2/3rds difference between RAW convertors

[Canis Vulpes]

As per a previous post I am looking for another RAW converter. I already have Bibble Pro and this morning had a revisit. Beforehand I looked in Nikon Capture but it takes so long and I was showing my lady some photos of our Son did not want to wait ages so, I opened Bibble.

Bibble is real fast and performs well but then I noticed the histogram...

I use the histogram to obtain near enough good exposure in camera so 1/3 stop either way is an acceptable adjustment in the digital darkroom but anymore I feel its a poor photograph.

Nikon Capture shows a histogram as I remembered in camera but Bibble showed approx 2/3rds of a stop darker, hence needing more exposure compensation and intern creating more NOISE.

Take a look below at the differences, these are not the actual images taken this morning but were still on the card. Notice there is no exposure compensation applied in both cases. The images are totally unedited.

[robski]

Stephen - It's not unknown for imaging software to have bugs. It strikes me that some thing is wrong with the Nikon program when it is orders of magnitude slower than other programs which essentially doing the same thing. To wait 5 minutes for it to process would be unacceptable in a comercial workflow environment.

Why don't you post some questions about the software on the nikon.co.uk support site.

[Don Hoey]

I agree that Nikon Capture is slow, and I have heard that a lot of people use Bibble.

I am really surprised to see how two Raw coverters view the same image so differently though. I put 2 tabs up to toggle between the images.

How different is the end result image ? Perhaps try something with a background that will record as pale ( blue or grey ) but not white to compare noise levels after processing with each converter.

DP Review uses those colours and noise shows up well.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

I was looking to use Bibble to convert an image of James but discovering every image was 2/3rds of a stop down compared with Nikon Capture I used NC instead. I found other differences in both tone and colour between the two. A quick re-visit of pixmatic RAW converter shows correct brightness/exposure but no graduated histogram do I felt I was doing a bit of guesswork with exposure compensation.