Test Results: Pentax 67 vs Canon 5D

[patricklavoie]

All i could add is;

 

Everytime i heard someone complain about raw development problem, color noise problem, digital rendering etc.. most of the time (if not everytime) it was a matter of lack of knowledge in this field.

 

As for example;

 

someone using a plugin to reduce the noise on a file and complain for the lack of sharpenes..when eveybody know that if your using something to remove the noise, the image will indeed get softer.

 

or someone using a colornoise reduction plugin and complain that is file look like a monochrome after with color lost and no vibrancy...

 

or not sharpening a digital file or a image from a film and saying that the image is soft...

 

basically what i read here : )

 

That why i dont think this test is relevant, and thats why i think that before one could do a test like that it should be able to control every aspect of BOTH technology. As another readers says,

 

...< any of these ad hoc comparisons end up showing are the differences for the individual doing the test. They are of very limited usefulness to a wider audience. To attempt to draw any broad meaningful conclusions from a single pair of photographs taken and processed by a single individual under one set of conditions is... well, sorry, but it's just pointless...>

[rishij]

Patrick,

 

I wouldn't say it's lack of knowledge in the field *everytime*. I agree digital has immense

potential, it's great, but quality of RAW conversion depends on how well the RAW converter

is able to translate RAW data to real colors. Since some developers build these converters

themselves (e.g. Adobe Camera Raw) by shooting targets with camera models, they may or

may not agree with manufacturer RAW converters, and that may or may not be a problem

depending upon which RAW converter provides more accurate conversions.

 

Using Gretagmacbeth ColorCheckers, for example, can give you more accurate results

after calibrating, but they, in my experience, can't always compensate for a good RAW

conversion done by an accurate RAW converter (for that particular camera).

 

In particular, I've found LR/ACR's conversions of Canon RAW files to be unreasonable in

certain colors, as have many photogs. Adjusting the camera calibration brings the result

near the color conversion provided by Canon's DPP, but with other artifacts/problems

abound. For example, in my experience, magentas get over-saturated upon this camera

calibration correction.

 

Cheers,

Rishi

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Oh, so this is where the thread was moved to...Casual Conversations. Thought it got

dropped through some database glitch.

 

Anyway, I posted the RAW Developer Color Smoothing image only to illustrate what MIGHT

be the cause for why digital camera's render color this way. Just throwing ideas out here

and see what sticks. I'm not pushing a digital vs film argument either. I just see a

difference.

 

Anyone else who can show a DSLR can render color in distant detail the same as film post

it here and indicate how you did it.

[roger_smith4]

"In particular, I've found LR/ACR's conversions of Canon RAW files to be unreasonable in certain colors, as have many photogs. Adjusting the camera calibration brings the result near the color conversion provided by Canon's DPP,"

 

How do you find these compare to in camera Jpeg conversions? With tweaked presets I get nearly identical results between my 20D RAW files in Lightroom and in-camera jpegs. It's a decent starting point for further edits I think.

[rishij]

In camera JPEG conversions are very similar to Canon DPP's processing of RAW... I assume

they're using a similar engine in-camera for JPEG processing.

 

As you say, 'with tweaked presets' you get nearly identical results in LR as in-camera

JPEGs. My 'tweaked preset' in LR, as spit out by ACR calibrator script run on a RAW image

of Gretagmacbeth ColorChecker:

 

Camera Calibration:

 

Shadows: +2

Red Primary:

Hue: -31

Saturation: +30

 

Green Primary:

Hue: -26

Saturation: +30

 

Blue Primary:

Hue: +8

Saturation: +3

 

That seems like quite a bit of tweaking to me! Colors look good, if not great, after these

calibration; however, sometimes I run into problems. For example, the magenta/pink label

on a container of iodized table salt ended up being gaudily saturated magenta in LR after

application of these presets, whereas in the DPP conversion, it was much more reasonable.

All other colors remained largely the same between the DPP conversion and the LR

conversion (after the LR calibration).

 

I like DPP's presets for daylight balancing, etc... for example 'Natural' and 'Landscape'.I

find their color conversion better, naturally, probably b/c they're the manufacturer of the

camera, they understand it well, they've worked with it for longer than Tom Hogarty over

at Adobe (I believe he's the one that builds the camera profiles) has had the chance to...

right?

 

Overall, though, I find Lightroom to be an ingenious piece of software. Hence why I export

tiffs from DPP and then import them into LR for all subsequent post-processing.

 

I could post some results of the gaudy magenta/pink example... in a bit.

 

Cheers,

Rishi

[roger_smith4]

Hmm. I haven't seen these issues, but I've only tried LR and didn't even install DPP. As with my film scanning I shot a grey/white/black target under daylight and used that to create reference presets for nominal exposure, over, and under.

 

Is magenta the only thing to watch out for? I would appreciate an example.