image.
No additional sharpening, level, curves etc. I did clone out part of a wall though and added vignetting. :) – This sample should be perfect for anyone having a printer and that would like to know what a SD14 4.6mp image will look like a bit bigger. There is stair stepping in this image and with qimage or other software it would probably look a bit better.
Nine RAW + One in-camera jpeg from my club-nights. The package is roughly 100mb, they’re all copyrighted but for your enjoyment / printing / testing / playing. If you wish to use any of these images for commercial purposes, please contact me first at carl@rytterfalk.com
DP2
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