So I hacked the RAW to see if the hawk a mile away in a tree image from part 6 could be improved upon. Hacking the RAW is trivial with a tool like ExifTool GUI … you click on the image, then click on “Workspace” and finally in the field at the bottom of the right hand pane, you change the name of the camera. You end up with this:
Lightroom is perfectly fooled by this one change, so the RAW file is suddenly importable. And import it I did.
But I noticed right away that the colors were wonky. The hack worked last year on the F770EXR because the camera whose name I used – the F550EXR – has basically the same sensor, despite the marketing hyperbole about a new and improved sensor. But the F800EXR sensor is of that same generation while the F900EXR and HS50EXR have the new sensor with phase detect pixels on them. And it appears that the color matrix is really different. The old demosaic algorithm has no ability to deal with this matrix. Case in point:
Note also the wonky right edge, as the HS50 lens has distortions that could not possibly match that in the F800EXR. So all in all an EPIC FAIL!
Help me Obiwan Adobe, you’re my only hope
Yes, that nerdy thought just came to me out of the blue.
Of course, a black and white image based on this set of colors is going to be equally weird. Almost infrared-like, it turns out.
Still, it was fun to try.
Adobe said on their forums today that the F900EXR and HS50EXR support was coming out really soon, so I am holding out hope that I can get Lightroom 4.5 beta before I have to give the camera back. We will revisit this image should that come to pass :-)
From the New York RAW kitchen. No RAW for you!
