Hasselbad Phocus Reproduction Mode Walkthrough

[BobShaw]

Hi,
While looking for something else I stumbled upon this video "Hasselbad Phocus Reproduction Mode Walkthrough"
It is about an hour long but if you are familiar with Phocus you can jump to the 15min mark.
It covers Introduction to Phocus, Raw File process and HNCS, Reproduction Mode, Scene Calibration and Multi-shot camera operation.
Hasselbad Phocus Reproduction Mode Walkthrough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZthFo98HTk

Cheers,

[Doug Peterson]

And here’s a similar guide for DT / Phase One users Heritage Reproduction with Capture One and DT Nexus.
See Doug Peterson’s R+D presentation (that’s me) at around 12 minutes in.

A more complete written version can be found in the DT Digitization Guide publications.

Hasselblad makes nice cameras and has a great brand name recognition. Their X series as a walk around camera is great; maybe the best high-image-quality compact walk-around camera since the Mamiya 7.  DT / Phase One is present in around 80% of major museums, libraries, and archives in the USA and Hasselblad is far less common, especially since they discontinued the studio-oriented H series cameras.

[BobShaw]

Their X series as a walk around camera is great; maybe the best high-image-quality compact walk-around camera since the Mamiya 7.  DT / Phase One is present in around 80% of major museums, libraries, and archives in the USA and Hasselblad is far less common, especially since they discontinued the studio-oriented H series cameras.

I am sure that Elon Musk will continue to pour money into museums around the Gulf of America but even then I think they may baulk at paying $40-100K for a Phase One steam engine when for $10,000 they can buy a 4 shot multi camera today and within a few months by firmware update get a 6 shot 400MP Hasselblad X2D. Yes, I think there will be a lot of Phase One in museums.

[Doug Peterson]

...they may baulk at paying $40-100K for a Phase One steam engine when for $10,000 they can buy a 4 shot multi camera today and within a few months by firmware update get a 6 shot 400MP Hasselblad X2D. Yes, I think there will be a lot of Phase One in museums.

Multishot has been around for decades. It was actually quite popular at museums/libraries/archives when raw de-mosaic algorithm were still in their infancy since multishot lets you skip the demosaic. But that stopped being true over a decade ago. It's very rare to find multishot in use today despite it being a feature of the Sony A7R series, Fuji GFX, and some Panasonic models.

Multishot is much slower to capture and process than standard one-shot capture and it's very vulnerable to vibration or subject movement. Moreover, if a situation allows for multishot, it almost always allows for stitching. So in the case that 150 megapixels is not enough (e.g. a tapestry many meters long) then it's quite common to capture in rows/columns and stitch the result.

The marketing of "400 megapixels" for a multishot capture from a 100mp sensor (e.g. 6-shot mode on the X2D) is driven by marketing, not engineers. The pixel size of the sensor is the limiting factor in determining the smallest subject detail that is visible. Shifting the sensor by half a pixel does reduce aliasing and reduces noise which can improve resolution measurements such as SFR marginally; that's nice, but it's not anywhere close to the results you'd get from a sensor that was actually 4x the pixel count. Just think about it – if the X2D added a feature to shift the sensor in increments of 5% rather than 50% would it suddenly produce 40,000 megapixels of subject detail? Of course not – it would produce an enormous file that still contained an amount of subject detail based on the pixel size of the sensor.

If/when the X2D releases a 6-shot mode please feel free to schedule a time to come to one of our offices to compare it to the Phase One iXH 150mp as measured on our collection of maps/books/paintings, or on an objective target like an ISA GoldenThread Target.

[BobShaw]

Just think about it – if the X2D added a feature to shift the sensor in increments of 5% rather than 50% would it suddenly produce 40,000 megapixels of subject detail? Of course not – it would produce an enormous file that still contained an amount of subject detail based on the pixel size of the sensor.

Hi Doug,
The purpose of moving it 50% is to capture the green luminance information each side of the pixel. Explanation is at about 46 minutes in the video.

[Doug Peterson]

Hi Doug,
The purpose of moving it 50% is to capture the green luminance information each side of the pixel. Explanation is at about 46 minutes in the video.

Yes, thanks. I’ve been quite familiar with multishot technology for over a decade.

That presentation falsely claims the result is the “same” as a single shot from a 400 megapixel sensor. That is simply not remotely true and I’m disappointed to see Hasselblad use such language in a technical presentation.

[Paul2660]

In the video does Hasselblad discuss HNNR and the fact that if you use Phocus Mobile 2 to enable it that Phocus desktop applies  default noise reduction over the HNNR raw generated by Phocus Mobile 2?  This is a huge oversight for my work flow. And Phocus desktop has not setting to allow you not to apply the default noise reduction so the files can look way to smooth.  Hopefully this will be fixed in a further release as I have no plans to process my files in Phocus Mobile 2 on a 13 inch iPad. If you can’t use Phocus desktop on the HNNR raw then you have lost the advantage of HNCS. If you open the HNNR raw in Lr no extra noise reduction is applied but you lose HNCS instead you are forced to use Adobe’s color “camera standard” which is I feel is not the best.

Paul

[BobShaw]

In the video does Hasselblad discuss HNNR and the fact that if you use Phocus Mobile 2 to enable it that Phocus desktop applies  default noise reduction over the HNNR raw generated by Phocus Mobile 2?  ....

Paul

The video is over 3 years old so no HNNR discussion. I never use Phocus Mobile 2 so I can't comment on that but it only works on 3fr files and AFAIK makes no changes to them. You only get any edits if you export TIFF or JPG out. Phocus desktop only works on FFF files. The Noise Filter is selectable so turn it off. HNCS is colour and HNNR is noise so not sure how they are related but you definitely get HNCS out of Phocus. The best way to get definitive answers is to contact Hasselblad Customer Service in Europe.

[Paul2660]

There is no way to turn off the noise filter in Phocus Desktop, some noise reduction is applied no matter what.  Even if you uncheck that option (noise reduction in Phocus), Hasselblad support has verified this.  Sorry, I thought the video was more current but thank you for the clarification.  Phocus desktop works fine on 3FR files, at least it will import them.  I realize that once imported they are now a .fff.    HNNR is very powerful, the workflow is not the best, but it does still output as a 3FR, which can be imported to Phocus Desktop, thus utilize HNCS. but Phocus desktop applies an amount of noise reduction no matter what, which is not what you need for a file that has had HNNR applied.  Note, Phocus Desktop, cannot remove hot pixels, which are a problem with the X2D depending on the shooting situation.  HNNR does remove these very well. 

C1 has the same ability for Fuji GFX100II files which also can suffer from hot pixel noise with the single pixel noise reduction slider.  Best case scenario would be for P1 and Hasselblad to come to some agreement to allow C1 to support Hasselblad, (since Capture One is a totally separate company now from P1 or so they claim). 

Maybe a re-write of Phocus desktop is coming when they finally release the 6 shot 400MP multi shot to the rest of the world as it's been in beta now for over 6 months.

Paul

[BobShaw]

There is no way to turn off the noise filter in Phocus Desktop, some noise reduction is applied no matter what.  Even if you uncheck that option (noise reduction in Phocus), Hasselblad support has verified this.  Sorry, I thought the video was more current but thank you for the clarification.  Phocus desktop works fine on 3FR files, at least it will import them.  I realize that once imported they are now a .fff.    HNNR is very powerful, the workflow is not the best, but it does still output as a 3FR, which can be imported to Phocus Desktop, thus utilize HNCS. but Phocus desktop applies an amount of noise reduction no matter what, which is not what you need for a file that has had HNNR applied.  Note, Phocus Desktop, cannot remove hot pixels, which are a problem with the X2D depending on the shooting situation.  HNNR does remove these very well. 

Paul

AFAIK, a 3fr file is a read only bayer matrix, so no matter what you do in an iPad that is just a screen rendition that will be realised only when you export a TIF or JPG. So if you import into Phocus there will no changes until you start making them to the FFF file which is writable with a history file. The FFF adjustments are transferable between computers. Phocus definitely does remove dead pixels. If by "hot" you mean overexposed that is different thing but you can of course use the Ev and Recovery sliders.

[Paul2660]

A Phocus mobile 2 HNNR can be exported from the iPad as a 3FR.  The only difference is that the noise reduction from the HNNR Process has been applied.  The file is also renamed with “denoised” in the file name. If you take that HNNR 3FR and open it in Lr you will have a very clean file with no extra smoothing. Lr does not apply noise reduction. If you open the same HNNR 3FR in Phocus Desktop you can clearly see that the file has lost some of the finer details as Phocus desktop has applied more noise reduction. This has been confirmed by Hasselblad.  Plenty of posts on this with the quote from support.

As for hot pixels. Not stuck pixels. Phocus desktop in my use cannot remove them at all. Something I have noticed since I started using the X2D. Hot pixels are random and tend not to repeat. Phocus Mobile 2 will remove most of these when HNNR is applied. 

I use primarily Phocus desktop for my 3FR imports as I believe it provides the best color but do not like the handicaps the HNNR adds.  The workflow process is very time consuming and the converted HNNR 3FR files cannot be fully utilized by Phocus Desktop as excessive noise reduction is being applied by default with no way to turn it off.

Paul