dcmiller wrote: As a 5D and a 1DIII owner I can say that Canon has definitely improved both color quality (richness?) and shadow detail with the newest generation. This isn't going to be noticed particularly with web evaluations. But most people here will definitely appreciate the difference.
Sounds promising, and agrees well with other reports I've read of the 1DIII. Hopefully the same improvements have found their way into the new s-camera as well, I have a 1DsIII on order
The point regarding CCD vs CMOS is interesting, as it has been claimed that the Kodak CCD chip in the DMR is essentially a (small) MF sensor and that this goes some way to explain its high dynamic range and colour rendition.
Yes! The first time I shot my 5D I was shocked by that magenta tainted blue sky and it took me a while tinkering with the in camera tone settings to get things to the point that an out of camera jpeg and an ideal RAW conversion looked the same, or at least very very close. My Fuji S2 had much better color. One gripe I still have with the 5D is its rendering of reds. Even using all the various profiles including Magne Nielson's and regardless of using C1 or ACR, the reds are just not as good nor accurate as from the S2. I partially suspect some of this could be with the Canon lenses as I have noticed a more accurate and better Red when using Zeiss lenses.
photoArne wrote:
I've found that I mostly like the DMR rendition of sky. I don't have the 5D, so I can only comment on the 1DsII and 400D, both of which I find render the sky with a magenta cast. Magne's profiles have improved the general colour reproduction of the 1DsII, but not fully eliminated this objectionable cast. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to magenta than cyan..
It would have been quite interesting to see what a Magne Nielsen profile could do with the DMR.
With the recent FW update Leica seems to have tweaked the colour response a little, but I haven't used the DMR enough to comment on it; nice that they still issue improvements though.
I agree with Douglas' comments on the DR and the ability to push the RAW files around without breaking up. Probably related to the 16 bit signal processing. ...Show more →
Seems to me that the color differences are more likely due to some other part of the data capture process than whether or not it is done with CCD or CMOS.
Weird. My 5D's seem to nail sky colour as accurately as I could ever hope. Meanwhile I see turquoise skies all over FM. Maybe there really is some physiological difference in how each of us sees the spectrum. I see Arne's shot of the red and yellow building as having a very slightly too green sky.
brainiac wrote:
Weird. My 5D's seem to nail sky colour as accurately as I could ever hope. Meanwhile I see turquoise skies all over FM. Maybe there really is some physiological difference in how each of us sees the spectrum. I see Arne's shot of the red and yellow building as having a very slightly too green sky.
I think uncalibrated monitors, monitors that are calibrated but still can't render colours accurately, poor browser colour management and ignorance of colour space issues in general contribute to this.
OT: I'll say there's also the issue of 'taste'. I see a bias towards heavy saturation in the US, you can see it in their TV programmes that feature colours and captions that I find large, garish and ugly but they all do it so it must be the acceptable norm over there.
brainiac wrote:
Weird. My 5D's seem to nail sky colour as accurately as I could ever hope. Meanwhile I see turquoise skies all over FM. Maybe there really is some physiological difference in how each of us sees the spectrum. I see Arne's shot of the red and yellow building as having a very slightly too green sky.
Your sky looks good to me. I'm sure there are physiological differences as well. Another contributing factor is of course location and time of year. I can say that my issue which I corrected during my initial camera setup was certainly not a monitor issue as I have my NEC 2080UX highly color calibrated for very accurate giclee reproductions for others. Its dead on.
What I noticed with my 5D out of the box before calibration was exactly what I had seen in just about every posted photo from a Canon DSLR. A tendency for a magenta biased sky. It probably bothered me a little more as I had come to really know the Fuji S2 color palette. Mind you, these can be subtle differences.
foxbat wrote:
I think uncalibrated monitors, monitors that are calibrated but still can't render colours accurately, poor browser colour management and ignorance of colour space issues in general contribute to this.
OT: I'll say there's also the issue of 'taste'. I see a bias towards heavy saturation in the US, you can see it in their TV programmes that feature colours and captions that I find large, garish and ugly but they all do it so it must be the acceptable norm over there.
Yes, they can be, but the olive grass thing on the DMR is quite strong. And still nobody has explained how to find the patch of mustard that I spilled on the lawn. I accept that people love their DMR colours, but people also love bass and treble, until they hear a human voice. Does anybody want to show us some unaltered DMR skin tones?
foxbat wrote:
OT: I'll say there's also the issue of 'taste'. I see a bias towards heavy saturation in the US, you can see it in their TV programmes that feature colours and captions that I find large, garish and ugly but they all do it so it must be the acceptable norm over there.
Anyone have the link to the recent Canon U.K. introduction of the 1DsIII? I would like you offer that video as a rebuttal to the claim of British good taste.
I am sure what I saw would be illegal in most countries, and a felony in Italy.
brainiac wrote: Yes, they can be, but the olive grass thing on the DMR is quite strong. And still nobody has explained how to find the patch of mustard that I spilled on the lawn. I accept that people love their DMR colours, but people also love bass and treble, until they hear a human voice. Does anybody want to show us some unaltered DMR skin tones?
Richard, the mustard question is easy: it will look more yellow than the lawn.. As for bass and treble, as an old sound freak I appreciate the analogy, but I'm not convinced that it's appropriate if the discussion is DMR vs Canon colours, I find that the DMR renders more subtle gradations in the palette than Canon ( the new C. generation excluded, it may perhaps turn the tables).
Not afraid to put myself on the line, here, in response to Richard's request, are some out of the box portraits, all taken with the DMR and the Summilux-R 80 mm.
(First in open shade, WB set to daylight, i.e. K 5600 and unaltered in RAW conversion) and with the dreaded olive green in the background for reference
Third, a rather strange light here with reflections from green shrubbery and a red pavement, I WB this one on the white wall in the background.
And btw., all these are unsharpened.
Arne, not to go too far off on a tangent ... but, do you feel that you get the same out-of-box colors on the M8 as you do with the DMR? Whether they are the appropriate colors or not is something that I'll leave to others ...
Third one which you WB's looks good to me, the others have a pretty wacky jaundice yellow tone to them. Anyone here who does not shoot with a custom WB? I thought so.
kidigital wrote: Arne, not to go too far off on a tangent ... but, do you feel that you get the same out-of-box colors on the M8 as you do with the DMR? Whether they are the appropriate colors or not is something that I'll leave to others ...
Hi Kurt, no not at all. The M8 colours are different. The greens (when shot with UV/IR filter) are definitely not olive, rather tilted towards the opposite, somewhat cyan/bluish, but very well differentiated. In general the colours of the M8 seem more muted, more neutral and perhaps therefore less exiting than from the DMR. I convert much more to B&W from my M8 shots than from any other digital.
Tariq Gibran wrote: Third one which you WB's looks good to me, the others have a pretty wacky jaundice yellow tone to them. Anyone here who does not shoot with a custom WB? I thought so.
Tariq, the second was WB on the white robe, and I think it is fairly accurate for a bronzed skin (summer capture!), maybe a touch too yellow, after all it's indoors.
Agree that the last has the best skin colour rendition.
Oops, looking over the portraits recently posted, I discovered that the first wasn't WB in the reconversion (I redid the conversions of all the posted images to make sure they were unmanipulated, but forgot to properly WB this one (as Tariq noted). Thats what happens when you're in a hurry late Friday night..) So I re-redid the conversion and WB. This is what I think it should look like.
, here, in response to Richard's request, are some out of the box portraits, all taken with the DMR and the Summilux-R 80 mm. 
