X-Pro 1 Support has finally come to Lightroom and Camera Raw. Many people have been eagerly awaiting this and now that it's finally here I took a little time this morning to have a look and see what it was like. I've kept all the raw files from everything I've shot so far, so it was simply a matter of going back and loading them into Lightroom. So what's it like? Unfortunately it's a good news, bad news kind of situation. On the one hand, it handles highlights much better than Silkypix. I was able to recover highlights much better than I ever could using the supplied Raw converter. The overall tonality is quite nice, and colours are handled pretty well. They're a little different from what the camera produces in JPEG, but this is normal. They're also a littler different from what Silkypix produces, but nothing too onerous.

On the down side, there are two issues. One minor, the other major. The minor one is that they didn't provide camera profiles like they did on other cameras, so they haven't profiled the various modes (i.e. Velvia etc) It's not that big a deal but it would have been nice.

The major problem is the way it handles fine detail. It get's completely smeared to mush. here's an example:

Click on the image above to view full size (you might need to download it if your window is small). The one on the left is from Lightroom. The one on the right is from Silkypix. The wall is completely smeared and the fine detail in the bricks on the buildings is gone. The whole effect is like a painterly filter has been put over the image. It doesn't look too bad when you just see an excerpt like above, but when you see the whole thing on a 27" display, it stands out. It's very disappointing.

There was no noise reduction on either, in case someone decides that it musty be my own fault (as is the way on the internet when someone points out something wrong)

Anyway, I'll explore some more and do a full report later, but initially, I have to say, I'm very disappointed.