Raw conversion for Fujifilm S5 Pro

[freddieg]

I recently purchased a Fujifilm S5 Pro for my wedding and portrait photography to take advantage of the increased DR. I already own a Nikon D300. My question is, since the Fuji is basically a D200 body with some Fuji intestines, will the Fuji's CCD-Raw images be compatible with NIkon's Capture NX 2 conversion software or is it better to use the Fuji proprietary software for Raw conversion? Can anyone give me any feedback on this? Has anyone out there tried both with the S5?

[Derrel]

Well, one plus is that Capture NX-2 will work with Fuji JPEG files,and you can utilize the unique Control Point technology that Capture NX 2 offers. Control Point or U-Point technology was developed by Nik Software,and it allows you to click on an area, or a color, or a part of the image,and then very quickly increase hue,or contrast,or saturation,etc. It allows retouching and color-correction in seconds,in ways that used to take minutes' worth of painstaking layer masking or selection creation. Control Point technology is the single most significant advantage that Capture NX has over all the other raw file converters.

Unfortunately the Fuji S5 .RAF raw file specification is NOT compatible,and Capture NX 2 can not translate Fuji raw files....you might want Fuji's oddly-named Hyper Utility software is you want to do much .RAF handling. Or you could use Adobe Camera RAW,or Bibble Pro. Bibble Pro, the new 5th version, has finally gotten the interface to a level that mere mortals can understand and use it.

Seriously, look into the Control Point feature in NX 2...it's really an innovative,incredible way to retouch images in ways that you might never have imagined you could do. Want to increase the blue in the sky,but not make it look faked where a stand of oak trees is against that slue sky? Control Point can select just the blue--in seconds--and will allow you to work with just the blue sky.

[freddieg]

Thanks Derrel ! That's very helpful info, because I am planning to do quite a bit of JPEG shooting with the S5 in addition to the Raw shooting I will be doing, so I will definately use Capture NX2 for the JPEGs.