Nikon Z7 in Lightroom

[brucec6773371]

Possible major quality issue / bug here: I've not yet search the forums, but I've done enough testing now, even loaning Z7 and lens from Nikon to confirm, that Lightroom CC (and what appears to be Bridge also) just don't support the quality resident in the Z7 (I'ved not tested Z6). I've dozens of images to compare with, on D800, D750, and tests with 27-70 2.8 G v F4 Z, plus tested the Nikon loan camera, so ruled out product variations / body or lens issues.

I took this issue up with Nikon itself, until we diesoverd it was Lightroom itself. A relief to them, but no help to us.

In a nutshell, I totally lost confidence as a pro shooter (portraits etc) on the Z7, until radomly, during testing, I decided to install the trial of another RAW converter / editor  and was totally blown away by the detail I knew should have been there all along

If this issue has not yet been reported, I'm astounded, but I feel this is an urgent issue to address. A simple dropping of a high res, quality file (say a portrait at 100%) will instantly show the comparison. I don't want to have to purchase / learn other software, but I'm gutted to work with soft images. I've tried all varations of sharpenning, noise control etc etc, until I simply opend the file in another converter, and there was the detail that blew me away.

Is Adobe aware of this issue? It runis the output of this expensive camera, and defeats the purpose of working with quality, high-res files, where the D800 and 750 run rings around it in Lightroom output.

Gladly like to hear that this is reported and worked upon?

[brucec6773371]

For the sake of clarity, and in case Adobe is interested, I think we should move away from the possibiliy of a 'scaling' issue, simply to focus on this:

1) I open a d800 image in PS - it's tack sharp at 100%. It's prefect at 90% viewing. (Let's IGNORE LR)

2) I open a zZ7 image in PS - it's horribly soft at 100%. It's soft at 90% viewing

This is the underlying issue. I don't believe we can now add PS into the mix as having issues, as with ANY other file I've added, including some 100mp MF test files over the years, my MAc has never had a 'scaling issue'.

I've also pixel peeped images in LR and PS at 100% for portraits for over 10 years. I know what I'm seeing here.  It's soft, and it shouldn't be.  And I've left LR aside! I can export to PS in bridge....same diff. It's RAW I believe.

However, I will test, and will stand corrected if so. But 10% UPSCALING I understand as unacceptable,  but to observe this in multiple softwares? Unlikely, unless they share the same RAW converter, and in this case they do

[D Fosse]

We can't "move away from scaling issues" because that is what happens here. That is at the root of it, that's the whole problem.

The question is why that scaling happens. Find out why, and the problem is solved.

Yes, it could well be a Lightroom bug. Or it could be an OS bug, or both. The weird thing is that nobody has ever seen anything like this before. Or at least I haven't.

[brucec6773371]

Let me test on a couple other platforms to see if I can rule anything out. A possible clue is the fact that on my system Mac Preview (I assume unrelated to Adobe RAw) renders the file sharp throughout the zoom range, right up to 100%.  But once in anything Adobe, the issues start. Again, the 'other software' renders it as per Mac Preview, again meaning the scaling 'seems' to be occuring on Adobe side, not OS related.

Yes, I only know of 1 other finding same issues, but he seemed to refer that he was not alone also.

Of course, I'm not a software developer, just an end user, so there might well be dozens of other factors I'm unaware of.

PS- thanks very much for your assistance. Greatly apprecited!

Thing is, either way, I'm stuck with PS, as I'm embedded in that platform, and now that Z7 is my main camera, I'm out of options right now to produce sharp images that at least equate to my former cameras, let alone exceed them which it should.

[brucec6773371]

I have a workaround that opens sharp files everytime in PS - it is of course to use the 'EDIT IN PS' option in the other software (as opposed to 'open in PS' which opens the RAW file which once again is soft)

This of course edits the image as a TIFF for example, and altough the WB is way off when it opens the TIFF in Adobe Raw, when it enters PS, I can fianlly see (for the first time I might add!) my Z7 images looking tack sharp.

This is not ideal, but it's at least possible. It would involve dropping around $500+ on the software, without future updates, then working out the WB/Tint kinks that occur when going this route.

I will do final tests, one on another Mac and one on PC, and leave it there as no real time to take this much further.

[Jao vdL]

I've been shooting the Z7 for a while and only gotten outstanding results with Lightroom. One thing you need to realize is that two things are happening with Z7 (and Z6) files which is different from the D800 and D750 and new for the Z series. One is that Nikon writes camera raw specific settings in the files that change the default settings for the images from the normal Lightroom default. This results in very large sharppening radius (2.0) by default which can actually cause a loss of accutance when using sharp lenses. This is something Nikon has decided and leads to default soft rendering in Lightroom. Just increase amount of sharpening and lower the radius to around 1 pixel. My typical setting in sharpening on portraits from my Z7 is something like 70, 1.5, 25, 40. In landscape images the sharpening radius will typicdally be smaller.  Second is that for some reason Adobe decided that on the Z series Lightroom, camera raw, etc. will ALWAYS apply lens correction using the correction parameters that Nikon embeds in the raw files. You cannot turn this off. Even if you turn off lens corrections in the camera, Lightroom still does the lens correction (lots of people have complained about this in the Z7 and other cameras: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/disable-built-in-lens-profile) . Of course this can induce some sharpness loss if you use lenses that have strong distortion. This might explain the scaling difference seen above although I would never expect as much as 10% difference. I have not seen differences anywhere near that large between raw converters on my machine. The size difference at 100% is something very strange that I have never seen Lightroom/ACR do.

[brucec6773371]

Thanks - yes agree. I have noticed that also. I found that to achieve the similar 'look' to my d800, I too had to shoot up to about 70 sharpening, and I found that I had to raise detail to 100% to begin to get the reuslts I'm used to seeing. Of course, that makes me wonder about this, as I need none of this with different software, but also, returning to zero settings in sharpening, is really soft, whereas anytyhing zeroed on say d800, hardly deteriorated the image. My issue is adding such intense sharpening settings (at least on my screen) seems counterintuative, when it appears that out of the box (eg in Mac Preview) the file is already crystal sharp. Why the difference in say Mac Preview (presumumable usiing it's own RAW reader) and competition software, when Adobe Raw requies a really heavy handed approach to approximate what other cameras achieve with minimal?

[brucec6773371]

For your viewing pleasure, here's the link to the following:

D800 regular sharpen (default)

Z7 enhanced sharpening to try to mach

Z7 zeroed sharpening

D800 zeroed sharpening

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/75gqu1ip2j9vpi5/AABfDqzVvSK783sEQS9tnABLa?dl=0

My issue is this: I really can't believe that an 'out of the box - SOOC' Raw off the sensor of a Z7 looks like that unsharpened. 

[Jao vdL]

> My issue is this: I really can't believe that an 'out of the box - SOOC' Raw off the sensor of a Z7 looks like that unsharpened. 

That is actually exactly what an unsharpened raw file looks like with images shot at f/stops higher than about f8.  The softness is due to diffraction which you will see quicker in high res cameras and is due to physics. The other factor is the Bayer filter which reduces the maximum acuity you can achieve because every pixel records only one color channel and the demosaic algorithm will interpolate color between pixels reducing the maximum resolution you can achieve. When I compare the raw rendering in Capture NX-D with all sharpening set at zero with Lightroom at zero with an image shot at f/4 for a lens that is tack sharp at f/4 and Lightroom is actually slightly better. Optimized sharpening in both and they are virtually identical.

[Jao vdL]

I get a lot better detail out of the Z7 using just minor tweaking of the detail settings than the image opened in preview or using Nikon's Capture NX-D (they should know how to extract all detail from their camera's files) software. The default is indeed a bit softer than preview but only a bit. The thing to note is that preview does not read the in camera settings but Lightroom does. You can actually improve the default rendering in Lightroom quite a bit by simnply applying a preset on import that just adjust the sharpening a bit, or by setting the sharpening settings in your camera a bit higher which will simply result in a higher sharpening setting in Lightroom when you bring the file in. I see no difference in detail in my shots between Lightroom and other raw converters for files from my Z7 as long as I optimize the sharpening settings. It is a long complaint against lightroom that the default settings are very conservative. That is definetely the case but also something that is easily fixed by setting different defaults or using import presets.

A sharpening setting of 70 is not at all heavy handed. It's the middle of the scale in Lightroom. You should note that one of the oddities of Lightroom and ACR is that the sharpening scales are tuned differently for every camera. So 70 on a Z7 is different from 70 on a D800. Lastly, the Z7 is higher resolution than the D800, 45.7 vs 36.3 megapixels. You will see the limitations of your lenses earlier on the higher res camera. To really compare you have to scale the images to the same size.

[brucec6773371]

Thank you. Ideally, screenshots from other users with similar setups is a good way forward to comapre. For example, is that what you see when you zero your settings in LR sharpening on your Z7?  To me the d800 is outperforming the Z7, where I know Nikon, and myself, believe the results are not accurate representaitons of the off sensor sharpness or rendering. 

To me, the clincher is this: how come a simple app such as 'Preview' on a Mac for example, renders perfectly sharp images that outperform the D800, the competition Raw converter also does (with what appears to be zeroed settings) but the 'base' image or starting point with LR, yeilds images that do not resemble what appears to be a simpler RAW conversion in other, more basic software?

[Jao vdL]

In a lot of software it is hard to zero out sharpening. So beware of that what you see is not always a good default. Here is an image at zero sharpening in Lightroom zoomed to 1:1 (you might have to click to zoom in the forum)

Here is the same region in Capture NX-D with all sharpening settings (sharpening, mid-range, and clarity) zeroed:

The lightroom image is better. Now look at typical sharpening settings:

Lightroom:

and Capture NX-D

and Lightroom looks cleaner with fewer artefacts.

This image was shot on a Nikon Z7 with a 70-200 f/4 lens at 125 mm on the FTZ adaptor at ISO 220, f/5, 1/125s.

[Jao vdL]

And here is a better image to look at. Also f/5 but the focus plane is deeper as it was shot further away. The focus in the previous image was probably just in front of the eyball because of the horse hair in front of her eye. Again sharpening settings at zero in Lightroom:

If you would shoot the same at f/16 it would look a lot softer.

[brucec6773371]

Thanks - I will take a good look at these.  

Bascially, I feel the recognised workflow with RAW, is typically to zero out the sharpening to start neutral.  Then work from there in PS, hence my hesitation to add sharpening at the RAW stage. Agreed, a ltitle sharpening is not unacceptable, in the spheres I follow and research, typically, RAW sharpening is a no no in the first instance at least. So my issue is that zeroed the d750 and 800 is great, but not so th Z

I do believe I did tinker with Capture NX a little to start with, but not being familiar with it, I moved on. However, thinking back, I have a feeling it rendered sharp images, but seeing my workflow is currently LR based, I didn't pursue this.

I have shot portraits on lower F number, but at that time, I didn't notice a great deal of difference to be honest. I may well run some more tests just to rule it out.

[brucec6773371]

My graphics card is listed below. Who knows, perhaps Adobe RAW just has issues with this one card on this one camera. That's all I can figure so far in the regard.

Attached here: Z7 standard settings in LR plus Z7 RAW directly read my Mac PREVIEW at 100%. No comparison here.  To me, the PREVIEW software shows the z7 as it is, off sensor as best I've seen it this way.

Dropbox for better link and updated images better sized than below https://www.dropbox.com/sh/i4u80y481qjfq3x/AABZYLkSRFv8nbjMyhr85Z_ta?dl=0

Mac Preview reading Z7 Raw fileZ7 LR defaults

[D Fosse]

Introducing Mac Preview into this mix is probably just confusing the issue. It's not a raw converter; it's reading the embedded, camera-generated jpeg, not the raw data.

I don't have a Z7 (I switched to mirrorless before Nikon, so I use a Sony a7rII, but still have the D810). So I'll just stay out of this for now. But I still think the 10% scaling is the smoking gun. Would it be possible to put an original NEF in dropbox for others to check?

[brucec6773371]

Thanks that's good to know. I wasn't sure how Mac OS read the raw. The jpeg preview explains it. Sure. I'll get a Raw file in Dropbox. 

[brucec6773371]

Here's the link to the dropbox RAWS - several d800 and a couple of Z7 all shot in studio. You'll have to up the exposure on a couple etc to get a good look at them. I usually also pop the profile to portrait mode, just to flatten things out in the shadows

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/isfem89zzqqebqo/AACmDP1tusQOG6BKgaPG1PiDa?dl=0

If you are wondering about the difference between the 24-70 2.8G v the Z24-7- f4, the are identical in sharpness whenused on the Z7 , so you can ignore the lens/body combinations for comparision purposes.

[Jao vdL]

Took a look at your files and these are exactly as I would expect for the f stop you used. You can calculate what the size of the Airy disk caused by diffraction on your sensor is. Here is a calculator that does it for you: https://www.photopills.com/calculators/diffraction and here is a quick table: https://www.edmundoptics.com/knowledge-center/application-notes/imaging/limitations-on-resolution-an...

At f/16 and using a 45.7 MP full frame camera (i.e. the Z7), the airy disk for green light has a diameter of 21.31 µm. The pixels on the Z7 are 4.35 µm. This means that details are smeared out over about 5 pixels! Needless to say, the optics dictate that the image will be soft. The max f stop before resolution becomes visible on the Z7 is about f8. Beyond that your pixels will not be sharp because of optics and you will need some sharpening. With the D800 that happens around f/10 because its pixels are larger so you have a bit more leeway. If you want your portraits to be tack sharp, do not go higher than f/8.

Honestly these images look exactly like what I expect from a 45.7 MP camera with good lenses. The default sharpening in Lightrom is just very light.

[brucec6773371]

Thank you. I agree with you that diffraction may decrease sharpness beyond those figures, however, this can't be what is occuring in my particular case (althought obviously my have an effect in general usage) due to the fact that in my particular case, as shown in the attached screen grabs etc, the same z7 file is light years better in competing software in the same circumstances. The softness is only apparent in LR, PS, BR, but not in my other software, and not evident in anything but Z7 files generally.  I also shot in lower numbers and I could not percieve the effects.

While the reviews of this lens do seem to indicate f numbers that are very sharp throuhout the range, even if in my images diffraction caused some sharpeness issues, it woudl still not explain the extreme difference in sharpness rendered by LR when compared to other Raw converters, where no such sharpness issue is evident.

So I agree with the overall issue of diffraction, but if you take a good look a the screen graps of competing converter, you will see it can't be explained solely by diffraction.

I shot on 14, but yes, I may change to 8, but I still have the issue of LR, or my OS/ machine, rendering soft z7 images,  whereas my other software revealed what I knew the z7 capable of, which was images that surpassed the D800 for clarity, definition etc etc..

I'll keep thinking on this!

[Jao vdL]

Also in your screenshots, the entire difference is pure default sharpening settings. ONLY Lightroom, and camera RAW can read the settings in the file set by your camera and will thus default to too low sharpening but only for the Z series cameras because of the instructions Nikon includes only for these cameras in the raw files. Nikon for some reason chose to set these values very low leading to by default soft rendering in Lightroom. Any other raw converter including Apple photos will just apply its own defaults and sharpen more than Lightroom by default. All you need to do is apply a bit more sharpening.

Lastly, it turns out that the Z 24-70 f4 is not quite as sharp at f16 as the 24-70mm f/2.8 you used on the D800. The difference is small but you can see that in the measurement here

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Nikkor/Nikon-NIKKOR-Z-24-70mm-F4-S-mounted-on-Nikon-Z7---Measurements... (click on sharpness) which shows that at f/16 you only have about 5 of what DxOmark calls perceptual megapixels

Here is the measurement of the 24-70mm f/2.8 on a D800

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Nikkor/AF-S-Nikkor-24-70mm-f-2.8G-ED-mounted-on-Nikon-D800---Measurem...

which is about 6 MP at f/16. This number is by the way exactly what you expect from diffraction.

The Z 24-70 f/2.8 is a bit better than the f/4 at high f stops and virtually identical than the older normal mount f/2.8:

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Nikkor/Nikon-NIKKOR-Z-24-70mm-F28-S-mounted-on-Nikon-Z7---Measurement...

I wouldn't have expected that. The difference is very small but you will probably get slightly better results with the f/2.8 lens on a FTZ adapter.

[D Fosse]

OK, thanks.

Unfortunately I no longer have Capture One installed (I had a subscription but positively hated the interface, so I cancelled about a year ago). So I can't compare those. But in Lightroom, I can't say that the Z7 files look any softer than the D800 files - at the same sharpening settings. At default, the Z7's are set to 0, while the D800's are set to 40. There is a difference right there.

One of the example images posted from the Z7 has critical focus on the tip of the nose, not the eyes. Could that play a part in your assessment?

Anyway, I do notice that distortion correction has a pretty big impact on overall scaling. So if there is something funny going on here, it could be the lens profiles and how they are read and applied in each application. There is absolutely zero reason this should be interpreted differently in Lightroom/ACR vs. Capture One.

Someone who has both Lr and C1 installed should look at this.

[brucec6773371]

Hmm. That's interesting. My defaults for z7 are very different. Perhaps I will reinstall LR. My profiles are imported automatically and it applies preset sharpening. I only quickly grabbed some Raw's. I can certainly find others. Re focus, I'll check that one. But the softness is apparent on all z images either way, on my machine. 

I wonder what z profile you are using?  I've played with graphics snd version settings. No change my end. 

I need to test on Pc and another Mac to rule out my machine. 

[Jao vdL]

As I said above, the Z7 includes camera raw/Lightroom develop instructions that modify the default settings to something Nikon likes. Typically this means somethinhg like 20-30 sharpening (depending on your in-camera settings), a radius of 2.0, 25 detail, and no masking. It also always sets luminance noise reduction to 25. This is done by your camera and except if you apply a preset on import, it will always set these values for Z7 files! The default in Lightroom for all other cameras is 40 sharpening, radius 1, detail 25, and masking zero, with no noise reduction. 

I find that high f/stop images from a 45 MP camera typically need something like 50 to 70-range sharpening, radius 1.5, detail 25, and masking 25. Luminance reduction around 10 works well. Again this is exactly like you expect from the physics of the optical system. If a raw converter shows you something that appears sharper, it is applying extra default sharpening.

[D Fosse]

You're right. When I reset the Z7 file it goes back to 28 amount with 2.0 radius. Don't know why it was 0 before.

[brucec6773371]

Thank you. Ok, so the point you are making is that something like Capture is applying its own default sharpening. That would explain it. Of course, I don't know Capture well enough to delve into the sharpening settings, but I assume looking at the sharpening slider, that it was indeed zeroed. But yes, perhaps this is not the case.

My concern is that it seems a sharpening setting of well over 60 is required to bring the Z files into matching look, which would make some of us have to rework our workflow, by using more sharpening intially than later.

However, if that's all that's required, that is doable. The difference between zeroed Z7 files and zeroed files of any nother Nikon camera I've owned is however, really shocking to look at. Are others satisfied with a very soft image when viewed zeroed?

To me, even though this may be the explaination, it is hard to have confidence in the raw conversion, after what seems to be a 'default - zeroed' conversion by say, Capture, looks sharp without having to 'add in' manually. Yes, it could mean Capture sharpends prior to import, but where does one have ability to remove this if they wished for example?

Yes, the 24-70 2.8G v 24-70 F4 Z comparison you mentioned is accurate I believe in the fact that there may be some VERY slight reduction on the Z model (f4). I was unable to verify this in 'sharp' software until I used Capture just now. I had to resort to using LR at the time, which as I said, the softness make the images look pretty identical. I prefer the weight of the f4 over the 2.8, and that's my main reson to switch. So check out the dropbox link here for the realworld tests I ran before I sold the 2.8, and I've only just opened them in Capture to recheck them. I also would say my f4 is very slightly front focussing (nose) as I haven't had that long to dial it in, whereas the 2.8 I'd worked on in the past. Prob didn't use eye focus here either.  Howver, the difference is, as you say, almost inperceptable at 100%. It was interesting to grab this test however.

I may write to Capture support however, to check if indeed a good deal of sharpening is being applied to their RAW conversions, and if so, can it be set to zero to compare against LR import conversion. I still struggle with the fact that the Z7 could produce soft images onto the Z sensor. I can't fathom that at all.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zyto6c0iolw9rs4/AACEitf6apJnVaQxSlCfV87Ba?dl=0

OK - I will try the sharpening on import and go from there. I'm not interested in a switch to Capture, as the interface also looks daunting.  I'll keep posted in this thread if I discover anything further