02/15/25 A side by Side Comparison of Hasselblad X2D Multishot (4) and Single

About 4 months ago, Hasselblad announced a limited multi shot capability for the X2D.  It should noted here, many people felt that the 3.8.4 version of Phocus “enabled multishot”.  This is not true as previous version of Phocus supported multi shot on the older Hasselblad digital backs. There was a firmware update to the X2D that allowed it to communicate with the multi shot option in Phocus. They did not really make a formal announcement, instead they allowed some of the testers to post some videos on Youtube.  Some of the information was also incorrect in that they pre-announced that both a (4) shot and (6) shot mode would be available.  The 4 shot mode kept the resolution at 100MP, but increased the details and created less noise than a single shot.  The 6 shot mode was shown on the videos and created a 400MP output.  NOTE, the 400MP has never been released as it requires a new version of Phocus.  However the 4 shot is available but I have not really found too much written about it, so if you would like to see some side by side comparisons, read on.  The images shown above were taken a ISO 1600, and F6.3 with the X2D and XCD 35-75 lens.  The camera was mounted on a tripod and tethered to a M1 MacBook Pro running Phocus 3.8.4

Hasselblad Multishot comparison

Full screen examples for testing

Before you read through the samples, I am going to summarize my findings:

  1. The 4 shot Multi shot process does give considerably better resolution.  This is especially true where finer details are involved.
  2. The 4 shot Multi Shot process seems to give better noise responses to certain parts of an image, however it would be nice to be able to use Hasselblad HNNR on the files.  This is not possible since the only output is a .fff.
  3. Phocus Desktop seems to quickly process the 4 shot images on a M1 MacBookPro and the tethering connection is excellent.
  4. You are forced to use Phocus Desktop to complete the work on the images, since you cannot output to a 3FR only .fff or tif.
  5. Lightroom and or ACR cannot open the 4 shot multi shot .fff in fact no other software I have found can.
  6. There is no way to get Phocus Mobile 2 software to tether and thus 4 shot multi shot is not available on a mobile platform, thus you are tied to a laptop or a desktop both of which are heavy, bulky and have fixed keyboards.
  7. The workflow of 4 shot multi shot is tedious. Tether, capture, work on image all in Phocus, export as a tif to your laptop, then do more work on the image with Photoshop or similar software.  The .fff images are left in your Phocus Capture folder and must be removed later to save space and you are generating a full sized tiff when you export the image.  Duplication of images.
  8. I attempted to use the PC version of Phocus 3.7.5 which has multi shot support, on a 5 year old Surface Pro.  The results were less than stellar as the capture time for the 4 shots was much longer than on the M1 MacBook Pro.  This may have been due to the age of the Surface Pro, but using a newer windows laptop is no better than a MacBook a both have fixed keyboards and more bulk.

 

There are 8 different side by side comparisons, each taken from a unique area of the images.  Since Phocus will not allow you to save a Multi shot image as a 3FR, instead a .fff, I used Phocus to export both examples as a tiff.  For this example I only used the default amount of sharpening in Phocus. No additional sharpening has been added.  For all of these comparisons I viewed the images at 200%.

Click on either image in the gallery to open the two images into a Lightbox gallery.  This will allow you to view the images in full size. The single shot version is on the left. These examples were taken from the lower right of the shot where I have a framed print of an old car.  What you need to look at are the details on the car and the lesser amount of noise in the black frame.  It’s very clear that you have more details in the car and in the brown of the cabinet behind the frame.  The frame itself has a bit more noise as the multi shot attempted to pull more detail from a smooth black finish.  This would be easy to fix with any noise reduction program.

This is an excellent example of what the 4 shot multi shot can deliver.  The details in the wood are much improved.  Also look at the black of the camera case on the right.  The multi shot example is very clean of all noise.  I do see a bit more noise in the back ground on the 4 shot image, again something that can be cleaned up later on, but I was surprised to see it.  The details than came out of the black fabric of the camera bag were very impressive on the multi shot image.

Simple side by side to show the amount of extra details that came from the multi shot both on the metal of the handle and wood grain.  The gold metal handles and mounts take on an almost 3D look on the multi shot image.  What stands out the most to me is how much better the wood grain is shown on the 4 shot multi shot images.

These crops were taken from the upper left corner of the shot.  You can clearly see that the wood grain is much better defined in the Multi shot image.  The noise levels on the wood appear to be better on the Multi shot image also.  The noise on the multi shot image looks more like grain and is more acceptable.  Noise removal in subject matter like wood is tricky as you do not want to make the surface appear totally smooth.  Wood always has grain and patterns.

This part of the shot was taken through the glass of the cabinet.  It’s interesting to look at all of the individual items and see how much better the definition is on each.  On the glasses, look at the print as the edges of the individual letters is much better defined.  Compare the large glasses in the back ground, the reflection sparkle has a sharper edge and appears brighter.  You can also again see the difference in how the wood grain of the cabinet looks.

This is another set of crops from the cabinet with the subject matter behind glass.  Parts of the image to consider are the fine print on the toothpick bottle, the small statue in the background and the face on the wooden Russian tchotchke.  Clarity and definition on all of these are superior on the multi shot image.

I wanted to include these crops as they were from a darker part of the image.  Remember these crops were taken at a 200% view.  The lighting was the same.  I feel that on the multi shot image besides the overall sharper look to the file, the image also seems to have a bit more life.  It’s not as flat as the non multi shot image.  Other thing to look at are the fine details on the coffee cup around the lip, the faces of the dolls in the background.  These images were taken at ISO 1600, on the X2D and I have not found the X2D to have the best higher ISO performance.  There is clearly noise visible in both of the crops, but on the multi shot image the noise again takes on a more granular appearance, and it more acceptable to my eyes.  Also look at the silver metal container on the left, especially the nut holding the handle on.   Lastly, look at the face of the larger of the two dolls as a scratch on the face becomes much more visible on the multi shot image.

The tennis ball says it all.  Look at the color, and detail on it in the multi shot image.  You can clearly see the individual fibers on the surface much better.  Also the print on the ball has better definition.  Other parts of the images to consider are the concrete bunny and the orange flower in the background.  All have much better definition on multi shot file.

Conclusions:

  1.  The results from the X2D multi shot capture can be superior to a single shot taken of the same subject.  The look and feel of the fine is better, with superior definition.
  2. Noise levels can be similar at times, however the visible noise in the multi shot image takes on a more granular look, i.e. more natural in appearance.
  3. Finer details are much more visible in the multi shot image
  4. Sharpening the non multi shot file may bring some of the finer detail back, however I prefer to have them to start with and not need to rely on additional sharpening
  5. You much be tethered to Phocus desktop software, Phocus Mobile 2 does not currently support multi shot.  This is huge oversight by Hasselblad.  Being forced to use a PC/or Laptop implies that they are only considering the use of multi shot in a studio.  If conditions support it (no wind or moving subjects), there is not reason not to use multi shot in the field.
  6. I have yet to determine of multi shot cuts down on hot pixels, something I have seen quite a bit of with use of the X2D at higher ISO ranges.
  7. There is no way to save the output of a multi shot image as a 3FR, only .fff.  Thus you cannot use the new noise reduction feature HNNR on multi shot images.  Again a huge oversight by Hasselblad as based my testing the multi shot images I captured would have benefited from HNNR at times.
  8. The multi shot workflow is tedious at best.  You must be tethered and the image at first imported to Phocus desktop at capture.  It is now in your “Phocus Captures” folder on your computer.  To use the image you must export it to your computer.  In my case it’s exported to my documents folder as a Tiff.  The problem with this is just that.  It’s now a tiff, not a .fff and thus many if not all of the features of a raw file are gone.  It’s just not compressed.
  9. IF YOU WISH TO WORK ON THE MULTI SHOT IMAGE AS A RAW FILE, you much work on it while it’s still a .fff in Phocus desktop.  Phocus desktop is way out of date in comparison to any other raw conversion software such as Lightroom or Capture One.
  10. Lightroom CANNOT open a .fff from a multi shot capture.   A .fff is a really still a raw file, just a compressed version.  Being forced to only work on the files as tiff is a huge disappointment.

Written by Paul Caldwell for Photos of Arkansas, 02/15/25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

02/09/25 Color comparison of Hasselblad X2D No2–Phocus and Lightroom Snipes Bluff Buffalo River

Fall colors are an excellent way to compare the color output from Phocus and Lightroom on X2D raw files.  For this test, I imported the same raw file into Phocus and Lightroom and tried to keep the base work the same.  I use the “camera standard” profile in Lightroom and Phocus Natural Color.

Hasselblad X2D and Phocus

Comparison of Snipes Bluff Buffalo River Phocus and Lightroom

These side by side examples were screen printed from a Mac Pro M1 machine and I used Photoshop 2024 as the workbench.  The Phocus output is on the left in all the examples.  Shown below are screenshots showing how the raw files loaded into Phocus and Lightroom respectively without any adjustments.

 

Click on either of the images to see them in larger view with a Lightbox.

As you can see the image was underexposed and I did this intentionally to help hold the details in the sky.  I have found that the X2D is very sensitive to overexposure on highlights.  Once these are blown, there is no way to recover them, whereas if you underexposure the rest of the image, you generally have plenty of room left to push up the shadows.  This is true especially if you are at base ISO of 64.

Let’s look at a view closeup comparisons after working up output from Phocus and Lightroom.  In this case, no additional work was done yet in Photoshop 2024 for fine tuning.   All the shadow push and highlight recovery for both files was down within Phocus and or Lightroom.  Additional sharpening was added to both images, again within Phocus and Lightroom.  Some color work was also done.  Mainly on the colors of the fall leaves using the color pickers within both Phocus and Lightroom.

comparisons of Phocus and Lightroom color

Upper left Corner comparisons for color of leaves

Albeit the two images are close, click on the image and view it in more detail.  I believe you will see that the orange color of the sweet gum tree is more pronounced from the Phocus conversion.  There is also what I feel is better overall versatility in the color shown in the Phocus example.

Color comparison of Phocus and Lightroom Middle left of image

Both images have nice color, however I still prefer the Phocus example.  There are more variety  of yellow and orange in the sweet gum leaves.  Also the color is slightly less saturated on the Phocus example.  It’s very easy to blow out a fall color when working with leaves.  When you look at the images closely the Phocus image seems to have better definition in the edges of the leaves, where there is demarcation from orange to yellow.

Shadow comparisons between Phocus and Lightroom

These two crops are very close with the Phocus example being slightly warmer.  However once you zoom into the two, I believe you can see more demarkation in the various colors of the rock in the background.  The Lightroom example seems to show slightly better shadow recovery in the dark greens of the cedar trees up against the bluff.  The bark of the sycamore tree in the foreground is better defined in the Phocus example.

Sky comparisons between Phocus and Lightroom

The sky on this image was mixed with blue and white clouds.  I noticed immediately that the Lightroom version has tended to a more red tint to the blue.  Yes this can be tweaked later on, however look also at the details in the clouds themselves.  They are more pronounced in the Phocus example, i.e. have more life to them.  The cedar tree in the lower left has more shadow recovery in the Lightroom example. However the trees against the sky have better overall definition in the Phocus example.  With Lightroom, I did use the “select sky” mask layer feature, where as in Phocus I was only able use a graduated ND filter to help along with the “recovery slider”.

Clouds, compared from Phocus and Lightroom

The Phocus example has a much more natural look to the clouds, more separation in the graduations of the white and grey.  There are a few spots where I ended up with slightly blown whites from the Phocus example, which I would fix later on in Photoshop.  Also notice the trees against the horizon, clearly the Phocus example has a much better look to it.  The trees towards the left edge have better shadow recovery in the Lightroom example.  The most important aspect to me is the color of the clouds and this can be very hard to tweak later on.  Getting a pure nature white.  The darker parts of the clouds are grey whereas the darker parts of the Lightroom clouds are taking on the red tint and moving possible towards magenta.

                                                                                        Rocks and shadows, comparisons from Phocus and Lightroom

In this case, the Lightroom conversion I feel did a better job on the rocks, lower right corner.  The rest of the image seems better from Phocus.  Especially the finer detail along the edges of the rock ledges.  Look in the center for the brown plant growing on the top ledge.  Also the reflections on the water are much more pronounced from Phocus and the details of the river bottom.

Obviously from looking at all of the images, you can see slight differences between the conversions.  I feel that I am giving the Lightroom files more than enough work to get as close to the Phocus output as possible.  NOTE, Phocus has by far the WORSE workflow of any raw conversion software I have used in the past 20 years.  The program is slow, tedious, and has limited tools, like masking.  The available mask drawing tool i.e. brush is terrible and there is no ability to “select sky” which is a huge advantage in Lightroom.  However I feel that if you purchased the X2D for the HNCS (Hasselblad Native Color Solution), then you still need to do some comparison on your own to see if it’s worth delving into Phocus.  I feel the advantages are there enough to continue with the software. 

Written for Photosofarkansas by Paul Caldwell, Please ask before using any of this article in any other form of media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

02/06/25 Featured Arkansas Photography–Fall Scene from Peter Cave Bluff

Peter Cave on the Buffalo River
Peter Cave on the Buffalo River

                                                                                                Focus Braacket 16 images from Peter Cave Bluff

Fall color in Arkansas has been on the decline over the last 5 years.  There have been many reasons listed, but whatever the cause, the colors in the state just are not as beautiful as they used to be 10 years ago.  Peter Cave Bluff, is on the Buffalo National River, near the middle of the river.  I love to photograph there since you have a grand vista of the countryside and can still feature the Buffalo River.  There is a large single cedar tree that grows out of the bluff and I always try to make it a part of the photograph.

This image was taken with a Hasselblad X2D, and 21mm XCD lens.  Even with the extra wide lens, I still needed to setup for a focus bracketing as I wanted to capture the rock of the bluff which was about 2 feet away from me.  No medium format lens/camera combination I know can do this in a single frame even with apertures in the F16 range.  Here also a tech camera would be a waste as if you added tilt to the shot to pull in the rocks in the foreground, you would quickly lose the top of the image to bluff since you have tilted the plane of focus.  For many years I worked with a tech camera mainly for tilt and shift, but now with modern software and focus bracketing, I just don’t see the need for the tech camera system.

This particular shot was taken with 16 shots, two sets of 8 exposures at F 6.3.  I had no wind that evening so I knew that movement would not interfere with the process. I had to take one set of shots at a higher exposure to hold the sky from blowing out in the areas where the sun was shinning through.  The other set of 8 I used a slower exposure to help pull up the foreground.  All the images were converted from raw files in Phocus.  Then ran two sets of 8 image through Helicon Focus to create the focus bracketed sets, and then combined the two sets into one image.

Paul Caldwell, written on 02/06/25

02/03/25 Focus Bracketing example, Hasselblad X2D and 21mm XCD Lens

Peter Cave on the Buffalo River
Peter Cave on the Buffalo River

Focus Bracket, 7 images total, Hasselblad X2D

 

When working with a Medium format camera system, you have to be very careful when composing your shot for many reasons, one of the most important one is the issue of shallow Depth of Field (DOF).  If you are coming from 35mm or APS-C, you may be surprised the first time you view your images as many times you will have parts of a shot that are outside the range of focus for the particular lens you are using.  This is true with all medium format lenses and can be an issue when composing your shot.  There are two ways around this that I know of:

  1.  Increase your aperture to F12 to F16.  This will help bring in the closer details to a better focus, however you may start to see smearing in the corners and for sure you will see some diffraction.   The smaller your aperture, (larger the number) the more diffraction will play.  What diffraction will cause is softness in parts of the image, mainly the finer details.  In the past my technique would be to focus on infinity and increase my aperture to F14 or F16.  This will give you a good result most of the time, especially with all of the modern software tools for sharpening that are available.
  2. Use Focus bracketing. With Focus Bracketing, you allow the camera to focus on various ranges of the image from the greatest distance to the closest the chosen lens will resolve.  For example in the image above I used F 6.3 and ended up with 7 total images.  Each image will have a unique part of the scene in perfect focus.

Focus bracketing requires a lot of post production work.  You now have to work up in this case 7 different images and they need to be pretty much the same.  After that you will use a software tool like “Helicon Focus” which will take the images and combine them into one image with everything in focus.  Trying to do this manually is next to impossible and requires a tremendous amount of work, whereas Helicon will do everything for you.

There are a few issues that might come into play when you are working with Focus Bracketing.

  1. The most important consideration is that there is little to no subject movement.  So if you are attempting this on a windy day, with a lot of tree limbs, forget it. In the example above, I was blessed with a totally calm evening.  There may have been slight movement in the cedar tree overhead, but it was not enough to create a problem.  If you have too much movement, you will see aliasing, as the software can’t get the exact same parts of the various images to line up.  The effect will be like a ghost image and makes the combination impossible.  Also do not try Focus Bracketing where you have cars, trains,  or people moving through the scene as they will cause the same problems.
  2. Exposures variances.  In the example shown above, I knew that I could not expose for the sky and the foreground (especially the rocks in the lower right corner) in one series of images.  So I ended up taking 14 total shots.  I ran Helican on both series of 7 images, which resulted in 2 final images, that I then combined in Photoshop and the Camera Raw filter.  Note: The name camera raw filter is misleading as it works very well on tif and jpg images.
  3. You must have your camera on a tripod.  There is no way to hand hold the camera to take the bracketing series of images, you will have movement and the images will not align correctly.

With the X2D, you have three options when working with focus bracketing:

  1. Shoot from Infinity to nearest spot
  2. Shoot from nearest spot to infinity
  3. Use a symmetric option, where the camera should start in the middle and work up and down.

I use option 1, with the camera in AF mode (auto focus) I will move the focus point to where I know I am on the most distant part of the subject and start the series.  You have to pick the number of frames you want, and for most landscape shots I have found that anywhere from 6 to 10 seems to work with the aperture at F6.3.  However it’s always a good habit to check you shots to make sure the camera was accurate on the furthest and nearest frame.  NOTE, if  you are going to need several series due to the variance in exposure make sure you do not move the camera.  Also you will need to be on a tripod.

Here are some close ups from parts of the file to show the details that were captured throughout.

LOWER RIGHT CORNER (Click on image to view it larger)

Even though I used a 21mm lens, I still needed to focus bracket to get the closest corner in good focus.  This part of the subject was less than 3 feet away from my camera.

UPPER RIGHT CORNER SHOWING DETAILS OF CEDER TREE (Click on image for a larger view)

What really makes this shot complete for me is the 1000+ year old cedar tree that is growing out of the top of the bluff.  It’s really impossible to shoot the scene without the tree being in the frame so it’s very important to have it in sharp focus.

UPPER LEFT OF IMAGE SHOWING TREES IN THE DISTANCE (Click on image for a larger view)

This was a fall shot, so I wanted to have all the different species of trees in sharp detail.  The Hasselblad 21mm lens has an excellent ability to resolve these finer details, however if I had tried to capture all of the shot in one frame I would have lost some of the finer details to diffraction.

LOWER LEFT CORNER (Click on image for a larger view)

One test of any ultra wide is the ability to capture sharp details at the extreme edges of the frame.  The Hasselblad 21mm does a very good job with this, however it does suffer from retrofocus distortion.  This will cause details at the edges of the frame to elongate and or stretch out.  The effect on this image is not enough that I am concerned with it.  However if I were to make a print of this, I might crop into the image just a bit.

In conclusion, I hope this article has made you more interesting in working with Focus Bracketing.  If you have a medium format system from either Fuji (GFX camera) or Hasselblad (X2D), you can work with this in camera to take all of the images.  Once you understand the workflow it’s a pretty automated process.  If you have a 35mm camera from Nikon, or Canon, I know that Nikon offers focus bracketing with their Z cameras, I assume that Canon also now has it.  Sadly Leica still does not offer Focus bracketing and I feel it’s huge over sight by them.  There is no need for image stabilization, all you need is auto focus and a piece of firmware to process out the images.  Leica has missed this with both the Sl2 and now their latest Sl3 cameras.  According to available information, the Leica SL3 does not have an in camera focus bracketing option; reviews and specifications indicate that the camera only offers exposure bracketing, meaning it cannot automatically capture a series of images with varying focus points within a single shooting sequence.

Notes from the author:

I have the Lecia Sl2 and would strongly recommend to Leica that they add Focus Bracketing to their SL cameras.  I doubt it would be retroactive the SL2, but with the SL3 it could be added via firmware.  The Sl3 is 6oMP and even with the best Leica lenses, you often times need to bracket your focus to get the best overall image. I have used the Hasselblad X2D and it has a very nice Focus bracketing option, however after each series, you have to go back to re-focus on infinity (if you are shooting from far to near).  The Fuji GFX100 has a more complicated menu to setup Focus Bracketing, however once you have it set, you can reshoot at will, i.e. the camera remembers you are shooting from far to near and on each series will return to the set point to gave the camera.  With Fuji you set both the far and near points.  With Hasselblad pick the shooting method far to near or near to far, and use you AF point to hit first point, then the camera makes all the rest of the decisions, thus I feel you need to check it after the first run to make sure the camera got the near point correctly. 

 

 

 

 

 

Hasselblad Phocus Color Comparison, Example Number 1

Hasselblad Color comparison Phocus and Lightroom
A screen copy of the main page of Phocus Desktop for Mac 3.8.4

A Screenshot of Phocus Desktop for Mac Ver. 3.8.4

Hasselblad’s color or HNCS (Hasselblad Natural Color Solution), is one of the most highly touted features of the X series of cameras.  From the X1D, all the way to the X2D. Before I purchased into the Hasselblad system, I had read about HNCS for years but had not given it much thought.  I had used cameras from Phase One and Fuji and these seemed to give me a very nice response to color.   I started working with the Hasselblad X2D in February of 2024.  When I first started using the camera I immediately headed to Lightroom to work with the files.  Lightroom has a modern interface, excellent toolset, and a catalog.  After working with the X2D for several months, I became more interested in Hasselblad Phocus on the desktop just to see the colors and overall image response was going to be better.  What I found was that in general Phocus does give a much more pleasing look to the images.  However this look and feel comes at in extreme cost as Phocus Desktop (the latest version is 3.8.4) has to be the worst overall raw conversion software I have used and I have tried them all.  I will write more on that later, but for the purpose of this article I want to show why it may be worth fighting the battle with Phocus as the color is truly amazing.

Hasselblad Color comparison Phocus and Lightroom

Hasselblad color compared to Lightroom on X2D raw

In the two images shown above, you can see the best I was able to get from Lightroom on the left and Phocus is on the right.  To my eyes, the overall look of the image on the right is much more pleasing.  There is much better shadow definition in both the areas on the left (trees) and the bluff on the right. The look of the sun on the black gum in the lower center is also much more effective.  (note to make sure I did not get the images mixed up, I have left all of the flares in the Lightroom images). The lens used for this shot was the 20-35, which has an extremely bad response to direct sunlight generating terrible destructive flare. But more on that later.

Close up Phocus vs Lightroom Number 1 trees on left

In this close up you can clearly see that the Phocus image on the right side has much more definition in the shadows.  The color response is also much better.  I should note here, I am not slouch to the use of Lightroom.  I do not consider myself in any way to be an expert, but I have always been able to use Lightroom to get what I feel is an excellent rendition of an image from a raw file independent of the camera.

Hasselblad HNCS comparison to Lightroom

Hasselblad comparison to Lightroom on reds

In this comparison look at the reds and how much better they are defined.  Also the details on the bluff appear to be better.  Note the shadow area behind the red tree and you can see there are better details. When you click on the image look at the details on the bluff.  There is clearly more separation on the Phocus image.

Hasselblad Phocus HNCS comparison to Lightroom

Hasselblad Phocus HNCS comparison to Lightroom

I zoomed in on the bluff to show this in more detail.  The bluff is covered with all forms of fungus and lichen mainly white and orange.  The white areas have better defined edges and the orange stands out better from the color of the rocks. The Phocus image is on the right.

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

In this side by side look at the Oak tree in the lower left and then the trees in shade behind it.  Much better shadow recovery by Phocus and you can still see the light rays from the sun in the shady parts of the image. Also note the lone pine tree growing from the bluff and how it is more prominent in the Phocus example.

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard looking at greens

The Hasselblad 20-35 appears to have an huge flare issue when you are pointing it directly as the sun as I did to photograph this sunset.  What I immediately noticed was how Lightroom (image on the left) lost a lot of the definition in the pine tree and pine needles.  I realize much of this was due to the flare as it was very destructive.  In masking this shot I used Lightroom’s Sky Select and it did a great job.  Thus I was able to use sky select a second time, and invert it grab everything else.  (THIS WOULD BE THE SINGLE GREATEST ADDITION TO PHOCUS LAYERS), in Phocus I was forced to manually draw a mask to get as much of the pine tree as I could. But even with the terrible toolset in Phocus layers, I feel that Phocus did a better job.  To really see the differences please click on the image and look at it at 100%

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

This image speaks for itself.  The Lightroom image is on the left and no matter what I did and toolset/masking I used, I could not get the details to come out in the trees.  You can clearly see that there are more visible details in the image that Phocus generated.  I have removed the flare from the Phocus image using the “Generative Fill” option in Photoshop. The sky in the background above the mountain also seems to look better.

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

A quick comparison to show how the details in the distance parts of the this shot came out.  Shadow details appear to be better in the foreground.  Also note the areas in the background.  Along the bluff line you can see better details in the trees.  The colors and details in the background tree line really stand out better in the Phocus images. The Phocus example is on the right.

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

Hasselblad HNCS compared to Lightroom Camera Standard

This example brings to bear some interesting differences between Phocus and Lightroom.  The Phocus example is on the left and you can see again that somehow Phocus is pulling out more details in trees even though there is a huge amount of flare.  The sky has a much warmer look in the Phocus image in these areas around the sun.  In the Lightroom image you can see there a bit of a red tint that moves up into the white of the clouds.  I also prefer the sun rays in the Phocus image.

03/20/19 Auto Rotate for image playback on Phase One IQ4 still problematic

Yesterday 03/19/2019, Phase One released a new firmware for the IQ4, their top end Digital back.  This is the 2nd official firmware on the back and the first firmware to offer something new (and it brought back a few older IQ3 features see this post).

However there is still a small issue with IQ4 playback, autorotation.    Auto rotation, is a feature that Phase One along with all other camera manufacturers usually include for playback of a portrait orientation image.  When you take an image in portrait mode, (with the camera vertical), the image will playback in the same vertical orientation.

 

The image on the left shows a IQ4 image taken with a XF and 55mm LS Phase One Lens.  The image is displayed correctly, as the  the image was captured in landscape orientation and playback keeps it there.  However the image on the right is showing a portrait orientation image and how it’s played back.  The image should be vertical however the back is playing it back in landscape mode.

What is interesting is as long as the IQ4 stays in the portrait orientation, the image during playback is displayed correctly.  But once you rotate the back to the horizontal (landscape) orientation, from that point on, all portrait orientation images will be displayed in the horizontal orientation.  So when you shoot with the IQ4 in portrait mode, make sure you check your images before rotating the camera from that position. Attempting to check a vertical image displayed horizontally is very difficult.

For my work, this is problematic since I take 65% to 75% of my work in portrait mode since I want to blend the multiple portrait images into a panorama.  For now you have to remember to preview your work while the camera is still in the portrait orientation.

Another interesting observation is that when you load the files into a Capture One 12 session, all the vertical images will start out in the horizontal orientation, but as Capture One creates the previews the images will rotate back to the correct vertical orientation.

Hopefully Phase One will resolve this soon but it looks like it will have to come with another firmware update.

03/18/19 IQ4-150 Firmware 1.03.26 – Released–It’s official now!!

Phase One IQ4 camera firmware updates

Phase One IQ4 camera firmware updates

 

 

 

It’s now official.  You can update your Phase One IQ4 to the latest firmware which is 1.03.26.

The process itself will take approximately 8 to 10 minutes and the last four minutes, the back will power off the LCD and only gives a blue light blinking at the bottom.  I found that a bit disconcerting, but overall the process did work as it’s supposed to.

With this update you gain a few new features for the IQ4 and get back a couple of IQ3 features that should have been there from the start, (unless Phase One replaced them with something better which the did not).

Old IQ3 features that have now been returned:

  1. Power share: which allows the XF and IQ digital back to share power.  Important for field use as the IQ4 uses about 1/3 to 1/2 more battery in normal use.  Power share allows the XF to send power to the IQ4 once the IQ4 battery reaches a certain level of discharge.  This is a good thing since the XF takes very little power compared to the IQ4.
  2. Auto Gain for Live View: simple feature that has been in place with all IQ CMOS backs, since the days of the IQ250 back in 2012.  Left off the IQ4 for some reason.  With auto gain Live View you the back will pick an ISO level depending on the ambient lighting. It also added a bit more contrast to the Live View screen which I felt helped in critical focus.  This feature was removed with the IQ4, and has not been available since December 2018.  Instead Phase One offered Exposure simulation which showed allowed the Live View to display a representation of the currently selected ISO/Shutter Speed/Aperture.  Great in good light outdoor, not so great in low light (sunrise  or sunset).  I have not tried the new Auto gain yet, but hopefully it will work as well as it did on the IQ2 and IQ3 backs.  You also have the ability to use the Auto Gain Live view with your selected aperture, or wide open which is a great feature.

New IQ4 features that have been added:

  1. Live View zoom up to 400%.  You now have the ability to zoom into your Live View screen as much as 400%.  The details are still present and the ability to achieve very sharp critical focus on smaller distant details in a scene has improved.
  2. Self timer for ES (electronic shutter).  Pretty straight forward, you now can trip a self timer while in the ES.  Not that big a deal for me as I have a remote 12 pin that allows me to fire the ES without having to press the shutter button on the IQ4 LCD.
  3. While in Live View,  3x (triple) tap will take you all the way to 400% and or you can use a two finger pinch to zoom to any level from 0 to 400.  Nice addition.
  4. The brightness slider for Auto Gain Live View is easily accessed view a single swipe from the left side of the LCD.
  5. AFr Zoom to Focus on the IQ4 with the XF Focus & Recompose feature

 

Overall, these are great improvements for the new IQ4, and hopefully they will assist photographers in the field.

However a few pretty important features still seem to be lacking surprisingly.

Auto Rotate: Simply stated if you take a vertical image the image will be displayed vertically in playback.  Currently the IQ4 displays such an image horizontally.  I still find this really disappointing as I show a lot of panoramas and use the vertical orientation to stitch with.  I cannot think of any $99.00 point and shoot camera that can’t do this, and it surprises me that Phase One did not include this in December and now almost 4 months later still can’t implement it!.  This is shooting preview 101, basic stuff and Phase One will require yet another firmware update to implement this.

Adhoc, where is it.  Phase One seems to have a totally different direction now.  I guess more pointed at studio work.  Since day 1 of the previous IQ backs that had wifi, there was an adhoc option.  Simply and clean created a static ip address that you could connect to in the field and thus use Capture Pilot from an iOS device.  Phase One now only allows Capture Pilot use if you are connected to wifi over a router, again what the heck?  Who thought this was a good idea?  You have a great solution for field use of your software tool for iOS devices and then you just cut it off.  Phase One has made limited low level statements that “adhoc” will return with a later firmware update.  I still feel this won’t be possible as much system boards on PC’s or Mac, have all the networking capability hard wired in.  Hopefully Phase had a way to implement adhoc without issuing an EC (engineer change) which would require all existing IQ4’s to be returned to the factory.

Heat and battery life, no mention as to if anything is being done to help on this.  Currently a 3400 millamp Phase One battery will show totally drained when there is still over 20% of the battery left.  The IQ4 also gets considerably hotter than the IQ3 and Phase One left out the feature that showed existing heat of the back that was quite popular for the IQ3.  I wonder why?

 

written for www.photosofarkansas.com by Paul Caldwell please do not reproduce any of this content without permission. 

 

 

 

02/20/19 A Tale of two creeks Richland and Falling Water–Featured Arkansas Landscape Photography

Fall scene featuring Richland and Falling Water Creek at their confluence.

 

A tale of two Creeks, Falling Water and Richland Creeks, Newton County Arkansas taken November 2018. 

Taken with a Nikon D850 and 24-70 lens.  Image capture in 3 horizontal images @ 24mm.  I used both a CL-PL and ND filter to slow the exposure for the water.

If I had to pick a favorite spot in Arkansas, it would have to be Richland Creek.  Most defiant a love/hate relationship as Richland alone has cost me more in camera gear than any other location I like to photograph.  Just this fall I lost both a Nikon D850 and 24-70 lens upstream from where this shot was taken.  Totally my fault and lucky for me, the creek was much lower so I was able to recover the gear and Nikon USA was able to repair it at a reasonable cost.  But that’s another story. 

Richland Creek is one of the fascinating creeks in Arkansas.  At medium to high water levels it’s a great kayaking stream.  The creek is lined with hardwoods most are 2nd generation growth as the creek was logged back in both the great depression and again in the 60’s-70’s.  Most of the old growth trees are long gone but if you hike far enough upstream where the mules and loggers never reached you can still find some huge white oaks.

The creek also winds through some of the most remote parts of Arkansas, that are still remaining.  Most of the watershed is now a wilderness area.  There is a primitive hiking trail that works it’s way up the left side of the creek (left side facing upstream).  This trail will lead all the way to Twin Falls and Richland Falls, well worth the trip.

For most the season, Richland hold water, but in the fall it’s very rare to find a good flow like the one shown in this image.  Instead the creek is usually barely covering the rocks.  The fall colors are getting tricky to catch also.  In the past the peak display tended to be around the middle of October now the peak seems to be more in the first week of November.  But the display is now hard to catch in full.  Notice in this shot most of the larger trees on the left have dropped their leaves, but the willows and smaller hardwoods lining the creek are still in full color.  However upstream many of the larger trees are still hold leaves.  So you just have to go and see what you have.

To take this shot, I had to wade out into the creek to mid thigh deep.  I found a rock that allowed me to place my tripod and camera safely above the creek.  Still after the disaster I had just 1 week prior, I was a bit shaky on working in the creek.   Still it was just too much not to get out and risk the shot.  There was little to no wind and just as I arrived the deeply overcast sky started to breakup and gave me some nice mixed light.

Due to the high water levels, I was able to catch Falling Water Creek on the left of the shot.  Falling Water Creek runs into Richland at the Richland Campground.  Falling water breaks into several channels near the it’s mouth with Richland and this one is the smallest.  It hardly ever flows unless Richland is running at a high level.  So I was grateful to catch both creeks in the same shot with some of the most amazing fall color I have seen on the creek.

 

Written by Paul Caldwell for www.photosofarkansas.com.  Please contact the author before using any part of this in a separate publication. 

06/18/18 Featured Photography–Clearing morning fog at Pinnacle Mountain

Arkansas photography pinnacle mountain fog
Arkansas photography pinnacle mountain fog

Sunrise through the fog over Pinnacle Mountain

I have a great fondness for the valley of the Little Mamuelle River and Pinnacle mountain.  On one side you have the river winding down to the Arkansas River and then across the mountain is Lake Mamuelle.  The distinctive shape of Pinnacle makes many feel that Arkansas has a volcano, but no the top is really two separate peaks.  Pinnacle is around 650 feet tall and on most mornings where there is fog, you will see the just the top of the mountain poking out.  This day was unique since there was a large amount of fog over Lake Mamuelle, which was billowing up like a cloud bank.  As the sun rose up, the sky was painted in a wonderful separation of pink to light blue and the sun hitting the face of the mountain just added to the scene.

I used my Phase One IQ3100 for this shot.  I was using a tripod and the Phase One 75-150mm lens.  However I still cropped into the shot at least by one third as I just wanted to have the mountain by itself.  I used Capture One software to work up the raw file and then tweaked the final look and feel in Lightroom and Topaz.

Pinnacle is a great climb for those in good shape, you can climb it from either side from fully maintained trails.

written for www.photosofarkansas.com by Paul Caldwell.  This article is copy write protected, please contact me for permission to reprint. 

08/01/17 Working up a Western Panorama from a telephoto lens–Fuji 100-400

Mt. Whitney California Sunrise

There are many times I like to take a moderate to medium length telephoto lens and stitch up a 3 to 5 part panorama.  The telephoto lens works great on subject matter that I want to reach a bit, like in this example below of a mid morning shot of Mt. Whitney.

Mt. Whitney California Sunrise

Sunlight on Mt. Whitney near Lone Pine California

For this shot, I used a Fuji X-T2 and the Fuji 100-400 zoom lens.  I wanted to be able to hand hold this panorama and not mess with a tripod and leveling base as this just adds more time.  On this day, the light was hard to work with as there was partial cloud cover.  The light was spotty and I knew that to get this shot, I would have to move fast.  The Fuji 100-400 pared with the X-T2 allows me to work totally hand held since the lens offers image stabilization and the stabilization is excellent.  Since I was using the telephoto, I wanted to maximize the amount of coverage, so I took the scene in 5 vertical shots.  I did not bracket the exposure, but the X-T2 does make that process easy when needed.  I stayed at the base ISO of 200 and in fact did under expose the foreground just a bit.

To start the process, I used Capture One to work up the raw files.  With the latest version of Capture One, the raw conversion for Fuji x-trans raw is about the best I have seen.  This is version 10.1.2 of Capture One.   I use Capture One is session mode, which mean, I only import the images I want to work on and Capture One puts a sub folder with the raw files where all of the image info is kept.  This is unlike Lightroom’s catalog approach.

Main screen of Capture One with Fuji files

Yes it’s easier to just import these 5 raw files into LR, then do a pano merge.  However Adobe’s “one and done” approach to raw conversion has been applied to the Fuji x-trans conversion.  Adobe has done very little over the past 2 years to improve the rendering and many times I still will see what I call the plastic look to finer details.  This is tragic as the X-T2 can actually pull quite a bit of detail from most images.  I also feel that Lightroom/ACR conversion just don’t have the same clean noise free look that Capture One can obtain.  Lightroom tends to over emphasize the edges of subject matter and it can’t pull the same fine clean details out of shadows that the latest version of Capture One can.  In these two screen shots shown below you can see how well the rock on the face of Mt. Whitney has been rendered, but also look at the trees growing on the lower slopes as these are not only well rendered, but very clean and noise free.

Capture One screen shot showing great details on rock face

 

Capture One screen shot showing details in shadow areas

 

You will need to pay close attention to the 5 separate files and make sure that you have attempted to keep the white balance the same between all 5, and also your exposure.  This can hurt you later on in the panorama stitching as if one image or part of an image is darker than the rest, the resulting final image will show a demarcation line at the edge and ruin the stitch.  This is most common in a pure blue sky.  In fact if I am only working with pure blue for sky, I will not attempt this in Capture One as you can almost never get a clean sky with out the darkening towards the edge.  This type of panorama will just work better if you stitch from raw files in Lightroom.

For these 5 images I did do some slight image adjustment work and I did this using layers within Capture One.   If my images are all close in exposure I will often work on just one and then copy the layer to the rest of the images.  You will have to make some small changes to the masks.  In this case the edges of the mountains, vs the sky, but this process is very easy to do in Capture One.

In the first layer I have worked on the foreground, pushing up the shadows, and attempting to pull up a bit more of details by adding some structure.

Capture One layer work for Fuji No 1

In the 2nd layer I worked the Gradient Mask to pull down the sky and worked a bit on the white balance of just the sky.  Capture One has a superior White Balance tool to Lightroom as you can still use an eye dropper to sample just the white balance in the areas under the mask.

Capture One layer work Fuji No 2

Lastly I pulled down the areas of the brightest snow on the mountain as I knew as I worked up the panorama in Lightroom it would attempt to blow out the highlights, which is a huge issue with Lightroom panoramas that has existed from day one (remember Adobe has a “one and done” approach to everything).

Capture One layer for for Fuji No 3

With the 5 images where I wanted them exposure and white balance wise, I then made universal changes to sharpening.  Capture One now has a diffraction correction in it’s sharpening tool set and I always pick that.  It’s under the Lens icon in the tools.  You also need to go to the main sharpening tool (which looks like a magnifying glass) and change the default noise reduction.  Move the Luminace and color noise all the way to the left and slide the details slider to the right to around 85 to 90 percent.  This will make a huge difference on Fuji images.  Note, if you are working in a ISO at 800 or higher, you will need to be less aggressive with this as Fuji gets pretty noisy past ISO 800 in most cases.

Examples of both of these:

 

Now all you need to do is export the images.  For this process you have two options.

  1.  You can select to edit the images directly in Adobe CC Photoshop.  With this method, C1 will export the image to CC and 16 bit tifs and each image will open independently in C1.  You will need to save each image then use the Automate function to reopen the images into a panorama.
  2. You can export the images as 16 bit tifs and then import them to Lightroom.  This what I do the most often.  Lightroom has a good panorama merge tool that offers “boundary warp” which makes single row stitching very straight forward.

Once in Lightroom, the tiffs will be ready to made into a panorama using the Lightroom panorama merge tool.

LR import main screen for a panorama merge

Now select the 5 images and then right click to get the menu drop down box and select photo merge, and in the sub drop down pick panorama.

LR panorama selection screen

Once this is done Lightroom will bring up the panorama dialog box and I tend to just pick whatever Lightroom defaults to which for a hand held panorama most times will be spherical or cylindrical.  Perspective will only work with the correct nodal point and the camera being level neither of which I was able to do in this case.  Setting up a telephoto lens to it’s respective nodal point is not easy and being level meant using a tripod.  As shown in the images below, Lightroom will pull the images together as best as it can.  As long as the panorama is only a single row stitch, Lightroom will odds are do a good job, in fact I find it does a much better job at balancing out the exposures of the separate frames.  Much better than the stand alone tools like Ptgui or Kolor Autopano.   I only use this as a last resort if Lightroom or Adobe CC Photoshop cannot get a solution that works.  Once you have the image put together by Lightroom, make sure to select boundary warp.  This is the single great asset from Lightroom that really no other panorama stitching program offers (which has always surprised me).

 

 

Once you “merge” you will end up with a very nice 5 part panorama.  In this case I have gained a huge amount of resolution over just taking this scene with one 24 megapixel frame from the X-T2.  Instead of 24 megapixels, my overall resolution is approaching 100 megapixels.  This allows me to have quite a bit more leeway with the final image, both from a printing and cropping standpoint.

Final 5 part panorama from a Fuji X-T2

To get the final image, I did the following:

  1. I did a bit of image refinement with the image in Lightroom
  2. Then I selected the “edit in” option in Lightroom to take the image to Adobe Photoshop
  3. While Photoshop, I worked on the image with Topaz Clarity to help pull out the light on Mt. Whitney. my goal was to make the mountain stand out.  I also did some curves corrections on the rock.
  4. Saving the image in Photoshop also places the image back in Lightroom where I then did a final White balance on the sky to get the color I wanted, less blue.
  5. My final step was to pull back the snow which had started to blow out and do the final sharpening on the image with Picurre Plus.  Do this I had to go back to Photoshop.

This is great way to extend the resolution of any camera.  There are times I can setup a large medium format camera and take the same image in one frame, but many times this not possible as I do not want to be carrying a huge Medium Format camera around all day.  My age and older body just don’t allow for that anymore.  Instead I often will prefer to take along my Fuji X-T2 with 5 lenses, 16mm 1.4, 23mm 1.4, 59mm 1.2, 10-24mm F4 and 100-400mm F4.5-5.6.  All of these lenses render an excellent image with a lot of details.  The 100-400 is especially sharp throughout the zoom range and is a joy to work with in the field.

 

Mt. Whitney California Sunrise

Sunlight on Mt. Whitney near Lone Pine California

Written for photosofarkansas, by Paul Caldwell 08/02/17.

 

 

Copyright © Paul Caldwell, Photos of Arkansas