The Jackar Snapshooter 34mm f/1.8 is an old-school look cheap lens made in China that can now be pre-ordered for the Fuji X-mount at Adorama for $175 here. ephotozine tested it on the [shoplink 13887]Olympus OM-D E-M5[/shoplink]. Read the whole review here. The conclusions:

“This is an interesting take on the fast prime lens for Micro Four Thirds and NEX cameras, and the solid metal construction of the lens is re-assuring, although with the lens’ relatively low price, it’s clear that the optical quality of the lens isn’t likely to be the strongest feature. However, saying that, this lens performs better than other lenses we have tested (cough Holga, Toy-Lens, Pinwide cough), and with a sharp centre, bright aperture, and soft edges, this lens may be ideal for anyone looking for a good compact lens for portrait photography, low light, or creative control over depth of field.

If you want a manual, compact lens, then the reasonably price and high build quality would make this a good choice, however, for landscape shots and situations where image quality is more important, it may not be the ideal lens, but for low light, wide-open shooting, and portrait shots, it could be ideal.”

image courtesy: thevisualexperience

The good news is, Fuji X-photographers now have various options to process their X-Trans files and get decent results out of it. The most popular options are Lightroom, Silkypix, Capture One and Aperture. But there are other software programs like Raw Photo Processor (based on DCRAW), AccuRaw… (check out this X-Pert Corner RAW-comparison post).

But in the last weeks I told you several times of Iridient Developer (Mac 0nly). This is an option which you should seriously consider to add to your workflow (try the demo version). Does the details extracted from the RAW by IRIDIENT really blow out ACR? Could this be the software that finally unlocked the full potential of the X-Trans sensor?

Now, I’d like to share with you the following articles. The first one at thevisualexperience analizes the way dpreview tests the image quality of the different cameras, while in the second post, “I’m a beliver”,  Activatedfx talks of his conversion from LR4.4 to Iridient 2.1.1!

1) Why DPReview may be sometimes wrong

This is how dpreview tests the image quality of cameras (source thevisualexperience):  a) Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled) b) Set Sharpness to zero (all other settings default) c) Open file to Photoshop d) Apply a Unsharp mask: 100%, Radius 0.6, Threshold 0 d) Save as a TIFF (for cropping) and as a JPEG quality 11 for download

“DPReview paved the way for “scientific” comparison of camera performances, guiding passionate and professionals in understanding “what is worth to buy” and what is not. […] So ACR is the “meter” used to compare cameras for what concerns RAW. You can jump to the “Image Quality” of each review and use the tools to compare RAW performances.

But now that Iridient delivers such great results with the X-Trans files, thevisualexperience suggest to DPreview:

[…] please start taking into account different RAW processors or, at least, make some claim that the RAW results people are inspecting may be not representative of the REAL POTENTIAL a camera may have (since the meter you’re using is, somehow, not the best).”

2) I was a skeptic but now I’m a believer

And here there is another photographer that was blown away by the Iridient results and posted his comparison… at the great dpreview forum (check it here)!

“The Iridient image has more DR, richer colors, more detail in the sky, and a noticeably SHARPER image with no halos or artifacts. To my eye, it doesn’t look “sharpened” at all. In particular, look at the detail in the background of the road sign at 100%. The pattern is much more distinct in the Iridient image. And it’s not because of more contrast.”

Do you consider to swich or add Iridient to your workflow and you do not own a Mac? Apple just released the new MacBooks with an incredible battery life! [shoplink 14128]Check them here at your Amazon[/shoplink].

all the best
Patrick

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– “Which One? Adobe Photoshop CC or Lightroom 5: An Intro For the Completely New Photographer“. Read this phoblographer review here.

– LR5 arrives, is it worth? Read the answer of fixelpix here. “Having played with the beta and now the full version could I survive without this upgrade. Well, probably but at the cost of time. I see the new tools considerably reducing the time I spend in additional applications. Could LR5 mean I no longer need the additional power of Photoshop?”

– photograper Piet Van den Eynde published his book “Lightroom 5 Up to Speed. Everything You Need to Know About the Adobe Lightroom 5 Upgrade” at Craft&Vision here. It costs just $5 and most of the images in the eBook were shot with Fuji gear! “This eBook walks you through the installation of Lightroom 5, the new Advanced Healing Brush, Upright, Radial Filter, Smart Previews (offline editing), the improvements to Book and Slideshow modules, and almost 30 other changes, big and small. It also gives you tons of suggestions on how to exploit the potential of these features; plus a bonus chapter about the new and improved Lightroom plug-ins.”