leaf aptus 65 centerfolding issues?? image inside

[rainer_v]

Thanks Rainer,

I am not looking for the technical answer that Stephan could provide.  Just an understanding of the process and the results.

So lets see if I understand this....

The initial eMotion 75 files have centerfold, even if it is barely visable.
The files are corrected in the computer software after downloading.
The resulting RAW files have no centerfold remaining.

Is this correct?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85278\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Also Rainer,


Do you find that, for color uniformity, you still shoot white files?  Is it necessary with all your lenses, or just particular lenses with particular ammounts of shift?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85279\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

first question:
yes. its correct

second question and add. info:

it depends on the individual sample of the back, the dalsa33 seems not to be only different in the amount of the cf issue, it seems also different in the color uniformity.
so i saw backs with good uniformity and bad cf performance and also the opposite.
in general i want to say that the uniformity after using white files ( together with the emotion konverter ) is so good, that not any back  now fits my needs without using this feature.
even i use now my old emotion22 back with white-file shooting, although before i knew this quality i  havent found any problems with it about color uniformity.
but compared with white-inverted shots its  a visible  improvement to shoot white inv. shots.
also i like this 100% corrections of the fall offs, if i want to add ( which i rarely do ) vignetting afterwards this can simply been done in pp.
before i have had some discussions with phase users, where i never could understand that they are not bored about their need of shooting white files with their kodak sensors.... i have to correct myself here, cause for my way of shooting this kind of workflows are really no-problem.

but its important to state that it depends to 90% on the workflow the software is providing, if this way of shooting is a big or a little deal . here even details come in the game. i used some time some screw-in white plate, which i had to screw in each time and which gave me with the wideangles uneven whitefiles at the border of the images, now i have a white-shading-filter in a size of 10x10cm which i just hold in front of the lense before each shot, if i changed the lense or the movements of it. so the shot itself is done easy and fast,- what will make the sw is the time consuming step.
i shoot now before every new lense setting or new movement of the lense a white file, the emotion konverter use this file and write a ref.file out from it, i open all the shots i did in the session as batch and than the konverter use the first white-ref file for all the following shots, till it sees a new white ref-file, which is than used for all the following shots till it finds a new.......and so on. so once if you have shot the files at the set you have not to think longer about them.

you can do also more things with these white files. stephan and me we had tried many different ways of treating them, it has big impact to the image quality, especially if it comes to long exposure times. here can be brought in additional noise if the rendering of the white shots is not done clever. blue blotches may appear, and many other little bad effects,- which only will show up if you are willed to analyse the resulting files critical. the way these files are rendered is very important for the resulting image quality.

but back to your question: to remove the cf issue the white file shooting is not neccesary,
for many users there will be no need to use the whitefile shootings cause the color uniformity
will be good enough for their needs. depends also on their approach.

[nicolaasdb]

OKAY...great to know that there are so many haters!!

I went with the leaf back, because of the service the rep in SOCAL provided AND because of the quality of the images (which in my eyes and for my work were of better quality than the Phase back...it was a close call..and if I would have shot product..I would have chosen the Phase, but for people the Phase was to sharp for me)

BACK to the problem:

I have been shooting with the A65 for about 3 weeks and over 7000 images....the images look fantastic!! It is like I am shooting film again!! Huge clean clear files!

All the BS about workflow!! I didn't have to change my workflow at all.....I have the same workflow as with my canon....upload the CF card and edit the images in either photo mechanic (the previews are a little to small!), lightroom (love the program.....color control is a clear winner) or adobe bridge (which is the best and fast enough for now!) I never even opened leaf software and hated the Phase one software (don't care what "the others" say....it is to slow and intuitive at all....maybe when you get used to it later...but I live now and not later!)

So I shot a couple of test shots (not to test the back, but the camera and lens I just got back from Mamiya) I shot an image at 800 iso very very underexposed instudio (hardly any daylight) and no strobes......and I discovered the greenish left side and magenta right side......not a good thing...BUT I never shoot at 800 iso and never shoot this underexposed!! Ofcourse it scared the S... out of my and I checked all (almost all) the images I have shot.....NO PROBLEMS...NO COLOR CAST....NO GREEN LEFT AND MAGENTA RIGHT.....so for me there is no reason to panic!!

I tested the back today in daylight....and very underexposed I saw the green left and magenta right showing up on the camera back....BUT when I opened the image in Bridge..there was no colorcast or any problem at all.

Am I going to send the back back??? I don't know....it seems that there is no solution and I can't stop shooting! Since the problem doesn't show in my regular studio work AT ALL!!! I am fine for now...I am trading up to an A65s when it comes out and hope that by then the problems are solved all together!!

As for all the "jumper down the throath posters" RELAX!! My Leaf images look about 60% better than my Canon Ds1MkII images and I love my canon camera!!

What I really don't like about my leaf A65 back is that I have to re-boot it a lot during my shoots!! I hope that they will work on the startup time of the back!!

[ericstaud]

Thank you for the detailed reply Rainer.  It sounds like Sinar currently has the best solution for shooting architecture.  I like that the software detects the white file automatically.  This is my biggest problem with Leaf right now.  I must assign the white reference image to each group of captures and hit the process button (While you are out getting an espresso, I am sitting at the computer selecting reference files).  

Aside from this, the quality of the Leaf correction is very high.  I have not seen any degradation of the images.  It is also nice with Leaf to be able to adjust the percentage of falloff removal.

Like you, I had problems with the supplied white diffuser.  I took a chisel and a sander to it and the resulting white reference files no longer get darker at the edges than they should.

-Eric

[Eric Zepeda]

What I really don't like about my leaf A65 back is that I have to re-boot it a lot during my shoots!! I hope that they will work on the startup time of the back!!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85314\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hey Nicholas, are you using Capture V8 or 10? I work with an A75 almost daily and it's a bit finicky on connection issues as well. Doesn't stop it from making a beautiful file though, and that's coming from a Phase owner.

[nicolaasdb]

Hey Nicholas, are you using Capture V8 or 10? I work with an A75 almost daily and it's a bit finicky on connection issues as well. Doesn't stop it from making a beautiful file though, and that's coming from a Phase owner.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85411\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I shoot only to CF card..never used their software and probably never will.....preview my images in Bridge during the shoot.

[ericstaud]

I shoot only to CF card..never used their software and probably never will.....preview my images in Bridge during the shoot.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85541\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Just FYI, I do the same, but if you want to tether... I turn on LC8 and use the "Auto Save button" rather than the "Rapid shoot".  Your images will still come up in Bridge, but they will also refresh in LC8 as well (which they don't with Rapid Shoot), instead of going to the ContactSheet program.  This way you just click back to LC8 when you want to check focus, which is a little faster than opening in ACR and zooming in.

[ericstaud]

Rainer,

More questions please....

-The automatic correction of the centerfold in the Sinar software, roughly how much time does it take per image?  Is it something that you just turn on when not using retrofocus lenses, or does it process every image?

-How long does the colorcast correction with the DNG converter take with each image?

-Can the DNG's which are output by Brumbaer's DNG converter be processed in the Sinar Capture software, or do you have to use other programs like ACR, Lightroom, and RAW Developer?

-Is any of this software still Beta or Alpha?  Or is it commonly available to eMotion users?

Thanks for your time in answering any of these questions.

-Eric

[rainer_v]

Rainer,

More questions please....

-The automatic correction of the centerfold in the Sinar software, roughly how much time does it take per image?  Is it something that you just turn on when not using retrofocus lenses, or does it process every image?

-How long does the colorcast correction with the DNG converter take with each image?

-Can the DNG's which are output by Brumbaer's DNG converter be processed in the Sinar Capture software, or do you have to use other programs like ACR, Lightroom, and RAW Developer?

-Is any of this software still Beta or Alpha?  Or is it commonly available to eMotion users?

Thanks for your time in answering any of these questions.

-Eric
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

i am not very familiar with capture, i use the eMotion konverter only.
capture is slow for my taste, at least compared with stephans programm, so i am a stephan-only user, maybe for my involvemnt in this programm, for me the workflow it is fastest and best.
the cf issue correction should not eat much time in capture also.
the cf correction works with every lense and with every back,
it finds the offset between the sensor zones and adjust them.
in stephans tool you can switch it on or off, i let it on allways.


the eMotion konverter needs for writing a dng file from the emotion33,
measured with my g4 laptop 1,67ghz, 2gb ram:

no cf correction, no white file :   17sec
cf issue corrected,  white file corrected: 18 sec.
so here is little difference for the correction and its fast.

same done with my quad mac2.5 ghz, 4,5gb ram needs 8-9 seconds.

the dngs can be  processed in acr, lightroom and iridient, this are the programms i use, so there might be more programs who can read them.
if stephans programm is beta, alpha or omega i cant say,- i did not found any image faults in the last several hundred files,- so i cant ask him at the moment to improve the quality of the conversion cause i simply have not more critic. also its very stable and works on intel macs also, using the new code.
we talk about to improve the implementation of color profiles, and how to interprete them,- but that leads to far here. at the moment there can be used simultaneous for the conversion two color profiles, a.e. one with 5500kelvin and one with 3200. the converter interpolates between the two, if you have set the color in the shooting correctly in the back.
the emotion konverter writes this color profiles if you shoot a gretag card make a kalibration in the tool. you see it can by far more than simply convert to dng.
the programm has also one big advantage over all the other mf programms i know. it has a sophisitcated highlight recovery, which bring down highlights with remarkable efficency- usually between one or two! stops headroom, which makes the shooting in hi-contrast scenes much more easy. very important feature.
it is available for free from stephans page.
[a href=\"http://www.brumbaer.com/Tools/Tools.html]http://www.brumbaer.com/Tools/Tools.html[/url]

i am not sure if sinar already gave out the software to download for its customers with the cf code, but it is implemented since several weeks.
interesting is in any case that also older .sti files out from capture can be converted to dng with stephans programm, with the cf issue corrected.

[nicolaasdb]

Just FYI, I do the same, but if you want to tether... I turn on LC8 and use the "Auto Save button" rather than the "Rapid shoot".  Your images will still come up in Bridge, but they will also refresh in LC8 as well (which they don't with Rapid Shoot), instead of going to the ContactSheet program.  This way you just click back to LC8 when you want to check focus, which is a little faster than opening in ACR and zooming in.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85548\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

thanks Eric I have to try this..because it is faster to shoot the "polaroids" like that and then swithc to CF cards.
Will try it on the next shoot!

Nicolaas