X1 - I don't think I've ever had a dSLR that has done so well with JPGs and AWB...

[Feudal1]

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As a new X1 owner who has also shot with various Canon and Nikon digital bodies in the past, I'm finding that the X1 does a lot better with JPG file generation, color reproduction, and automatic white balance than any of these other bodies. With the Canon and Nikon bodies, I've typically post-processed most photos using their RAW files, but with the X1, the JPG files really don't need much tweaking to look really good.

 

As an example, I grabbed this shot coming out of a restaurant at noon today - nothing special about the photo, but Nikons and Canons I've shot would have had a hard time not blowing out the red channel of this flower in the midday sun, unless I really underexposed the shot. And even then, would require some work to get the color looking right. The X1 being able to generate good looking JPG files is really a time saver.

 

Needless to say, so far, I'm pretty pleased with what I'm seeing with the image quality.

 

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[prk60091]

Enjoy your new camera and welcome to the x1 forum. As a fellow "jpg'r" you will love the results from this camera I enjoy the colors of that flower,

[Paul Hart]

Congratulations on your X1. It's an extremely versatile little camera. There's little about it that I don't like. Explore manual focus mode with v2 firmware as soon as you can. Use ISO 1600 without hesitation. Ignore the nay-sayers who don't own one but pontificate about it anyway. Here's a floral tribute from England.

 

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http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5068/5672871676_5ba5577ef1_b.jpg' alt='5672871676_5ba5577ef1_b.jpg'>

2011-04-30 at 16-23-14 by Hart from Golborne, on Flickr[/img]

[spylaw4]

Nice photos, welcome to the Forum.

 

I have a horrible felling that these images are going to get zapped over to somewhere in the photo forum where they will get lost in the mess of other shots.

 

What we need in this forum is an ongoing thread equivalent to the one in the Digital forum "Do digilux 2 photos have a distinctive look?" This ongoing thread has 1117 postings. Moving images posted here into the photo forum once they appear even if trying to make or illustrate a point or ask a question is IMO not helpful.

 

BTW this does not mean that I am in favour of allowing unlimited image posting here, the thread I am suggesting needs to be used with care and thought. Think before you post!

[andybarton]

It is acceptable to place photographs in threads outside the Photo sub-section, if they are illustrating a specific technical point.

 

But, photos that are "just" "Look at what I shot today", will be moved to the appropriate Photo section.

 

I think that the rules are perfectly clear on this point.

[magnolio]

So are we quite a number, or not? Thanks for sharing these flowers.

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[andybarton]

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That shot looks like it has a cast to me

[Feudal1]

So, in order to explore and learn more about my new X1, I took it along with my Pentax K-5 into downtown Washington, DC last night, to capture shots of the various memorials with my brother-in-law, who is also into photography. The X1 is NOT good for street shooting in low light, and my experiments last night left no doubt. However, for taking landscape shots, it's excellent.

 

So I set it up on a tripod, and jumped into Manual mode for the first time. Can I just say, that I love the simplicity with which you change modes - the aperture and shutter dials on the top of the camera work together beautifully. With the shot below, I found that I needed an exposure time of more than a second, and initially, I couldn't figure out how to do that. However, following the visual queue on the screen, I figured out that rotating the thumb dial on the front of the camera, when the exposure dial is set to 1 second, does actually allowing you to set the exposure for more than a second. Excellent!

 

Now, with it being 10:30pm at night, I wasn't sure what to expect with the auto focus. We were setup on the other side of the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial, which is a distance of about 1500 ft. I wanted to capture the reflections of the memorial in the water of the basin, along with the atmospheric lights of the city itself. I was able to move the focus point to the upper left part of the frame where the memorial itself sat, then hit the shutter. Auto focus was pretty quick to pick up the focus (I'd estimate less than a second), and accurate to boot. Shot taken. Focus nailed. I then took a few more shots, playing with the aperture and shutter speed to get the effect I wanted. The simplicity of those dials on the top of the camera really allowed me to focus on the shot I wanted. In comparison, the K-5 has a lot of dials, switches and buttons, so changing things around took longer there, especially when working in the dark.

 

In the photo below, one thing I want to point out, is that I did not have to do anything with white balance. AWB all the way. In comparison, the K-5, which is usually OK with white balance, tended to make all the photos I shot last night a little too orange. That's my fault, because I should have dialed in a manual white balance myself for the K-5. However, the fact that the X1 nailed the white balance without my intervention is a nice little bonus, which helped me focus more on composition and photo taking, as opposed to fiddling with the camera. I think I now understand why Leica folks love the simplicity of cameras like the M9 (and of course, the X1). Simplicity is good.

 

Anyway, here is the shot. I used the RAW file for this, and made a few minor adjustments in post-processing to get it looking the way I imagined it should be. I also cropped it to about 75% of it's original size, to remove some of the the water in the bottom half of the photo. I'll be posting a few other images I like in the X1 Photos Thread, but figured I would include this one here to show the end results of my first real outing with the camera.

 

[andybarton]

I don't understand. You started this thread about how good you think the jpg shots from your camera are, and then this shot is a RAW processed shot.

[Feudal1]

I don't understand. You started this thread about how good you think the jpg shots from your camera are, and then this shot is a RAW processed shot.

 

Andy, sorry - the thread kind of morphed into more specific impressions of the joy and simplicity of using the camera controls, and my first real time spent shooting it. The JPG output is great, but I still like to process RAW files on occasion if I want or need to get something more out of them. With the nighttime shooting, I needed to process the RAW file to get a little more color in the sky and water, and given the choice between RAW and JPG for that type of processing, I'll pick the RAW for it's greater dynamic range in post-processing.

 

I'm more than happy to remove the image from my last post if I'm breaking any rules here. Just let me know.

[JeTexas]

I actually find the auto white balance lacking. It's passable outdoors, but I get a horrible yellow cast indoors. I generally leave the camera set to black & white high contrast because I really love the look of photos in that setting and find it hard to duplicate well in post processing. Then I always convert from the RAW file for color shots.