Survey: Leica Support for Raw Converter Apps

[Anbaric]

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7 minutes ago, SrMi said:

You suggested shipping Leica customized Capture One Express with Leica cameras. What we individually prioritize is irrelevant. Most important is that the software supports all camera features, not only a subset.

Of course, proper support of available lenses is important.

Well, Capture One Express is something Leica could reasonably choose to make available (or rather Capture One could in partnership with Leica, joining the select group of manufacturers they presumably have some commercial arrangement with, notably not including Canon). Like most raw converters, Capture One doesn't support every feature that Leica chooses to build in to their file format, but that's also true of other raw formats. Capture One doesn't support all Nikon raw features either (e.g. Active D-Lighting, which you need NX Studio to use) but I'm glad that the Nikon version of Capture One Express exists as a free download. Leica wouldn't be able to offer Adobe software in this way, because it is rental-only and likely to stay that way. Silkypix might be prepared to offer more customisable options and advanced features as a partner - Capture NX-D, the previous free package, was built on Silkypix and supported Nikon's proprietary stuff. I don't know if they are involved in the current NX Studio.

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[Kwesi]

1 hour ago, Anbaric said:

Well, Capture One Express is something Leica could reasonably choose to make available (or rather Capture One could in partnership with Leica, joining the select group of manufacturers they presumably have some commercial arrangement with, notably not including Canon). Like most raw converters, Capture One doesn't support every feature that Leica chooses to build in to their file format, but that's also true of other raw formats. Capture One doesn't support all Nikon raw features either (e.g. Active D-Lighting, which you need NX Studio to use) but I'm glad that the Nikon version of Capture One Express exists as a free download. Leica wouldn't be able to offer Adobe software in this way, because it is rental-only and likely to stay that way. Silkypix might be prepared to offer more customisable options and advanced features as a partner - Capture NX-D, the previous free package, was built on Silkypix and supported Nikon's proprietary stuff. I don't know if they are involved in the current NX Studio.

Quick question - why are you so fixated on free downloads? even when its at the expense of fun functionality? Just curious and meant as a friendly question.

In your opinion, what kind of Leica user is this supposed to be a benefit?

[Patrick NL]

Lightroom with a touch of Photoshop. I have the Photographers bundle which I think is reasonably priced. And Lightroom gets better and better. No reason for me to look for something else…

[Anbaric]

3 minutes ago, Kwesi said:

Quick question - why are you so fixated on free downloads? even when its at the expense of fun functionality? Just curious and meant as a friendly question.

In your opinion, what kind of Leica user is this supposed to be a benefit?

Fixated? It's just a normal thing I'd expect every camera manufacturer to provide, a means of turning their raw files into something usable with their own camera profiling, without subscriptions or overpriced annual updates that to some of us often don't add much of value beyond compatibility. Some companies even have a couple of different options. Strikingly, Leica is now the sole exception, though it hasn't always been. Since they are asking us what we'd like them to do, that is my answer (and I responded to the survey accordingly). I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't want this option to be available, even if they don't use it themselves. Like those bundled straps we may or may not like, including this basic option would have a neglible impact on the price of the gear. And like the copy of Capture One LE that came with the M8, I predict that it's something people would use if they had the choice. Even in the Leica world, a fair number of people don't like software rentals like Adobe's on principle, and I haven't detected any enthusiasm for the new Capture One Pro update policy that seems intended to drive us towards subscriptions.

Partly this is coloured (as it were) by more own experience with raw converters. When I first got a Nikon that shot raw, I tried the usual things, including Adobe Camera Raw and various dedicated raw converters with extensive adjustment options. Rather to my surprise, the Nikon-tuned software gave me better results with less fiddling, even when I used the rather limited Nikon View software that was their free option at the time. Nikon or their developer partners had obviously spent a lot of time on profiling, and the colours and skin tones were just right, much like the in-camera jpegs, but with more scope to adjust things. It was much more work to get pleasing results with ACR. Only Capture One, which I tried later, gave me something comparable.

[Kwesi]

Thanks for explaining - very helpful and I hope Leica listens to you. Perhaps adding raw file conversion to Leica Fotos could be a small first step

[jto555]

I know Photoshop is there but I don't see Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw. 

[rramesh]

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[ramarren]

The cost of developing, testing, and delivering a high quality software application like Lightroom or DPP is approximately $100 million dollars a year. It takes teams of people. 

NIkon, Canon, et al sell tens of thousands of cameras per year. Amortizing the cost of their supplied "free" software across their entire product lines is a much much different game than Leica can play, who sells maybe a couple thousand cameras per year at most. 

People who want a high quality "free" way to process Leica DNG files ... well, if you use Apple systems, the Leica cameras are all included in the raw conversion capabilities of Photos, which comes with all macOS, iOS, and iPadOS systems. It produces results comparable to the best third party software, and there are available add-ons (like RAW Power) that use the same frameworks and are very low cost, and give much more editing flexibility than the standard controls of Photos. 

I use Lightroom (now LR Classic) for all my cameras, and have been since the middle '00s. Works fine, doesn't cost too much per year, and is constantly being improved. It's not the best, but it's good enough.

G

[Aldophoto]

18 hours ago, Anbaric said:

...

So my suggestion to Leica would be to have a chat with Capture One (who they already collaborate with) or Silkypix and make a deal to provide an approved manufacturer-specific raw converter as a free download just like everyone else does. Surely that's not too much to ask for when you buy a £7,800 camera?

if I'm not wrong, in the past, Capture One came free with a Leica camera purchase: I got my free version with my M8

[Anbaric]

20 hours ago, ramarren said:

The cost of developing, testing, and delivering a high quality software application like Lightroom or DPP is approximately $100 million dollars a year. It takes teams of people. 

NIkon, Canon, et al sell tens of thousands of cameras per year. Amortizing the cost of their supplied "free" software across their entire product lines is a much much different game than Leica can play, who sells maybe a couple thousand cameras per year at most. 

People who want a high quality "free" way to process Leica DNG files ... well, if you use Apple systems, the Leica cameras are all included in the raw conversion capabilities of Photos, which comes with all macOS, iOS, and iPadOS systems. It produces results comparable to the best third party software, and there are available add-ons (like RAW Power) that use the same frameworks and are very low cost, and give much more editing flexibility than the standard controls of Photos. 

I use Lightroom (now LR Classic) for all my cameras, and have been since the middle '00s. Works fine, doesn't cost too much per year, and is constantly being improved. It's not the best, but it's good enough.

G

I have no idea how many dollars Adobe throw at one of their major cash cows (they hoover up $18 billion a year in revenue, after all), but $100M is much more than most developers of raw software can possibly spend. Capture One's annual revenue is only $31M, and ON1's is under $5M. If Canon are spending $100M on DPP, they might want to look into why their developers are living on a superyacht.

Does it make sense for niche companies that sell just thousands of cameras a year to develop their own software? Probably not, though Hasselblad (or a contractor) does exactly that. But they don't have to, because there are companies like Ichikawa (Silkypix) who can do it for them. The software has already been written, and can be lightly customised (e.g. Fuji RFC) or heavily customised with a different interface and support for proprietary features (e.g. Nikon Capture NX-D). Right now, Silkypix are selling Fuji and Panasonic-specific versions of the latest Silkypix for under $30. The versions distributed for free by the camera companies are based on an earlier version of Silkypix and have fewer features enabled, which presumably makes them cheaper to licence, and they are effectively making a bulk purchase. So what would it cost to distribute an equivalent copy for every Leica sold? Maybe 0.1% of the cost of a $9000 M11? Probably less than the price of the strap that quite a lot of users leave in the box.

I don't know what financial arrangements Sony, Fuji and Nikon have with Capture One to make Express versions, but I doubt they pay them a great deal, especially as each also has a primary own-branded raw package written by Silkypix (or whoever - I'm not sure if NX Studio is made by them). Capture One retains control of the distribution of Express and has the opportunity to upsell customers on Pro, because the same download is used to install the Pro and Demo versions of the full product, as well as any of the three Express versions, depending on what licence you have. Again, nearly all the work has already been done - the three Express versions are nearly identical. The camera companies presumably collaborate with Capture One on profiling their gear to get nice colours, which we know Leica is already doing for Capture One Pro.

[Anbaric]

15 hours ago, Aldophoto said:

if I'm not wrong, in the past, Capture One came free with a Leica camera purchase: I got my free version with my M8

Yes, they did just that. It was Capture One LE 3, a basic version comparable to today's Capture One Express (which unfortunately isn't available for Leica; the Express versions are all locked to a specific system - Fuji, Sony, or Nikon).

Edited August 17, 2023 by Anbaric

[graphlex]

There is a new entrant called “Darkroom”.  It’s not expensive and does a perfectly good job with Leica’s DNG files.  It got a plug from Leica somewhere or other, which is how I came across it. 

[ramarren]

Canon sells roughly 3.5-4.5 million cameras a year. Even if $100M is too high a number for DPP, they can easily afford whatever the high cost to develop DPP might be by charging a little bit out of every camera's cost for software development personnel. Same for Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and most of the other mass market manufacturers. Leica sells on the order of 100,000 cameras a year, all models put together, and simply don't have that option. 

Well, it doesn't really matter to me at all whether Leica produces their own image processing software. As long as they continue to make cameras at the quality level of the Leica M, etc, I'm happy to buy other vendors' image processing software... by comparison to the cost of Leica body and lens, the software expense to me is inconsequential. 

G

[graphlex]

4 hours ago, graphlex said:

There is a new entrant called “Darkroom”.  It’s not expensive and does a perfectly good job with Leica’s DNG files.  It got a plug from Leica somewhere or other, which is how I came across it. 

Actually I think the plug may have come from Apple…it isn’t a substitute for LR but it’s interesting at the price.

[Anbaric]

10 hours ago, ramarren said:

Canon sells roughly 3.5-4.5 million cameras a year. Even if $100M is too high a number for DPP, they can easily afford whatever the high cost to develop DPP might be by charging a little bit out of every camera's cost for software development personnel. Same for Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and most of the other mass market manufacturers. Leica sells on the order of 100,000 cameras a year, all models put together, and simply don't have that option.

Hasselblad must sell far fewer cameras than Leica, yet they have their own converter. I don't think making something like this is remotely as expensive as you imagine, or small companies like ON1 could not exist. But Leica wouldn't have to (and probably shouldn't) go down this route, or employ their own developers. They don't have to write their own software any more than they have to make their own sensors. Appropriate software has already been written by the two companies that collaborate with all the other camera manufacturers. Leica is currently working with one of these, Capture One, and used to distribute a basic version of their converter with the M8.

All Leica would need to provide is their expertise on camera profiling etc. so that raw processing can be optimised (something they are already doing with Capture One, and are inviting our suggestions about here) and all the third party developer would have to do is some minor customisation (e.g. to limit the converter so that it will only accept files tagged Leica and to disable advanced features, which they may require to protect sales of their flagship product). Leica wouldn't necessarily have to pay a flat fee that has to be spread over a certain number of sales, either. Capture One handles the Sony, Fuji and Nikon Capture One Express downloads, and presumably counts them. The other free Silkypix-based converters are distributed directly by the manufacturers, who presumably count downloads too. The software companies also benefit from optimised processing of Leica files in their full product, and in most cases the opportunity to upsell to that product, so everyone wins.

[Denebola]

I appreciate the idea, a very good initiative by Leica. Hope that the sw manufacturer who could take advantage of this idea will implement all the extra/better support they could get in their programs.

I also would like to see (as other does, like Nikon) a program to download the pictures via usb cable to Windows/iOS: relying to just PTP/mass storage connection to perform this is too limitative and take away the control of this action to Leica.

Also I would like that Leica custom Exif data specs could be more widely diffused, so not to force the users to become computer specialist in order to get some specific information about the pictures (like digging in image hex data with Exiftool to discover that “Unknown 0x412” is the field where the Film Style information is stored, just to say an example)

Hope this helps.

Again thanks to Leica!

Den

[Donald M]

Personally I don’t see a reason why Leica should include a raw converter. Maybe it’s the other way around: LR, ON1, C1, etc should supply a free subscription for say 6 months so you can decide which one you like and want to continue the subscription with. Maybe that way a company can lure you away from your current subscription because for some reason you like the new one more… Leica then should supply the information to them to get the best results for your raws. 

[Anbaric]

Most have a trial version already, though Adobe's 7-day period is not exactly generous. Capture One gives you 30 days, which seems long enough to decide.

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[Anbaric]

26 minutes ago, Denebola said:

Also I would like that Leica custom Exif data specs could be more widely diffused, so not to force the users to become computer specialist in order to get some specific information about the pictures (like digging in image hex data with Exiftool to discover that “Unknown 0x412” is the field where the Film Style information is stored, just to say an example)

Have you decoded the different values of this field? - worth contributing them to ExifTool if you have, though as you say Leica should make this information available themselves.

[newtoleica]

I hade faffing with new software, its not what I want to spend my time on photographically.

I used to use Aperture with Nix plug ins then was forced to shift to Lightroom CC. Hate the subscription model but have too much invested in it to change and C1 is 2x the cost.