20d color vs 30d,40d

I've been shooting weddings and portraits on my 20d's set on parameter 2 and I have been so very pleased with the color. I recently

purchased a 30d and am struggling to get the colors especially the flesh tones looking as good as they do on the 20d. Can anyone share

some suggestions as to settings on the 30d that would mimic parameters 2 on the 20d. They have the same sensor and processor so they

should be able to produce the same color I would think. I shoot jpeg and would like to continue to do so.( i have nothing against shooting

raw. I just don't have much experience with it, when I have tried it I always come out with orange looking skin tones.)

 

I have a 40d as well but it is used for my M-F at my job at a daily newspaper. It belongs to the paper and I've had the same problems

getting the color looking as good as the 20d as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bob, I've never used a 20D, so I'm not sure what "parameters 2" is or looks like. Posting sample pictures from the 20D,

30D and 40D could help. I have a 40D. Shooting RAW and getting the right colors is easy. But, if you do want your

JPEGS to look a certain way, you may want to first adjust your white balance to get the skin tone you want. If that

doesn't quite work the way you want it, you should look into trying out different "picture styles". See if "portrait" or

"faithful" modes work for you. If not, you could adjust and fine tune the sharpness, contrast, saturation and color tones.

Take a look at, http://web.canon.jp/imaging/picturestyle/file/index.html. You can download additional styles and save it

on your camera. There is also another way. Use the "picture style editor" that comes with the camera. With this

software, you can adjust an image like in Photoshop, and all post-processed adjustments can be uploaded to your

camera--so the next time you take a similar picture, you will get the skin tones, color, contrast, etc.

I also recently purchased a 30D after selling my 20D, and find that I have to get used to the seemingly infinite adjustments I can now make to image settings when shooting jpegs as compared to the parameters on the 20D. I tend to use RAW a lot more than jpegs, so it's easy to adjust tones and white balance during pp afterwards. I do intend to learn the full capability of the Picture Style settings for the jpegs in order to be able to take full advantage of what the 30D has to offer. I'm interested in responses to your question. All that being said though, I find that I really like the 30D a lot more than the 20D; it's amazing how adding a few features (that should've been on the 20D in the first place) and a larger LCD can make a camera so much more enjoyable to use.

Just a guess. The difference in the 20D and 30/40D is that the two newer cameras have 'picture styles' settings as well as the contrast, saturation etc that you have with your 20D. Try experimenting with different 'picture styles' settings than 'standard' like neutral, landscape etc. I bet you can get it to duplicate the look you are getting from the 20D. Good luck.

This is a starting point:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos30d/page12.asp

 

and see Q4 here:

 

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/picturestyle/qa/index.html

Maybe this page is a better starting point. http://web.canon.jp/imaging/picturestyle/style/index.html

Make sure you have the camera is set to sRGB instead of RGB. I have a Canon 30D and I get consistently good skin tones. In the Picture Style function on the menu I usually choose "Portraits" when shooting close up people pictures. You can adjust the Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation and Color Tone, but I never had too. Also if you are constantly getting a color tint in your images then you can adjust that by using the [WB SHIFT/BKT] white balance correction function page 67 in the manual. You can also use the Custom WB function page 65. Ohter than that I'm not sure how else you can adjust the skin tones.

I have 20d`s set 2, `0,0,0` colour tone +1, srgb. its pretty close to my 40d, PS potrait, sharp 4, con 0, sat -1, tone 0, srgb. I guess a lil patience and fiddling :)

40D has the best color as its sensor and Raws are 14-bits of color data per pixel. There's no better thing as too much data, nor shooting Raw. JPG-only is 8 bits -- lots of wasted data shooting JPG only.