Just got my D-Lux 4; can't believe Capture-1

[wmyowell]

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Hello all,

 

I just got my D-Lux 4 and am very pleased. It came with a real neck strap rather than the string one I'd seen pictured.

 

But, I can't believe Capture-1. I took a picture in RAW mode; I can view it on Capture-1, but there seems to be no save function. No instruction book for Capture-1. The "Help" feature is cute, but very difficult to use; couldn't fine any thing on saving. Really frustrated and furious here. I only hope that Photoshop will have a plug in so I can discard the damn thing.

 

Bill Yowell

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[macgarvin]

Bill -

 

Yes, I think it shows its age as well - its original purpose is to do minimum raw processing (rather like Camera Raw for Adobe) before handing on to eg Photoshop. So there is no local contrast control (Clarity), printing facility, chromatic aberration correction either. There was a logic to this . . . once . . . Things have moved on.

 

However there is a pdf booklet on the disk. You should also download the latest version of Capture One - that at least gives a sharper preview when the whole image is in view.

 

Then - if you want to get away from Camera One as quickly as possible - having done any preliminary processing or not you can save individual files or batch process the whole shoot, for example into TIFFs or DNGs (raw files that Lightroom or Photoshop can open). Select all images and have the shift key pressed when yoiu click 'process' - it is in the manual. I convert to DNGs and do all of my editing in lightroom/photoshop (see recent post) but you do then have to correct manually for the very significant barrel distortion at wide angles. If you export them all as TIFFs then the barrel correction will have been made automatically within Capture One, but of course TIFFs are not raw files.

 

Support for the Panasonic LX3 and presumably the D-lux 4 is supposed to come with Adobe Camera Raw 5.2 which is due 'soon'. There are apparently issues between panasonic and adobe, you can read (between the lines) about it on the Adobe website here

 

This issue is going to cause problems for any other software eg Apple Aperture and iPhoto if you want to shoot Raw as they will have to work out how to deal with this issue. Leica might be wise to reflect and say to Panasonic maybe we didn't think things through properly with this one ...

 

Malcolm

[cbretteville]

The user's guide for CaptureOne can be found here: Phase One -

 

- Carl

[alexc]

Yes this is a good idea. I do not like C1 and just convert files to DNG and and after that work in ACR. It has to be noted thoughthat if you do that you will notice more distortion, which is fixed is you process raw in C1.

 

BTW on the CD there is video tutorial for C1.

[miami91]

Hello all,

 

I just got my D-Lux 4 and am very pleased. It came with a real neck strap rather than the string one I'd seen pictured.

 

But, I can't believe Capture-1. I took a picture in RAW mode; I can view it on Capture-1, but there seems to be no save function. No instruction book for Capture-1. The "Help" feature is cute, but very difficult to use; couldn't fine any thing on saving. Really frustrated and furious here. I only hope that Photoshop will have a plug in so I can discard the damn thing.

 

Bill Yowell

 

I was in the same boat --- not owning an M8, I'd never used Capture One. I'll suggest what helped me --- do the tutorial video contained on the program disk. This should get you up to speed rather quickly.

 

Capture One is what it is --- a RAW processing utility. It's not image management software, and doesn't have a whole lot of bells/whistles for post processing. But what it does it does very well --- convert RAW files with excellent detail, sharpness, contrast, and noise handling. For fine tuning in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture, run a process recipe to TIFF, and then import the resulting images into the other app. As has been mentioned, you can also do a process recipe to DNG, but note that this creates a different version of unadjusted raw file, meaning that any adjustments you make in Capture One (or that Capture One does for you via the profile defaults) will be lost when outputting to DNG.

 

Best,

 

Jeff.

[macgarvin]

A pretty good response rate from Adobe - 17 minutes! :

 

Malcolm MacGarvin

- 2:13pm Nov 19, 08 PST (#44 of 45)

When ACR 5.2 comes, hopefully it will also support the sibling Leica D-Lux 4 .rwl files as capture one is no match to lightroom . . .

 

 

Eric Chan

- 2:30pm Nov 19, 08 PST (#45 of 45)

Camera Raw Engineer

Malcolm, yes, D-Lux 4 RWL files and LX3 RW2 files will be supported simultaneously

.

[cbretteville]

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Malcolm, yes, D-Lux 4 RWL files and LX3 RW2 files will be supported simultaneously.

 

That is a releif, as the file format is identical and shared between the LX3 and D-Lux 4.

 

- Carl

[macgarvin]

That is a releif, as the file format is identical and shared between the LX3 and D-Lux 4.

 

- Carl

 

Yes, indeed - I was concerned that a simple oversight would leave us needing to change the suffix ourselves each time . . .

 

BTW when I was writing up the changes I noticed between D-Lux 3 and 4 I missed one off - you can now check the firmware version (which on mine, S/N 3632620, is 1.0) - that implies firmware updating is possible in the D-Lux 4. Regarding possible differences between the D-lux 4 and LX3, It will be interesting, should there there be any firmware upgrades, to see if these appear at different times/ rates/ and are of different file sizes between Leica and Panasonic

 

- Malcolm

[stunsworth]

The LX-3 review on DPreview was using a beta of ACR 5.2, so hopefully it won't be too far off.

 

I gave up with C1 after a few hours. Very frustrating to use, and the version I had left what seemed like dozens of large files in sub-folders of the folder holding the raw file.

[macgarvin]

The LX-3 review on DPreview was using a beta of ACR 5.2, so hopefully it won't be too far off.

 

Yes - though it is quite a while (Nov 4) since it was said that there would likely be a public beta - hopefully the delay is because 5.2 is dealing with many other updates as well. I have no idea what the specific issues were. However, it seems quite unusual for any rendering of a RAW file to automatically correct for barrel distortion and crop? Where would this then stop (for Adobe)? not really a digital negative then, although the uncorrected results look dreadful (chromatic abberation and softness in the quite large corner areas that are discarded, see the comparisons that I did).

 

However in practical terms I want it - prints from .dng that I did using lightroom/ photoshop were spectacular at A4 to the edges of my selective crop. If leica have over-engineered the lens to get the end results following barrel correction, cropping/ digital processing/remapping of pixels, that still look great compared to what else is available then I am happy - especially as at the moment, converting to DNG lets you get at the true original on the rare occasions when you might want it, and the even wider angle that results contains usable image beyond that provided by Capture One.

 

I was slightly surprised that the barrel distortion was so marked, and not just at the widest angle (it just happened that I was doing my testing on the coast with a horizontal horizon!). It did make me wonder what were the positives they were trading in lens design compared to this negative re. the D-Lux 3 lens. Or perhaps that was also doing in-camera processing?

[mhoersch]

In the D-LUX 4 manual it says that you can use DNG. Return the camera to Leica and insist on DNG support - otherwise ask your money back! Perhaps Leica would then realize that they can't get away with any kind of nonsense?!

[ronaldh]

In the D-LUX 4 manual it says that you can use DNG. Return the camera to Leica and insist on DNG support - otherwise ask your money back! Perhaps Leica would then realize that they can't get away with any kind of nonsense?!

 

I raised this with Leica and they said it was a mistake in the instruction book!

[macgarvin]

I'm mildly curious as to why, technically/optically/economically, if one sets out to produce a 24mm (35mm equivalent) lens one would choose to design it wider than 24mm and then take a crop, as opposed to designing it to native 24 mm from the outset? Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Or is the cropped image in Capture One wider than 24 mm equivalent?

[ho_co]

... If you export them all as TIFFs then the barrel correction will have been made automatically within Capture One, but of course TIFFs are not raw files....

 

Malcolm--Have you seen this assertion from p 13 of the manual:

"It is important to emphasise that the TIF extension is a RAW file not the TIF format known from e.g. Photoshop®"

 

What does that mean? "Not the TIF format known from ... Photoshop," eh? Who do they think they're kidding? Photoshop opens it as a .TIFF without problem.

 

Thanks for your description of basic procedure for working with Capture One.

 

Like Bill, I'm trying to use it to work with a D-Lux 4, and will definitely need to study the manual! So far, it's frustrating as the dickens. (If there is anything intuitive about the application, I've overlooked it. )

[earful]

In the D-LUX 4 manual it says that you can use DNG. Return the camera to Leica and insist on DNG support - otherwise ask your money back! Perhaps Leica would then realize that they can't get away with any kind of nonsense?!

 

in the capture 1 manual it says you can save an imported dlux4 raw file as dng. i haven't even tried working with raw/capture 1, so i can't personally testify to this, but other users have confirmed this can be done. presumably you can then open the dng file in photoshop.

[ho_co]

in the capture 1 manual it says you can save an imported dlux4 raw file as dng.

EF--Correct. Procedure:

 

Under "LIBRARY" tab, select the folder containing the files you want to convert.

 

Within that folder, select all the files you want to convert to DNG.

 

Under "PROCESS RECIPE" tab, choose the process you want, i.e. "Format: DNG" plus name format etc.

 

Now you're set. Your next action depends on your intention:

1) If you want to process only the single image highlighted in the Viewer, click the "Process" button under the "PROCESS SUMMARY" panel.

2) If you want to process all the selected images, click the gear ("Process" button) at upper right while HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY.

 

To reassure yourself that something is happening, click the "BATCH" tab. Now you can watch the individual images disappear as they are processed. In addition, the gear icon appears on each image in the Browser after it is processed, but this visual update isn't as quick as the Queue updates in the "BATCH" view.

 

Confusing to me. I hope you get better results sooner than I did.

[Guest Essemmlee]

I bought a D-Lux 4 yesterday and was out taking pictures on arrival back in Devon.

 

Thanks for the advice re: DNG conversion. I doubt I would have been able to work that out without assistance. It was fast and easy and the results are first class. I was a tad shocked at how good the DNG's are. Not as good as my M8, but they compare more than favourably with NEF shots taken on my old Nikon D70s.

 

The pictures after conversion and processing in CS4 are superb.

 

Oh yes.........and it fits in my pocket.

[Shootist]

TO THE OP

 

There is no SAVE function in C1. They, Phase One, chooses to call it Processing. A real throwback to the wet darkroom days.

You Process your files to one or both types of files, Jpg or TIFF and then open them in PS or some other image editing software.

C1 is *&^%(.

As Steve Unsworth has reported, Since the first release of C1 Version 4 there is no central cache and the program drops folders and files all over your hard drives, IE in every image folder you look at.

Total waist of hard drive space and it make backing up your image folder and files harder, IE takes up more backup space.

 

Adobe has just released ACR 5.2 and will shortly release Lightroom 2.2 that does support both the Pana camera and the D-Lux4.

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[macgarvin]

Interesting release note re panasonic/leica from Adobe accompanying Camera Raw 5.2 update here.

 

I rather like being able to get to the full image in the dng files produced by Capture One, so it at least has that going for it!

 

ho_co - confusingly TIF files are something different from TIFF files, I think to do with Phase One tethered camera backs(?) However it is TIFF files that Capture One produces as one of the options when exporting from the 'Process' function - other choices are JPG, and DNG (raw).

[sean_reid]

I've been using C1 since about 2001 (?) and am still very happy with the output. Once one gets the hang of it, the program is not hard to work with. I do find that 4.0 crashes far too often but I stick with it anyway because I like the conversion quality and am able to work quickly/easily with the various controls.

 

Learning program takes a bit of study but not nearly as much as PS. <G>

 

Cheers,

 

Sean