Sigma DP2, Leica D-Lux 4 & Fuji F200EXR

[spheredome]

Tomcat, can I ask whether you have accidentially switched to high compression mode for the DLUX4. I tried 5MP for LX3 and the file size is consistent around 2.3MB but yours is 1.4MB.

http://www.pbase.com/pschia/image/107407017.jpg[/IMG]

A 100% crop of each version is compared as shown below:

http://www.pbase.com/image/113402451/original.jpg[/IMG]

Which jpeg version is better?

Some observations I noted are:
(a) The overall colour cast and contrast is different
(b) Both the jpeg versions converted from RAW by C1 and ACR do not stand up well to further post-processing. Just sharpening them using USM or Smart Sharpen would start to introduce artifacts into the post-processed images
(c) The original in-camera jpeg probably had some sharpening as well as some noise reduction applied. The RAW converted jpegs were slightly noisier.

 

[vicpeh]

The converted JPG is too soft. I suspect something wrong here.

BTW, if u're interest in CS4, u get it at student price for only $99 together with a suite of other applications.

tomcat said he disabled sharpening during RAW conversion. With sharpening applied in C1, I can get sharper converted images compared to camera jpg.

Click on below for pics and focus on the stalk of buds (Pls save pictures first and view using a photo viewer):

Camera jpg
Converted jpg using C1.4

Most of the time with the DL4, I just perform PP on the camera jpg images which I find good enough.

 

[tomcat]

Tomcat, can I ask whether you have accidentially switched to high compression mode for the DLUX4. I tried 5MP for LX3 and the file size is consistent around 2.3MB but yours is 1.4MB.

I shot in RAW, converted to jpeg and downsized to the same height as that of the DP2's images ie from 3,648 to 2,640 pixels in Photoshop CS3 at high quality (8) to get the final file size of about 1.4M.