What you see here is limited by sensor resolution. Both C1 and LR yield the same resolution, name the one the sensor. Both converters yield a lot of artefacts.
Hi Erik ... yes, the test was to compare the two raw converters near Nyquist to see if one was significantly better than the other. From this test I would say that C1 shows less color artifacts but in terms of resolving ability there's nothing between them. On the whole the color artifacts are not something that would concern me much for my type of photography.
I have to say that at this stage, having done a whole load of tests on different images, that for the A7RII it pretty much comes down to how well one processes the images in C1 or LR - either are capable of absolutely excellent results. C1 has a very nice color editor and the local adjustments are significantly better than LRs, so if all development was done in the raw converter then C1 would come out on top (IMO). Also, the way that C1 background adjustments can be reversed or negated by local adjustment layers is impressive, so, again, if local adjustments are used a lot then C1 would have an advantage.
As for me, I only use the raw converter for basic tonal and color adjustments and do the rest in Photoshop, which pretty much makes the greater power of the C1 color editor and local adjustments irrelevant. So using both LR and C1 doesn't make much sense for me ... the very different controls would only confuse me: better to know one converter really well than two half-well, I think
. As LR has so much better integration with Photoshop than does C1, and as it does so many things that C1 does not (like panoramas, plug-in support, slideshows, map/gps, web, publish-services etc) it's got to be LR for me. And I have to say that I find LR easier to use than C1, so that is also a consideration.
At any rate, I've concluded to my satisfaction that (at least for the A7RII), C1 is not a 'far superior' raw converter than LR, as quite a number of photographers claim. I think the two are neck-and-neck.
All the best,
Robert