Panasonic LX-3 RAW support

Question

I've been waiting patiently for Aperture to include support for the fabulous Panasonic LX-3 but still no joy. Does anybody have any idea if this camera will ever be supported? I use Aperture for my Nikon D300 all the time and hate having to use my "carry about" LX-3 in JPG mode.

Answer 1

I agree that that this (sending feedback to Apple via the Aperture Menu) is important. I've just sent this. I was once told by someone in a position to know in a major company (they weren’t in Apple!) that 5 public contacts on an issue raises it on the radar, 10 is a problem, 25 is a crisis: -
All I really need to know from Apple is ‘This is important to us. We are working on it. The reason for the delay is that we want to make the internal changes necessary to how RAW files are handled good for the long term’
What I would like to hear as well is ‘We are releasing an interim solution’.
The LX3, and D-Lux 4 (which I use) are remarkable cameras, something that has been highlighted in major reviews.
Luminous Landscape;
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/lx3.shtml
Digital Photography Review;
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicdmclx3/
I work with cameras ranging down from the Canon EOS-1 Ds and L series lenses downward. I use Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture. The D-Lux 4 now fills the gap where other tools produce poorer results, such as reportage where I don’t want to get in the way, as well as ensuring I can follow Rule One for capturing the moment – have a camera!
Panasonic/Leica have taken a remarkable step by including information in the RAW file that allows software processing of RAW to allow automated correction of barrel distortion and chromatic aberration. Those are not defects; they are there an intentional trade-off to allow f2 and 24mm equivalent. Processed through Adobe Camera Raw / DNG converter/ 5.2 (but not through CaptureOne, which can also open Leica RWL files) the results are astonishingly good.
*Other manufacturers will follow, because embedding this information allows their offerings to perform better than they would otherwise do. This is why it would be imprudent for Apple to ignore this – which is also why I don’t think they can be(?)*. But picking up this additional data is apparently non-trivial.
Adobe have put quality above compatibility, and the need for a work-around solution above finality, and produced an interim response in Adobe Camera Raw / DNG converter/ 5.2. This produces truly astonishing results with the D-Lux 4 and I am certain with the LX3 as well. The trade-off is that it is inelegant – the files are 3 times the size of the RAW file, and is not backward compatible (which is why Aperture cannot open the .dng files produced by Adobe DNG converter).
The issues underlying this have been set out on the Adobe Camera Raw Forum, in one thread, see in particular post 14
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?7@@.59b62677/12
This thread is remarkable because
1) It explains the issue to end users, and what Adobe are doing about it, in so far as they can while observing the conventions of inter-company diplomacy;
2) It has people such as Eric Chan, Thomas Knoll and others of the Adobe Camera Raw team replying. You can’t get any higher than this – it is astonishing;
3) When I asked whether the D-Lux 4 would also be supported at the same time as the LX3 I got a reply on the forum (affirmative) from Eric Chan in 40 minutes! Astonishing!
Moreover, when there was a bug in the Camera Raw 5.2 updater that resulted in LX3/D-Lux 4 RAW files remaining unopenable for some people using CS4, that forum was actively used by Adobe’s engineers to track down and resolve the issue as quickly as could reasonably be expected. Remarkable. Kudos Adobe.
Phase One’s CaptureOne can also produce .dng files. These are backward compatible (they can be opened in Aperture), the same size-ish as the original RAW files, but includes all the original lens distortion, the chromatic aberration, and a strip of unused pixels for the picture format selected, that the end user was never meant to see. If you have Lightroom/Photoshop this is all manageable for individual images, but a pain (and you wouldn’t now be using Capture One!), but if you have Aperture you are stuffed, not to put too fine a point on it. Phase One’s own rendering is corrected for distortion if you remain within Capture One, but not for CA.
I assume/hope that the reason for the slow response of Apple is deliberate, they having decided not to produce interim solution’s along the lines of Adobe and P1. They may be waiting for Adobe to produce a new specification for DNG, which Adobe have said they will do, and which will presumably specify the new fields that will be allocated within DNG to allow for lens distortion and CA data to be picked up from the file.
Perhaps Apple weren’t expecting this to take so long. However, I think they should have, like Adobe, produced an interim solution for reasons that are now obvious for everyone using RAW on an LX3, D-Lux 4 and the other Panasonic cameras. If a solution does arrive in the next few days then it doesn’t matter so much. If it is going to be three months . . . not good, not good at all.
Aperture does have some significant advantages over the competion in some areas, which is why I am using Aperture as well as LR/CS4 . . . however I wonder whether the balance of advantages and disadvantages for the professional users and skilled enthusiasts, and the pace of advance of the alternatives, is once again become critical.
Malcolm
Photography at
[www.pisces-rfr.org]