PL5: Fuji X-Trans RAW file processing w/ 3rd party lens

Hi all,

first of all: so glad that Fuji X-Trans support is here! I’m a long time PL user and I’ve been looking forward to this feature for such a long time. Thanks for adding it, DxO! :slight_smile:

I have the following problem: I shoot a Fuji X-Pro2 with a number of original lenses but also with some third party lenses without electronic coupling (i. e. you can only shoot them when enabling shutter release without a lens in the X-Pro2’s body). The problem is that, though PL5 can deal with RAWs shot with Fuji lenses without a problem, it will not develop RAW files shot with the same camera but with 3rd party lenses. I understand that the lens types cannot be detected by PL5 and hence it can’t apply lens corrections but I’d still like to be able to develop RAW files of shots with 3rd party lenses. Any advice how to achieve this? Since many people use lenses without electronic coupling to the Fuji body, being able to still develop RAWs shot this way must be possible in my eyes.

Christian

Hello @cs1 ,

Welcome to DxO forum :slight_smile:

Will you, please, provide us with some files via http://upload.dxo.com for the test and analysis?
All images we had were made with Fuji lenses so we never encountered that case but we should be able to fix it soon.

Regards,
Marie

4 Likes

Hi @Marie ,

thanks for your quick reply.

Huh, I deleted the broken RAW files and took new exposures with a third party lens which seem to work now. I can’t seem to be able to reproduce the problem anymore. Before you could only see the RAW’s thumbnail but not the full size raw image. :frowning: I’m terribly sorry for the false alarm. I have no explanation why it works now, I haven’t restarted PL5 or anything like that. I’ll keep investigating but at the moment it works fine.

Christian

Hello @cs1 ,

thanks for update.
If you encounter this problem again (I don’t hope so :wink: ) please inform me and provide files.

Regards,
Marie

Hi @Marie ,

thanks, will do. :slight_smile:

Christian

Oops, I went searching yesterday for existing threads on the Fuji X-Trans sensor and PhotoLab 5, but missed this, so I made a new post:

https://forum.dxo.com/t/dxo-with-fuji-x-trans-sensor/21923

While reading your post, I was confused by this:

I don’t know much about the X-Pro2, other than I came very close to buying one several years back. Can you please explain what this function is, what it does, and so on? Is the camera taking a photo, or just doing something with the shutter? Maybe that is the issue?

Is there a description of this on-line?

My X100f doesn’t have a removable lens, so I know nothing about how to use your camera.

Hi Mike!

Before answering your question: my issue has been resolved, it seems like it was a one-time problem that I can’t reproduce.

The explanation is quite easy: you can’t make an exposure with Fuji system cameras unless a lens is attached. The way it recognises attached lenses is via the electronic coupling of the lens with the body (for autofocus, aperture etc.). A lot of 3rd party lenses don’t have any electronic coupling because they’re fully manual. So the Fuji body “thinks” that there’s no lens attached. To circumvent this, there’s an option in the camera’s menu to enable shooting without a lens (meaning: shooting when no lens is recognised). This way you can shoot with lenses and lens adaptors without electronic coupling. This option doesn’t seem to have any negative impact on the Fuji RAW files

Christian

OK, understood, and that seem very reasonable now that I think about it. Presumably, PL5 “knows” which camera body you are using, and sets things accordingly, but the EXIF data would have no lens information, no aperture information, and so on.

Not that it matters now, but at the time I bought my previous X100s, I had both cameras side by side on the counter at B&H. I intended to buy the X-Pro2, but the small size of the X100 series intrigued me.

In a future release of PhotoLab, maybe they’ll allow us to select other lenses for when/if the information is available. I have that problem with my Voigtlander lens on my Leica M10. I make sure lens corrections are turned off, both on the camera, and in the PhotoLab preset.

To be honest, so far, I can’t see any difference in processing my Fuji X-Trans sensor images than with my Nikon images - PL5 seems to do them both equally well. And of the two recent sunset photos I’ve taken, the Fuji did at least as well, if not better, than my D750. I love both cameras - and my Leica - but for now, until I understand things fully, I’m going to go back to the Nikon for a while. Next project is how to use “Control Line”.

Good luck!

I think that PL5 deals really well with X-Trans RAW. I haven’t seen any obvious flaws so far other than “a matter of taste” problems (i.e. the way that PL5 tries to be as close to the camera body’s RAW developing as possible but being slightly off in colour details).

I’ve only worked on four or five images so far, all shot in raw, but I didn’t notice anything different than what I expected. Maybe it’s my camera being different than yours?