Iridient Developer Updated with Partial X-Pro 2 Support
The latest update to Iridient Developer was announced yesterday and it adds partial support for Fuji X-Pro 2 files. Currently it only supports uncompressed raw files from Fuji's new camera. The update also adds some other bug fixes and improvements.
The full press release and details of the latest version can be found on the Iridient Developer website.
If you're looking for X-Pro 2 Raw files to try out and see what the images look like in various converters, I have an article with links as to where you can find them.
I've said before that I'm going to withhold any proper judgement about the various raw converters and overall quality until the production version of the camera comes out, but I'll give you my initial impressions. Bear in mind that these are just some preliminary thoughts, and they could well change once I have access to more files.
I've tried the X-Pro 2 images in three different raw converters now, and initially I was a bit skeptical about Lightroom's conversions, as they showed some of the usual artifacts, however there isn't a massive difference between the three, at least from the few images I've looked at. Iridient Developer does seem a little better at resolving fine detail as usual, and it looks more natural. It's also not showing much false detail (at least when you use Hybrid sharpen as opposed to Iridient Reveal), where as there still seems to be some of that in Lightroom. Overall though, the differences seem very minor, so perhaps Adobe did improve their conversions after all.
I've noticed that on a few of the samples from DP Review, that the shadows can be quite "muddy" in both Lightroom and Iridient Developer too. Shadow areas don't seem to be holding detail very well, but again, they're taken with pre-production firmware, and I've no idea of the way they were shot, so it's not fair to make any conclusions at this point. I had thought it was just the raw conversion, but now I'm not sure. It's not on all images, it just seems to be under certain conditions. I also noticed some weird patterning on one or two files which looks almost like an inca pattern, but they're only on images from one source, so there clearly were some issues with the pre-production firmware, and that's why I'm not making any judgement on it until the full production samples are out there. You can definitely see the detail advantages of the extra resolution though.
I know this is kind of repeating myself at this point, but I wanted to make it clear that I'm just sharing my thoughts here. I'm thinking out loud as it were! Also, the initial samples I have are limited, and I'm sure my opinions will change once there are more samples out there or I get my hands on an X-Pro 2 myself. I'm only offering these thoughts for those who are curious for an opinion, but it's just that at this point, a hastily arrived at opinion!
You can use the link above to try samples out for yourself and use your own judgement on them.
Please note that I'm not showing any screenshots or comparisons, because the samples that I'm using are from various sites and are copyright.
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