In a recent post, I wrote this:-
'My current way of
working with the software is to produce a reasonably 'flat' tiff file
from Iridient Developer, with no sharpening but some colour noise
reduction applied and then finish it off in Photoshop. The conversions
are so good that I'm able to upsize them quite dramatically to 24MP and
36MP in Photoshop, using the new resize option, with very little loss of
detail.'
and
'I'm not saying
that upsized Fuji X-E1 or Leica X Vario upsized files are as good as
native D800E files, they are not, but they are pretty damn close. Close
enough in fact to suggest that I would be better off selling the Nikons
and concentrating on the Fuji X system, which in terms of speed,
features etc. is fine for me and what I shoot, and as far as I'm
concerned pretty much the right size and weight.'
So what am I talking about here?
Well, as I said, I'm not saying that a Fuji X file, even upsized in Iridient Developer is the equal of a Nikon D800E file, particularly when the Nikon file is processed from raw. But a carefully processed and upsized Fuji X-E1 file is pretty close to an out of camera Nikon D800E jpg.
I did this test making sure that I didn't do a close-up which generally makes anything look good and I made sure that both images were processed using standard default settings. Settings were - ISO 200 for the Fuji, ISO 100 for the Nikon, 18mm for the Fuji and 28mm for the Nikon, both at f/8, tripod mounted, auto white balance. The X-E1 preset used in Iridient Developer and the standard jpg. default setting for the Nikon.
The Fuji file was upsized to the same size of the Nikon in Iridient Developer and not Photoshop for the purposes of this test. Both of course could be processed better (or worse!) with some tweaking and by using the Nikon raw file. To my eyes the Nikon is still sharper and nicer looking but then this is a huge blowup and for reproduction purposes, and importantly as far as I'm concerned, for being accepted by picture libraries, there is virtually nothing in it. With some careful processing and post-processing I could probably get the two even closer, but this will show just what the X-Trans sensor is capable of once its files are processed in a software package that attempts to do them justice.
The Fuji file was upsized to the same size of the Nikon in Iridient Developer and not Photoshop for the purposes of this test. Both of course could be processed better (or worse!) with some tweaking and by using the Nikon raw file. To my eyes the Nikon is still sharper and nicer looking but then this is a huge blowup and for reproduction purposes, and importantly as far as I'm concerned, for being accepted by picture libraries, there is virtually nothing in it. With some careful processing and post-processing I could probably get the two even closer, but this will show just what the X-Trans sensor is capable of once its files are processed in a software package that attempts to do them justice.
I should of course make it clear that I have no particular agenda here, and the test is primarily for me to see if a Fuji X camera can 'replace' the Nikon D800E for my purposes. I must repeat again I'm not saying the Fuji is even the equal of the Nikon in terms of image quality at this size, it isn't, but its probably close enough for virtually any commercial use, as far as I'm concerned and this test encourages me to try some other combinations out to see just what I can achieve.
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