User Usee has showed me how great those “-2.0″ shots can look when proper sharpening has been applied using Silkypix Pro 5. He writes over at dpreview’s image gallery;

This is my post processed version from Carl Rytterfalks SD1 .X3F SDIM1547. Be aware that this version isn’t for commercial use and exclusively made for Carl Rytterfalk, due to his asking in this thread: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=38842496 …for showing the possibilities the SD1 offers, if it is used in conjunction with Silkypix Pro 5. The hint to the source (link above and Silkypix Pro 5 as post processing software) has to be made, if this version is shown. Thank You for being decent!

Sigma, please rethink how sharpening is done in Sigma Photo Pro 5. Why not have the Silkypix people make the future SPP but using some of your processing? Silkypix Pro with only Sigma support and let the user pay extra to get the extended version? :) Just saying..

Edit: I now use the free open source based software RawTherapee and even if it’s far from perfect it has great sharpening abilities. Here’s a dog shot from a couple of days ago..

Original size (Full SD1 resolution)
Colors did not come out as I liked them.. They look different in SPP5 and RawTherapee AND then in Aperture as well.. :) Something isn’t right here. But still. Detail is nice.

Went out today with the intend to do some shooting with my friend Bengt Werner – while on my way I stumbled upon another photographer which tried desperately to find the little kingfisher that had hidden himself somewhere.. I took him with me and off we went all three into the wilderness of sweden and finally there (around the corner from anywhere) we found an Emu.. (Dromaius novaehollandiae) And of course I had to take a few shots – I’ll show you one..

Sigma SD15, 50-500 @ ISO100

Now. The thing I really wanted to talk about wasn’t this bird – but those colors when dealing with ISO400 and above – using Silkypix! And the strangest thing was when I imported some shots taken just before entering home – standing at my door I shot some small birds sitting in a bush – light was bad and I switched to ISO400 and OS on – these shots looked pretty bad opened in Lightroom but instead of crying I tried opening one of them in Silkypix and what a sight! It was really like day and night – never seen such direct difference before.

I did know that Lightroom processed my Dp1x files pretty bad but didn’t know it could mess up my SD15 files this much! Oh, and yes, I’m ok with some noise so LR3 has normal noise reduction turned on while Silkypix has very little of it.  Still.

All photos below shot using 50-500 with OS and ISo400+ (some came out darker and had to be pushed some)

ISO400 50-500 @ 450mm 1/30s hand held.

This last one one stop under exposed – pushed to ISO800.

And as always – they are all viewable at it’s full glory at my 2011 spring set at flickr. I might also add that I also tried to open one of the shots using Sigma Photo Pro and it came out beautiful as well, so no need to get Silkypix just because of these birds.. :) SPP is still free!

Sigma DP2, Silkypix development. Full size.

At least I think she is a relative, somewhere there on Linn’s side.

A year ago I used Silkypix quite a lot, I really loved its noise and color control, I was running the UK 4.0 Pro version and at the time it had native support for SD9, 10 and SD14 raw files. One day not long ago there was an update released with SD15, DP1 and DP2 support – (maybe DP1 was supported before) but when installing the update my software died. And no delete, reinstall worked until a couple of days ago. I decided to have a look at some old DP2 files (Was trying to find something useful to show Kendall who asked about using the Dp2 in the studio) and I just wanted to show you three shots taken at ISO400 and ISO800. The way you can control colors is just amazing..

They all have been straightened and rotated a little too, so keep that in mind when pixel peeping if that’s your thing.

They’re all available as full sized version and I might add that there is quite a lot of visible noise, but only the good looking and real version. :)

Full size can be found in my Spring 2011 set.

Headlines! ahh..

I wanted to give you a little treat. Three shots each developed using one out of three great Sigma RAW developers. I took about a hundred shots of Ester, the dog and my little sister and most of them came home in very good condition. Focusing is fast and snaps into place, most of the time on the correct spot. But I’m looking forward to see how well the 50-500 works together with the SD15. Can I catch a running dog?

First out. Silkypix! Shot was once more wide open (f6,3) and at 450mm. ISO 100. I turned off (more or less) noise reduction in silkypix to gain some natural noise but it did paint a little as you can see if you open up the full version. SPP version is softer but also very nice looking without smear.  Open original size.

Sigma Photo Pro 4 does a very good job, and gives a slightly more warm tone – which fits this image very nicely. Also, details overall looks much better here then with Silkypix. But Silkypix often gives very “pleasing” colors and you have such nice control. mm. f7.1 This one is at a full 500mm. This one in original size. (I did not focus at the dog)

And lastly Raw Developer. Raw developer has such nice controls over RGB curves, lightness, overexposure, sharpness, black and white and noise. BUT it’s trickier to get perfect white balance then most other developers. I was actually helped by having Silkypix open at the same time, showing the same image. You need to know your thing but once you do Raw Developer squeezes out slightly more detail than any other developer and can give very film-like images. This one has noise reduction completely turned off. 373mm. Full size.

Other posts on the 50-500 OS
http://www.rytterfalk.com/category/lens/50-500os/

(See full size version)

Happy New Year 2010!! Well, I’m late, I know. But I just came back from celebrating the new year up at my big sisters place in Brålanda. It’s so far away from everything and Internet hasn’t reached them just yet.. (not). I’m not too often up at her place, it’s a 100km drive (that’s the only good excuse I have not to go there more often and I know she reads this)..

Ah, and you might wonder why I have no splendid pictures of cool firecrackers – Well, it all comes down to luck and really, really bad timing. In Brålanda (a small town of what seams to me to be around 10 people) people have firecrackers but they all live randomly around my tripods position and none of them had ANY understanding of photography or photographers. They could have said: – I’ll let another rocket up right now, and I’ll wait for your signal Carl. But no, they just let them up a little here and there and always in the wrong direction from where I stood with my 20-30s exposure.

Oh well, there is always another one coming!

Now, all these shots has been taken with my Sigma SD14 – some of them using the 120-300 and others using a new lens that I will get back to in a while. (all wider shots). 90% has been developed using SPP with minor adjustments using LR3 before flickry upload. The rest (two shots) has been developed using Silkypix.

Flickr gallery with all shots in full size.

(All above shots except the bird has been shot using the other lens..)

Now, the new year started with lots and lots of snow. We had to stay one extra day because of it. Below you’ll find “extra day with snow and my sisters family”, pictures.


Above shot taken in high speed inside car – zooming out with speed (ever tried that??) trying to get a stable shot.

This guy was driving on a road and he really had no clue where the road was and ended up in the ditch. We stopped and helped. We’re sooo good. :D (Linn helped too) – and YES I do know that car is in focus and not the guys eyes! :P

Not sure how to make a correct white balance when it’s taken when it’s really dark and really cold. This shot is hand held at ISO400 and 1/10s and is mysteriously sharp. hmmm… :)

(Last one is a 100% crop of the picture before that – Snow gives the shot a almost painted effect that I like). :)

Take a look at the Original.
(Above shot as been (re)developed using Silkypix and has noise reduction almost completely turned off). See new post including above as RAW for your own fun!

Today I had my last photo class for this term,  I brought my SD14 and the trusty 18-50 2.8. It’s a bit short to be a perfect studio lens, I often find myself a tad too close. :) I think the 24-70 might be better suited but what the 18-50 really has is a GREAT crispiness, very sharp and nice to handle. Most of the time spot on.

Also, the Japanese version of Silkypix for Mac is released (Thanks Gen!) and it’s a joy to be able to work without starting VMWare. :D – the old .dat trick works great if your Japanese is as bad as mine. Also, I now have another 30 days of fun. ;)

It’s now much faster, and most everything is better but the real-time preview when hovering on different WB’s etc is now history. Perhaps a windows only thing. Too bad.

These photos now has been developed in Silkypix and then saved as TIFF and post-processed using Lightroom 3b (that’s where I upload to flickr) – I also painted the background on each shot with a slight color of blue, different tint every time I think. hehe.. Oh well.. Only for fun.

View BIG version..

2 världar and Broshan (names of above guys) is about to release a new album called Hollywood and asked me if I could take their cover shot. Bob and Olga was staying at my place at the time so we decided to have some fun together. With me and Bob dealing with the camera, Olga took the job of running around with the light, light in this case is my beloved Elinchrom Quadra. It was difficult to find a good spot that was dark enough because we were limited by time – (we had about 30min). Actually we took what was closest at hand, beside the very parking lot that we were at. :) But it worked out great! Olga did a great job of light painting. (above shot is taken with a Nikon D700)

I also went to Brålanda taking this shot of one of my students there – this time using a small LED lamp that someone lent me. and then ending the whole thing with a flash from the Quadra. Above shot is developed using the latest version of Silkypix pro for Foveon. And that shot is a 30s exposure taken with the SD14. Heavily cropped too..

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.

Sigma Photo pro Original

Silkypix Original

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”.

Picture taken with Sigma 18-50ex macro.

Pretty amazing really how shallow DOF can isolate an object like this. It’s like entering a new world, and I find it very fascinating. Above shot is taken with the Sigma DP2.

Original

As some of you noticed we like mushrooms, and fall in Sweden is like candy store for kids. These mushrooms are called Trattkantareller in Swedish and Cantharellus tubaeformis in Latin. Now you know. And we will dry them and use them during the cold and inhuman Swedish wintertime. See above shot at original size.

Here follows some shots that been on flickr for some time, but without me saying much. These are a bit Strobist as you can see how I did most of them. :) Btw, Everything in this post is developed using Silkypix. I actually learned more on how to use Silkypix since I developed these but they’ll do for now.

Before

After

And how this is done and some more, watch this movie in HD and full screen. :)

What do you think? :)

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. :)

Download the Silkypix Raw Pack.. 109MB ZIP file.

Get the Silkypix beta software, go here for info.
Get flyingroosters test RAW file (used in his comments below). Download.
Get BiggyDogs English menu fix (read comment for install help). Download

You want to make my next video together with me? With Screen share it’s easy and all you need is a Leopard equipped Mac with microphone. Also, you should be interested in talking Silkypix and image quality. But that includes most people visiting this site? :D  It’s nothing advanced or fancy just a bouncing ball of thoughts and images..I have lots of good and bad images, and many developers installed to make it more fun.

Are you with me? iChat: Rytterfalk

Original, full quality.

Above shot is taken in a studio yesterday (the place I worked with jpegs only – this shot I took as RAW though).  The shot came out underexposed and has been adjusted solely inside Silkypix (except for the white border). Even the copyright text is inserted inside Silkypix. (Really good control over watermarks btw).

So what do I think about Silkypix? I have found both greatness and the other way in the way Silkypix does its processing. The good thing about silkypix is that you can go back to the start, take away all noise reduction, all sharpening, all whatever they applied when you first open the shot – and slowly adjust to you liking. You have very nice control over colors and contrast – better than Lightroom (at least better for SD / DP shots) and also parts of it is better than SPP.

I’m now putting together a video showing the good and the bad. With some comparisons with SPP and RD. Perhaps LR and Darkroom too? If my RAM is big enough. hehe. Poor iMac.

FlyingRooster has posted his findings as a comment in this thread. Including comparison images. Well worth reading.