Mamiya ZD raw conversion

[MichaelEzra]

I just purchased Mamiya ZD and am trying to find the best raw conversion software for its files to be used on Windows platform. So far I used ACR 3.6, SilkyPix 3.0 and Mamiya's Digital PhotoStudio (DPS) 1.2.

DPS seems to be in very premature state. It's only advantage is that it allows teathered shooting and opens MEF files with VERY accurate white balance. Noise reduction is a joke. Extremely bad user interface.

ACR is OK and together with bridge provide the best workflow solution.
ACR very poorly interprets white balance from MEF files.

SilkyPix seems like the best option for raw processing, although I am not too familiar yet with its batch capabilities. SilkyPix provides accurate color with camera's white balance, yet a bit less accurate than Mamiya's DPS. SilkyPix is able to extract a wider dynamic range than ACR.

Please share your thoughts and experience with ZD's raw files and any other software that can be used to develop them.

Thank you,

Michael Ezra
www.michaelezra.com

[BernardLanguillier]

I have found Raw Developper 1.6 to be the best in terms of sharpness control and lack of artifacts.

It offers fewer features than Silkypix as far as color control is concerned though.

Finally, a major issue for some is that it is only available for the Mac.

Regards,
Bernard

[nik]

I like the workflow of Lightroom v4 on the PC, there is quite a learning curve involved as it does not do a great job with the white balance (as you mentioned with ACR), but once you've used it for a while you get to know and anticipate the best settings for your MEF's. I switched to Mac now though.

I'm hoping P1 will release support for MEF's soon.


-Nik.

[Pantoned]

My vote goes for Silkypix too, it can get more detail from files than Mamiya DPS and color curves are better. ACR needs a lot of tweaking to get to the same starting point than the others but files have more detail too. I will try to calibrate ACR with a basic Gretag card to see if I can get something better; I don't like at all the way ACR creates RGB channels, especially the blue one but maybe, again, it's a matter of calibration.

Last week I was thinking that it would be great to be able to emulate color films by using color profiles created for the camera in particular, does anyone know if this is possible to do and how? I searched the internet but only found people asking the same. I know it can be done with color curves or plugins like Exposure or Photokit Color, but integrating profiles in the raw conversion would be great.

Arnau.

[Quentin]

I use Silkypix 3.  I'm on Windows so Raw Converter is not an option.  Silkypix does an excellent job, with a lot of control avialable.  I find the default white balance too warm, which is about the only problem.

I'm still extracting more from the ZD and think its an outstanding camera.

Quentin