RAW vs JPEG on the Fuji X-Pro1 from f/1.4 through f/16
To my review of the Fuji X-Pro1, I’ve added a RAW vs JPEG comparison from f/1.4 - f/16 with the 35/1.4.
If you’re shooting JPEG on the Fuji X-Pro1, you’d better have a look at just what goes missing with JPEG Fine. The X-Pro1 is a poster child for never shooting JPEG.
In fact, if you’re shooting JPEG on any camera, do a controlled comparison with a properly focus high quality lens. Some JPEG implementations are bad, really bad. Others are so-so or pretty good, and that’s as good as it gets. I’ve done so with most cameras, and it’s why I never, ever shoot JPEG. But I’m not a sports shooter, and that is one solid reason to use JPEG.
Check in-stock status of Fuji X-Pro1 on the compact cameras gear page.
Fuji X-Pro1 from RAW
Martin D writes:
I got my first DSLR in late 2003 or early 2004. It was a Canon 300D.
At no time between then and now have I ever shot anything but RAW except maybe a time or two by accident when some infernal switch got thrown without me noticing before taking pictures.
I so wish all these cameras had a menu option that would simply hide every setting and feature related to in-camera JPEG processing so I never have them in my way. Such a feature would really de-clutter the interfaces and minimize mistakes for me.
That said, these comparisons are just bizarre. Not only is detail lost, the pictures look like they're from different cameras. And one of them is a toy.
DIGLLOYD: yes, RAW rules.
As far as one “switch”, the Fuji firmware update throws that switch, wiping out the camera configuration and turning off RAW, as I discovered just yesterday updating the camera. So I set things up again, and then when I updated the lens, it wiped it all out again.
I agree 100% that a “eliminate all JPEG related cruft” global switch could do wonders to make it a far more usable camera in terms of menus and other side effects and simplifications.
Rudolph G writes:
As always, great reviews that are really helpful to better understand one’s camera.
I did some testing between RAW and JPEG myself for the Fuji X-Pro1 to determine the need to learn SilkyPix (Yes!) and learned a.o. that indeed the jpegs in camera have distortion correction applied while the raw versions do not have that. Have not found yet 'automatic' settings for geometry correction in SilkyPix which I also dislike. Lateral chromatic aberration is at times visible with the 18mm lens in high contrast and/or extreme highlight transitions. I do car photography, a.o. classic cars with a lot of chrome and these often exhibit color aberrations near chrome sections. If the color streaks are too obvious however, DXO is the only program that can clean up the jpegs or tiff's (after conversion in SPX) very effectively and automatically even if the lenses are not (yet) supported, much better than CS5.5 or LR4 are able to do.
As for your infrared section, do you yet realize the XP1 is a great infrared camera with a R72 filter applied thanks to its clean high ISO. Handheld infrared photography through the EVF with reliable autofocus (!), a new dimension.
DIGLLOYD: distortion correction can do horrible things to sharpness, especially away from the center. Silent distortion correction with no option to disable it is a major design flaw, but fortunately one can avoid it by shooting RAW.
As for infrared, I have confirmed that the X-Pro1 offers a good infrared image with a Hoya R72 or similar. I can’t shoot so conveniently however, because my IR filters are all the wrong size and as yet I don’t have a 52-58mm step up ring— ordered.
Fuji X-Pro1 from RAW
