hdr studio for digital cameras

[victor]

i work with hdr studio for scanned images from Ai. soon i recieve the leica d-lux 2 digital camera. it has RAW data option. it is the first time im gonna have digital camera.

1. can i use the hdr studio for digital camera? or is it better to have the DC studio?
2. is there support for d-lux 2 RAW conversion in silverfast?
3. as i was informed, leica includes on the cd some RAW support with plug-in abilities. don't know yet what exactly it means. can i use it with silverfast?
4. if i order the it8 target to calibrate the camera, do i need to create varios profiles for various lighting conditions, is it neccessary or would it be helpfull?

thanks

[LSI_Noack]

Dear Victor

Both, HDR Studio and DCPro Studio can be used, and offer the same tools. They are targetted at different audiences, but functionality is pretty the same.
HDR Studio, DCPro Studio, DCPro offer full raw file conversion.
DCVLT is limited to eight bits per colour channel in output.
The Leica Digilux 2 already comes bundled with a special version of SilverFast DCSE that offers DCVLT level raw file conversion (but for the Leica Digilux 2 only).
Calibration is done for a specific lighting situation. So, if lighting environment changes, you'd need another calibration shot.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -

[victor]

thanks alot sony...
i already work with the silverfast hdr studio and d-lux2 raw very successfully. the only drawback of sf here - is that at high iso (400) there is no noise reduction tool in sf. and dlux2 is quite noisy at this speed. otherwise it works great especially since im very femiliar with sf workflows.

it8 is also works great with the small pocket target. and indeed, it detects the small un-even iluminations problems sometimeswhic is great since it is a very small camera with display for framing and not as eassy for accurate framing as heavy cameras :-)