Why weird .RWL RAW files from C112 rather than the DNG we all know and love?

[wlaidlaw]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I decided to take my wife's C112 to Taiwan with me, as she decided not to take it on her bike trip to Nepal but to use her older V-Lux 20, as it is is easier to use one handed than the C112. Also it would matter less if she dropped it. The C112 was much easier to fit in a pocket than my usual smaller than an M camera, my Olympus EP-5.

 

Now that I have got back, I plugged in the SD card from the C112 and fired up Capture One V8.Pro only to find it does not support .RWL files. Why on earth did Panasonic and Leica decide to go down this left field route, when they normally use the excellent industry standard DNG files for RAW. Even if you don't have a camera profile for the C112, the default DNG on C1 usually handles them pretty well.

 

I am going to have to grit my teeth and use the hated LightRoom

 

Wilson

[jaapv]

And if you run them through the DNG converter?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[stunsworth]

Why on earth did Panasonic and Leica decide to go down this left field route, when they normally use the excellent industry standard DNG files for RAW.

 

Panasonic makes the camera, and that's their RAW format. I'm sure they could have developed firmware that produced DNG format RAW files for the Leica version, but I can understand why they didn't.

[wlaidlaw]

And if you run them through the DNG converter?

 

DNG Converter appears to convert them but C1 will still not open. This apparently, was the same on D-Lux 4 files.

 

Someone made a utility called "Like a Leica" to convert the D-Lux 4 .RWL files so that C1 could open them but the utility does not work on the C112 files. I have contacted the utility maker and offered to send him a C112 file to see if he can do his magic on those.

 

Wilson

[jaapv]

So basically you have to open them in LR and then use C1 as the ctrl-alt-E...

[wlaidlaw]

Luckily I saved JPEG + RAW and the out-of-camera JPEG's for the C112 are not bad, albeit not quite as good as the Olympus EP-5's JPEG's. The main problem with the C112 JPEG's is headroom at the bright end of the range i.e it blows out highlights very easily. Highlight recovery on LR is less than impressive.

 

Wilson

[Jeff S]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Highlight recovery on LR is less than impressive.

 

Current iteration?

 

Jeff

[wlaidlaw]

Current iteration?

 

Jeff

 

Yes Jeff V 5.7. Now it may just be that there is not a lot of headroom to recover highlights on the C112 .RWL files, rather than the fault of LR. I don't use LR for my M DNG files but use Capture One instead, where there always seems to be a lot of headroom for recovery of highlights and "footroom" to recover shadows.

 

Wilson