Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: torger on May 29, 2013, 06:57:25 am

Title: What really is the "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution"?
Post by: torger on May 29, 2013, 06:57:25 am
I've tried to find camera input profiles for Hasselblad backs (specifically the CF22) for use for generic raw conversion (ie not Phocus or Lightroom). They don't exist in the normal sense.

Now it seems that Hasselblad has some alternative approach they call "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution" which is supposed to give perfect results for all lighting conditions according to market speak. I have however been unable to find a technical description of what this actually is, and how the raw colours from the raw .3FR files are converted into accurate colors. There is some mysterious "Hasselblad RGB.icc" installed with Phocus which only contains a matrix (seems to be a generic color space just as ProPhotoRGB, AdobeRGB or sRGB), but I don't know if that is a static file or if it will be different depending on which back is used with the software. If it's a static file I guess the .3FR files must be pre-cooked to equalize all the different sensors, or then it's just a working space like ProPhotoRGB/AdobeRGB and has nothing to do with the camera response.

I have programmed raw conversion software so I'm quite familiar with .ICC and .DCP profiles and color management in general.

Is there some technical description of the Hasselblad Natural Color Solution out there?
Title: Re: What really is the "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution"?
Post by: torger on May 29, 2013, 08:10:22 am
While searching the net I found out that Hasselblad used DNG once but dropped the format in favour of their 3FR as DNG did not allow them to store enough metadata concerning various calibrations (some color-related I guess), see the "3FR VS FFF" response below:

http://www.hasselblad.com/service--support/technical-support/faq/phocus/mac.aspx?Group=Mac

I guess that should have changed by now though.
Title: Re: What really is the "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution"?
Post by: Garry Sarre on September 04, 2014, 04:30:53 pm
As I loosely understand it, the 'natural colour' profile is a tweaked and tweaked again compilation of inputs garnered from multiple users over a broad range of photographic genre. Is that vague enough for you. Haha. I recall reading that in some Blad literature somewhere. I do know that for my portrait work, it does look amazingly 'right', as long as I do a grey scale balance.
Title: Re: What really is the "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution"?
Post by: deejjjaaaa on September 04, 2014, 05:01:14 pm
http://www.hasselblad.com/service--support/technical-support/faq/phocus/mac.aspx?Group=Mac
I guess that should have changed by now though.

certainly not - how do you want to implement various calibrations specific to big sensor stitching from mutiple exposures during manufacturing ? to use BLOB in a specific DNG tag designated for prop. info ? then it is rather logical to drop DNG altogether... DNG is a good intermediate format to use in your workflow post conversion indeed, but for a camera manufacturer who needs flexibility it is just a hassle...
Title: Re: What really is the "Hasselblad Natural Color Solution"?
Post by: torger on September 05, 2014, 02:48:58 am
Oh so this old thread came to life again, nice :)

I would have guessed that the HNCS is more than just a tuned icc profile, but I don't know. Haven't really used Phocus so I don't know how it looks in there.

Concerning DNG standard, yes it's naturally messier for a manufacturer to use a standard format and contribute to its development (it's not set in stone that Adobe should dictate all DNG features), but a standard format is not to please manufacturers, it's for the photographers and for posterity.