Category: Personal Page 7 of 14

I’ve spent thousands of hours researching various aspects of photography, but still, every once in awhile, I’ll see something that blows away what I’ve thought for many years. This is one of those very exciting, eureka-moment articles that has blown away my previous paradigm, so I thought I’d share.

Color used to be determined by the film companies, mainly Kodak, and then Fuji. But then came digital, so now the camera companies are in complete control of what color their cameras can capture. I’ve thought that Nikon and Canon would never compromise color for anything, until I read this article a few months ago.

Apparently, they’re compromising color in order to get higher ISO, low light sensitivity, which isn’t good news for me, since I go to great lengths to get the best color I can, but can’t afford to switch from full-frame Canon to medium format, at this time, where color has not been compromised for ISO.

Here is the scoop. Apparently, most photographers are completely unaware of this. So far, every pro I’ve mentioned this to didn’t know. Very interesting how marketing works. Sometimes high ISO is more important than color, for shooting the northern lights and night photography, for example, but for most of what I photograph, I’d rather have the best color possible.

It would be nice if Canon and Nikon offered two versions of their higher end cameras: one tweaked for ISO (current models) and the other for color.

Note: apparently, this is the first time a medium format camera is using the CMOS sensor, which is the current standard in 35mm cameras, such as Nikon and Canon.

From: Luminous Landscape

The Phase One IQ250 CMOS Fully Realized
by Doug Peterson

Prerequisite Reading

If you haven’t heard about the IQ250 yet, I’d suggest before you read this article you read this site’s preliminary review and Digital Transitions’ 11 Things to Know About the Phase One IQ250

[…]

…Color. Color. Color.

…when Sony approached Phase One with an offer to build what would eventually become the IQ250 sensor there was one looming questions, could Phase One tame CMOS color?

Historically, CMOS has not had the best reputation for color rendition. But teasing apart cause and effect has been, up until now, very difficult. CMOS and CCD were being used by very different companies in very different systems. Most CMOS cameras are built for the broadest possible range of applications. They are built by consumer electronics companies with a volume sales business model, where features and price are higher priorities than image quality.

As one example, the selection of a CFA, the color pattern put in front of the sensor, is a choice between quality of color, and ISO performance. If the CFA allows each pixel to see a broader spectrum of color (e.g. for the green pixels to see a bit further into yellow) a camera’s ISO range can be modestly increased. The resulting loss in color quality is subtle – subtle variations in color are missed and a handful of specific colors become difficult to photograph. In a market where a ISO 25,600 camera has a leg up on a ISO12,800 camera, the engineers are under enormous pressure to pick the modestly increased ISO over subtle color quality. Copenhagen, We Are Go / No Go For Color

This sort of mentality is blissfully lacking in the R+D at Phase One. …color and image quality were far more important than a marginal improvement in ISO. …

Niels [Niels V. Knudsen] has the informal title “Image Professor,” and is best known inside Phase One as the dark wizard of color. He is responsible for the fine tuned profiles made for all the cameras that Capture One supports.

This has meant that for over a decade he has produced color profiles for every major CMOS camera. He has come to know CMOS color from dSLRS like a friend or perhaps like a frenemy. As he describes it, “I am always fighting with profiling CMOS dSLRs to control accuracy while allowing for subtlety and robustness. Every time I fix one color another color jumps out and bites. These cameras’ color response is brittle.”

Entire Article Here

Related:

The World’s First CMOS Medium Format Back: An Interview and First Tests (A more pleasing noise is mentioned, making 6400 ISO very useable)

Rodney Lough Jr. asked on Facebook, discussing this image:

More Yosemite for Wednesday; here’s Reflections Along the Merced! What do you think, do you like black and white images? Do you want me to see more of them, or do you prefer color?

I commented:

It seems to me that color almost always touches the heart more, perhaps because it more accurately shows off God’s creation, the way He made it. It shows His glory!

Rodney responded:

Thanks for your answers, everyone! Those of you who like color; don’t worry, I won’t stop releasing photos in nature’s glorious colors, including the image I’m going to be releasing in a little more than a week, Cathedral Forest. Those of you who like black and white, though… Well, I guess I’ll just say stay tuned

______________

Here is more on my perspective. I just shared this with a Facebook friend who prefers black and white:

… I’ve studied Ansel. I like some of his work, and have seen some of his originals in Monterey. He can emphasize a particular feature with extreme contrast, etc., making a piece of rock look really gnarly, and the sky super dark, for example. And I do like his later darkroom technique over his earlier, where he was more conservative. But I still don’t get the ‘awe’ factor that I get with many color photos.

In this photo, one of my favorites of his, Ansel used a red filter to greatly darken the sky, etc., and heavy dodging and burning. It does emphasize how mighty this piece of rock is. And it may be more stunning than the color photo would be, taken during that same moment, especially if it was midday. But to me, a color photo taken during the right light could still be even much more impressive.

In general, in order to make a black and white look impressive, the photographer has to tone down certain colors and/or crank certain tones up, because a green tree will only look dissimilar in shape to the cliff behind it if they’re both the same brightness. So the photographer might greatly brighten the tree while darkening the cliff, so they can be more distinguishable.

The end result of doing that throughout a photograph for the different elements may be interesting, and draw me in to look at the photo more (which is good), but these photos rarely make me rejoice.

Another possible factor, which I don’t understand why it’s taking so long to solve, is that most computer monitors aren’t color accurate without being specially calibrated, which mostly only photographers do. So the photos don’t look the way they’re supposed to. If you ever get to see a Rodney Lough Jr. gallery in person, please do.

Accurate color isn’t a high priority for most consumers, so computer manufacturers can probably make a screen brighter without subduing certain colors in order to present color naturally.

Many people lose their color accuracy as they get older too. I think it’s probably a nutritional deficiency, mainly, and older photographers may have a hard time getting the colors right, so end up doing black and white instead.