Capture One

Latest Posts

The IQ3 100MP Achromatic

The new IQ3 100MP Achromatic Digital Back is built upon the IQ3 platform and is a project I had looked forward to for quite some time. Built with a newly designed, dedicated sensor that removes the Bayer Color Filter, while retaining all the versatility and functionality of the IQ3 100MP, its promise had me anxiously awaiting the day when I could put the detail and quality to the test.

That day finally came in mid-April and I’m happy to be able to share the results with you now.

The IQ3 100MP Achromatic in use

Designing a back that focuses only on Black and White photography can be challenging and to say I was impressed with the final results is an understatement.

Black and white photography is something unique. With all the work and testing I do with our color systems, the specialized applications and benefits of an Achromatic back were a welcome challenge. By focusing on the detail render and functionality features, we are able to produce images that speak to what is at the heart of photography; composition and creative expression, while expanding on the digital properties we always deliver; image quality and detail.

Given my long career focusing on photography, I enjoyed putting this system through the paces while applying my in-depth knowledge and approach to the technical side of photography. This gave me the best of both worlds, I could challenge myself with the creative element of Black and White photography while exploring the technical flexibility of an Achromatic back… all while having the same tools available to me that I have in the IQ3 100MP Color CMOS system.

Seeing the detail

The first and most obvious benefit of this system is the detail that’s possible. Though it is still a 101-megapixel system, it’s built without a Bayer Color Filter. This means that there is no interpolation in the digital capture process. Each and every pixel is therefore much more genuine in what it generates.

Knowing that we work so hard to do the most with the color sensors and the Bayer interpolation, I knew before we even had the new system that we would see detail beyond imagination with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic.

The detail that you can see with the Achromatic sensor is truly exceptional. The IQ3 100MP color back is certainly impressive, and knowing all the hard work that goes into making the color sensor shine says a lot about what we can do with the new Achromatic!

What you can’t see is what you get!

Understanding the detail that’s possible with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic, it’s important to have the tools to ensure you’re getting the most out of the system. As the new sensor is a CMOS design, Live View is an excellent tool to ensure everything is captured exactly as expected.

Not only does Live View serve as a way to check focus and framing, but it also sheds light on what your eyes can’t see!

Capturing the full spectrum of light (infrared) with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic

Capturing the full spectrum of light with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic – with the visible spectrum to the right and infrared capture to the left

The IQ3 100MP Achromatic, in addition to having no Bayer Color Filter, is also designed to capture the full spectrum of light. The design is such that if removing IR light is needed, a filter can be placed in front of the lens to only capture light in the visible spectrum. But by not using this filter, you’re able to see infrared light in Live View which opens a whole new world of light displayed. Having this preview in Live View makes for less guesswork and ensures that what you see is what you get. With infrared photography, Live View focus is an absolute must due to the shift of the light and the filtering effects.

The versatility of artistic expression

In testing this back I primarily used the XF Camera System, but as the IQ3 100MP Achromatic has the same features as the IQ3 100MP color sensor, I was eager to test the back on technical cameras and use the Electronic Shutter.

This, along with the option of Infrared capture, makes this back incredibly diverse in in its applications. A precision system like the ALPA TC with the 35mm offers seamless integration with Electronic Shutter and has less need for control with an LCC calibration. This is of course fantastic, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of using the new Achromatic sensor on something a bit less precise.

Here is just one example of the IQ3 100MP Achromatic on a simple pinhole camera of my own design. The results, though certainly less controlled and quantitative, are still eloquently artistic. Something simply not practical without the Electronic Shutter and Live View tools at my disposal. (Perhaps next time I’ll remember to clean the sensor!)

ISO performance and flexibility

One of the side benefits of removing the Bayer Color Filter is the advantage of light sensitivity. As the Bayer Color Filter is actually a microscopic filter, it ends up blocking wavelengths of light from the pixel well. Without this filter, however, the pixel performance goes above its native sensitivity. As the Achromatic sensor doesn’t read color, it can use the additional light that a Bayer Color Filter would typically remove, to its advantage.

This benefits greatly as it means the base ISO 200 quality is equivalent to a low base ISO of 50 on a color sensor. If you need longer exposures, you can use an ND and not worry about introducing a loss of quality typically associated with such dense filtering. With a gain in sensitivity but a preservation of quality, the back becomes much more versatile.

And, of course, because of the higher base ISO, you can shoot faster shutter speeds while retaining seamless quality. This means the practical opportunities of a 101-megapixel camera becomes much more common. For example, here’s an image of the night sky at 1/4th of a second at ISO 6,400.

Although the image isn’t groundbreaking, I was happy to have it illustrate versatility. A quick exposure was more than enough to capture the stars in brilliantly sharp detail and nearly noiseless at such a high ISO!

What the eye can’t see

As mentioned previously, the IQ3 100MP Achromatic is designed without the Infrared Cutoff filter. Instead, the back is designed to have this filter in front of the lens. This adds the option to easily capture infrared images without having to recalibrate the system.

Infrared exists outside the visible spectrum. That’s what makes the Live View feature of the IQ3 100MP Achromatic so essential. The ability to see light and specifically infrared light in real time makes it easy to compose and create.

These are some of the first Infrared images I captured. Organic material like the bushes and plants by the water reflect a high degree of infrared light. This is why they are rendered in brilliant whites rather than the green and yellow that they would be in color, or the deep blacks and mid-tones they would be in a non-IR black and white conversion.

Below 1:1 crops, with and without Infrared filter

IQ3 100MP Achromatic - 1:1 Crop No Infra Red

IQ3 100MP Achromatic - 1:1 Crop with Infra Red

Exploring the black & white heritage

The new era of digital black and white photography reflects the traditional methods, before color photography was possible. There is a wealth of practices, methods and options that exist in black and white photography thanks to the nearly 100 years of practice before color photography (and methods that yielded color photographs) became commonplace.

The IQ3 100MP Achromatic is no exception in revisiting and implementing these methods. While digital photography makes it possible to “fake” these methods with post editing; with the Achromatic you’re able to apply the same techniques as you can with black and white film, and get better, truer results than when recreating them in post.

B+W has an extensive range of filters designed for black and white photography, which we used when designing this back. Below is just one example of light filtering that can alter your results with a simple bit of filtering.

Portraits with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic, Infrared only

Portraits with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic, Infrared and Red Filter

You can see in the left image above that the detail in the subjects face is much more prominent when using only the IR Filter. This is because all the visible spectrum is captured in tremendous detail. By comparison, the image on the right is shot with the addition of a Red Filter. This has the desirable effect of smoothing the skin and hiding freckles by way of reflecting all the red of the subject. When you combine these traditional methods and practices with the tremendous detail that’s possible with the IQ3 100MP Achromatic, the results are unparalleled.

The beauty of black & white

Working with a black and white camera is very different from working with a color camera. With black and white, most of the creative work is done once you take the photo. With external filters and Live View, you can create, compose and alter the image right there with the camera and not later in, for instance, Capture One Pro. It just makes the process of creating images a more creative and enjoyable process.

When you look at a color image processed to black and white in Capture One, you can get good results. And if you zoom into details you believe everything is perfect… and it is impressive. But once you see a true black and white capture, you realize that there is an extra level of fidelity to what defines “perfect” details. Not a single pixel appears out of place. Everywhere you look the image has this extreme fidelity down to every detail.

Personally, the availability of such a precision, high-quality digital back, dedicated to black and white photography, is a milestone of endless possibilities. As my profession is fully engrossed in the technical applications and advantages of photography, it was a joy to be able to use and experiment with this digital back.

In conclusion…

I think black and white photography has a unique ability to actually accentuate the elements of an image rather than the lack of color detracting from the capture. That coupled with the technical abilities, IR Images, Black and White filtering, higher ISO’s with cleaner capture, and the tools that make it possible, Live View, Electronic Shutter; all this opens a whole new door to artistic expression and photographic possibilities.

Phase One has always been a company that focuses on the technology and pushing what is possible in image quality further. Our close relationship with Sony enables us to think ahead and imagine the possibilities well before a product is produced.

Although our focus has been, and always will be on technology and image quality, it’s a pleasure to see the excitement and enthusiasm in the office when we produce a product with such traditional photographic foundations.

See more about the IQ3 100MP Achromatic and request your demo.

capture one raw image editor capture one blog blogpost capture one psd file support

PSD files in Capture One – now what?

From version 10.1, Capture One supports reading of PSD files. You have always had the option to export to this widely popular file format, but if you wanted to see your work file inside of Capture One after some external editing, you were required to save your layered file as a TIFF. Those days are gone.

Whatever layers you might add on top of your images, Capture One will now recognize and show PSD files as any other supported file type. It is important to mention that processing layered files from Capture One always flattens the image, and the layers in your PSD or TIFF files are not individually visible or editable in Capture One. The files are always treated as non-layered files within Capture One.

Now, what does this mean for your workflow? Depending on how you edit your images, this provides two overall game changing additions if you are a regular user of Capture One and Photoshop (or a similar editing software): asset management and full round-trip workflows.

1. Asset Management

If you are one of the many photographers who finalize their work in Photoshop after having processed the images in Capture One, you might have been missing the ability to see your final work within Capture One, next to your RAW files. Upgrading to Capture One 10.1 now makes this possible.

One way is to use the round-trip functionality within Capture One when sending processed images to their final steps in Photoshop (or other external editors). This ensures that the PSD-file is instantly placed next to the RAW file and will show in whatever Album or Folder you are working from – both in a Catalog and a Session. This is achieved by right clicking the thumbnail of the image and selecting Edit With…, which will open a dialog with processing options for format, ICC profile, size etc. You will notice that PSD is now included in the Format list as well as JPG and TIFF. Open With should be set to your preferred external editor for example Photoshop. This effectively processes your RAW file with the adjustments made to it, and opens it in your selected external editor.

N.B.: Open With, which is placed next to Edit With…in the right click menu, might be slightly confusing without an explanation. The direct Open With option will effectively open your RAW file in an external editor without processing it through Capture One. To summarize:

Edit With… -> processes file with adjustments -> opens in external editor
Open With -> RAW file opens directly in external editor

It is recommended to process to 16 bit to maintain as much information in the file as possible. Any changes to this newly added PSD file, from any external editor, will instantly show in Capture One once it is saved, making it possible to use Capture One as your preferred asset management software for all your work. N.B.: Saving with Maximum Compatibility in Photoshop is required for Capture One to support the PSD file.

You can of course also import PSD files as any other supported file types into your Catalog or Session.

2. Full round-trip workflows

The second addition to a PSD workflow is the full round-trip functionality: You have finalized your external work to your PSD file and might need a final touch of color grading, Film Grain, or other Capture One specific tools to take your image to the highest level.

With the Edit With-procedure described in the previous section, it’s easy to send a processed PSD file directly to Photoshop for further retouching. A good tip is to keep the processed image relatively neutral before retouching, and processed to 16 bit. This will give you the option to make different variants of color grading to the retouched image once it is back in Capture One. A huge benefit of this is, that if you need to do additional external retouching to the image, all variants within Capture One will automatically be updated with the changes. It is also possible to ignore the crop you have applied in Capture One from within Edit With… > Adjustments, which gives you the option to crop differently at a later point.

Imagine the following scenario:

You have shot an image for a client, and want to show them a couple of different versions to choose from. The image needs external retouching and is processed as a PSD file using the Edit With procedure.
External retouching is done and the PSD file is saved with layers.
Back within Capture One, the PSD file now shows the retouching. You create two new variants of the PSD file, effectively having three variants of the image ready.
Using Color Balance, Film Grain, Curves and other tools in Capture One, you finalize three versions of the image to prepare for your client.
With a process recipe, a small JPG of each version is processed and sent to your client.
They notice a flaw in the retouching that needs to be taken care of. You therefore open the PSD using your external editor and fix the flaw.
Back in Capture One, all three versions are now updated and can be processed again with a single click.
The client now receives and chooses one of the versions as their final pick.

All in all, support for PSD files provides full control to your workflow when using Capture One with external editors.

What impact will PSD support have on your workflow? Download a 30-day trial of Capture One and see for yourself.

Read more about using an external editor in our User Guide.

Tethered Capture with Capture Pilot for iOS and Capture One Pro 10

One of the biggest annoyances with tethered capture is having to constantly move back to the computer to trip the camera. I often work independently, so anytime an adjustment needs to be made with a soft box, moving a bounce card, moving the subject or styling the scene, I have to move from behind the computer and into the frame. That gets old quickly and chews up a lot of time that could be spent more productively. Of course, an assistant or digital tech would be helpful, but that isn’t always an option. Capture Pilot is an awesome mobile solution to many of these
challenges. The app integrates seamlessly with Capture One Pro 10 to review capture right on the iOS device with the option to control many tethered camera settings, including shutter release.

Independent Workflow Benefits

Capture Pilot reliably allows me to step away from the tethered camera to style a scene, reposition lights, hold bounce cards, while still adjusting camera settings and taking the shot without having to move. When tethering a camera to Capture One Pro 10 on my Mac, I position the display to face back towards the scene. I can stand just out of frame and see exactly what is happening on a larger monitor with precision. For added refinement at a glance, viewing the Focus Mask displays a green overlay to show image areas in focus. Previews will quickly load on my smart device in Capture Pilot and a simple pinch to zoom helps to evaluate fine detail. Working independently on projects is vastly more feasible using Capture Pilot with Capture One Pro 10.

Focus Mask displaying a green overlay

Collaborative Workflow Benefits

On set, time is money, and it’s not simply your time that goes into consideration. If you have a creative team with a producer, creative director, stylists, assistants, chefs, clients, etc., there can often be a number of staff on hand. Any amount of time you can save is multiplied across every person on set and that can be considerable. For food or beverage photography, the level of efficiency that Capture Pilot helps establish can make all the difference with brief windows of opportunity after styling, saving additional takes.

Having the best creative tools will you help maintain a less chaotic, more productive atmosphere on set, further increasing the value you offer. Capture Pilot is one more resource to have on hand to speed up and simplify the process, especially if you are working shorthanded. It can also be implemented to easily include a key player in the creative process, giving them their own personal review station on a phone or tablet.

Setup and Tethered Camera Controls

To begin, make sure your computer and smart device are both connected to the same Wi-Fi network. After installing Capture One Pro 10 and Capture Pilot iOS app, open Capture One Pro 10 on your computer and navigate to Capture Pilot within the Capture Tool Tab. Under the Publish Tool, select either Mobile or Mobile and Web. Launch the app on your smart device and select the local server you just created in Capture One Pro 10. By default, it will share the same name as the Capture One library that is open. Once connected, it will launch camera controls with previews behind it. You can disable the controls and change the size of previews, as well as intuitively navigate within the frame by pinching to zoom. You can choose your priority/drive mode, and within the applicable mode, adjust Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, and Exposure Value.

Adjust Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, and Exposure Value

RAW or JPEG file types can be selected, as well as preset while balance options. The ability to set a white point for color balance is built in. What’s really slick is that you can rate photographs as you are working.

Rating photographs

Coupled with Smart Albums in Capture One Pro 10, that’s a powerful feature and enables more freedom from being stuck behind the computer.

Pro tip: keep a charging cable on hand to charge your smart device. I have a case with a built in battery for additional redundancy and only kick it on if charging between shoots can’t keep up with demand. Enabling Do Not Disturb on an iPhone can help keep you from getting interrupted by notifications while working.

What I Love About Capture Pilot

Freedom to work more independently on studio or location projects. Time saved being able to interact with a scene while still controlling the tethered camera. The seamless implementation with Capture One Pro 10, quickly adjusting camera settings, and tripping the shutter with ease. The pinch to zoom previews show all the detail I could ever hope for. The app itself is free, with camera control being an optional (massively beneficial!) in-app purchase. Basically everything about it. It considerably upgrades my workflow and Capture One Pro 10.

Pinch to zoom preview

Improvements I’d Like to See

Focus control, which was just added to Capture One Pro 10, would be an amazing feature. The histogram doesn’t load for me on mobile, though perhaps it is my camera. Ability to check camera battery status when the camera is powered by a battery and not with a power adapter. The camera could be a Phase One XF 100MP. A better photographer.

Closing Thoughts

In the past, I’ve used third party remote apps, paid more for them, and they were not this easy to use and never this integrated. At $15 for an in-app purchase (the app itself is free), it’s on the steeper side of what one might consider paying for a phone apps. That said, when you consider the amount of time savings, creative control, and mobility it provides, it upgrades the value of Capture One Pro 10 and your overall production workflow. If you tether even occasionally, using Capture Pilot with Capture One Pro 10 really is a must.

Capture Pilot is available as a free iOS App from Apple’s App Store

Download Capture Pilot here. You will need Capture One as well, download a 30-day trial to make everything work!

Read more in-depth details about Capture Pilot in our User Guide.

Miss Aniela “Barocco”

Miss Aniela’s recently completed “Barocco” project has been the culmination of two shoots: one on location, and the other in studio. The project takes inspiration from the Baroque and Rococo eras, creating a symphony between high-fashion and surrealism. Shooting in this particular style requires pristine attention to detail throughout. Here Miss Aniela shares her workflow on how she has achieved these images.

“Whenever I shoot with the Phase One I tether to my iMac desktop at all times, the images always dropping smoothly into Capture One Pro 10. For easy organization, I create a new Session for each model look, shooting straight into the Capture folder, which later on I organize approved/rejects into Selects/Trash respectively. In the Library tab, I can then easily navigate to the Selects folder to work on my desired shots and batch-copy adjustments across any set of images to preview the desired effects, before hitting the ‘process’ button to output them as high-res 16-bit Tiffs in sRGB. From there, I simply open the Output folder in Adobe Bridge so I can take across the files I want to do compositing work on in Photoshop. I’ll store the resultant PSDs, PSBs and final Tiffs in that same Output folder.

It’s crucial for me to shoot medium format in a stationary and meticulous manner so I see exactly what I’m getting onscreen, and can try immediate adjustments via Capture One Pro’s quick edit sliders. I commonly use the exposure, contrast (just a slight increment higher) just to ’pop’ the image slightly; also the color temperature via the Kelvin slider, again to get a feel for color mood, but not to disrupt the chosen white balance and lighting set-up I’m purposefully shooting in-camera. If I know the image will definitely be cropped, I will also perform the crop in Capture One Pro, maybe loosely, so I can lose the unnecessary data in the file.

The Awakening

In ‘The Awakening’ the main adjustment was in color temperature, but little more than this. Final curves adjustment was then done later in Photoshop when perfecting the final file.

The Awakening – Schneider LS 80mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250 sec, 80mm, f/6.3, ISO50.

Glacial Gate

For ‘Glacial Gate’ I brought down color temperature a little, boosting the blue; and brought up exposure and contrast a notch, so that the white highlights behind the model popped a little more just on the verge of blowing out. It would not be usual for me to risk having blowout part of an image, but this one is a fairly unique situation where the white window glow evokes the mood of snow, or an angelic halo around her, simultaneously giving her face a pop of glow too. Then I worked on the surreal compositing in Photoshop.

Glacial Gate – Schneider 35mm f/3.5 lens. 0.5 sec, 35mm, f/7.1, ISO50.

Avalanche

Often in Capture One I will add a layer to the file and use an exposure brush to make specific, subtle exposure lifts. I did this for parts of the armor corset in the ‘Avalanche’ portrait of Gina. An increase in Clarity is perfect for exaggerating textures, though too aggressive on skin, so I will use a brush to work only on the outfit. I love that I can use exposure brushes on a file before I even export beyond the Raw stage! Quality is paramount to me, and making sure images ‘hold up’ at close-up view. All my images are shot on the lowest ISO possible, in this case ISO50, using as much light from my Broncolor Move 1200L kits as possible. I feel safe in the knowledge that Capture One Pro is preserving utmost quality by allowing me to make a whole host of adjustments before I even get near the ‘destructive’ Photoshop stage.

Avalanche – Schneider 55mm f2.8 lens. 1/160sec, 55mm, f/10, ISO50

Capture One Pro makes a difference for me in three ways: first, as an extremely smooth and reliable tethering tool. Secondly, as a sorting and organization tool to examine the images and separate wheat from the chaff in a straightforward and intuitive way. Thirdly, to add batch adjustments easily and to output high quality files with a simple click of the programmed process recipe.

I personally always like to use folders in my operating system (Mac) as my central form of organization, and Capture One Pro works alongside this easily. Predominantly I favor using Sessions for all my workflows, so for any one shoot, I can see easily upon glancing into its subfolders (Capture, Selects, Output, Trash) the position of my content without opening up the software.”

Read more about Miss Aniela’s inspiration behind her Barroco shoot here

Credits

Barocco House – Photographer: Miss Aniela. Model: Annabelle Loveluck. HMUA: Grace Gray. Costumes: Miss Aniela own, with dress in ‘The Awakening’ by Wendy Benstead.

Barocco Studio – Photographer: Miss Aniela. Model: Gina Harrison. HMUA: Lan Nyugen. Costumes: Agnieszka Osipa, military jacket Miss Aniela’s own. Assistant: Dan Lennard.

Natalie is an art and surreal fashion photographer based in Sussex UK. She works together with her partner Matt on both fine art and commercial projects under the name of “Miss Aniela”. Mixing art and fashion, Miss Aniela creates a fine balance of contemporary creativity. Her work centers on a fusion of traditional imagery and digitally enhanced motifs, interweaving in a surreal composition.

Miss Aniela has been exhibited by the Saatchi Gallery, Photo Vogue Milan, Prins Eugens Waldermarsudde Museum in Stockholm and the Houses of Parliament.