Check out the sharpness of these Canon 5DS raws - not bad for 35mm!

[torger]

I don't claim it being a software only issue, only much more a software issue than photographers in general tend to believe. The problem as I see it is that photographers ditch cameras based on color rendition without first ever trying making their own profile. It's hard to blame them though, the availability of easy to use and still good profiling software is limited.

I have indeed my own software, http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/dcamprof.html, but I'm not claiming it's easy to use. I'm well aware of Image Engineering's products, as my own profiling software is capable of processing SSFs. SSF-based profiles targeted for specific spectral data of your particular interest are very nice indeed, but it requires expensive gear to measure (or ebay stuff and DIY electronics skill). Traditional target profiles do quite well too.

I doubt Lightroom's profiles are currently designed that way, many (most?) of the ones I've seen apply looks and are not that accurate, and the type of accuracy errors is not related to using a spiky fluorescent source as calibration illuminant (which indeed is not a good idea) but are rather "look" tunings. I haven't seen all their profiles though and I have noted design has changed over the years.

Anyway, I think it's wrong to draw conclusions on a camera's color performance based on default rendering in some raw converter, and that's exactly what photographers do all the time.

Obviously profiling is a research area for me though, lots of things still to discover so I may change my views with more knowledge. Some aspects of photography reminds me of my HiFi audio days though, were people could absolutely hear a difference of the direction of cables to speakers (except in blind testing of course but that does not count in their world). I think I see a few of those things in photography too, but one could always say my eyes are bad...

[eronald]

Torger,

 Yes, people buy cameras or even whole systems eg. Phase in order to get a baked-in look. 
 Would most of them be capable of recreating something useful themselves using editing software? I'm not so sure.
 This debate is even stronger in the video domain, where Raw data is usually not available.
 
Edmund

I don't claim it being a software only issue, only much more a software issue than photographers in general tend to believe. The problem as I see it is that photographers ditch cameras based on color rendition without first ever trying making their own profile. It's hard to blame them though, the availability of easy to use and still good profiling software is limited.

I have indeed my own software, http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/dcamprof.html, but I'm not claiming it's easy to use. I'm well aware of Image Engineering's products, as my own profiling software is capable of processing SSFs. SSF-based profiles targeted for specific spectral data of your particular interest are very nice indeed, but it requires expensive gear to measure (or ebay stuff and DIY electronics skill). Traditional target profiles do quite well too.

I doubt Lightroom's profiles are currently designed that way, many (most?) of the ones I've seen apply looks and are not that accurate, and the type of accuracy errors is not related to using a spiky fluorescent source as calibration illuminant (which indeed is not a good idea) but are rather "look" tunings. I haven't seen all their profiles though and I have noted design has changed over the years.

Anyway, I think it's wrong to draw conclusions on a camera's color performance based on default rendering in some raw converter, and that's exactly what photographers do all the time.

Obviously profiling is a research area for me though, lots of things still to discover so I may change my views with more knowledge. Some aspects of photography reminds me of my HiFi audio days though, were people could absolutely hear a difference of the direction of cables to speakers (except in blind testing of course but that does not count in their world). I think I see a few of those things in photography too, but one could always say my eyes are bad...

[torger]

Yes, people buy cameras or even whole systems eg. Phase in order to get a baked-in look. 
 Would most of them be capable of recreating something useful themselves using editing software? I'm not so sure.
 This debate is even stronger in the video domain, where Raw data is usually not available.

I'm aware that I might do wishful thinking. I need to get much deeper into profiling and camera color than I currently are to drop my humbleness.

What I can say from a scientific standpoint is that current modern cameras are more similar between models than they used to be. For a fixed high CRI light, a fixed palette and making a profile from a purpose-made target (ie repro use case) cameras of different brands will produce virtually identical output, if not one's doing something wrong.

However when a camera is facing low CRI lights or changing light conditions the differences in hardware start to show, cameras with tuned profiles to match a look under a specific light condition will start to deviate under a different one. This is an interesting aspect whose practical effects I don't know that much about. It's possible some cameras work significantly better in varying light conditions than others.

I don't reject the idea that maybe it's so difficult to create a pleasing look that many need to rely on bundled profiles. I'd like to investigate further. However I'm very skeptical about that any significant trace of that pleasing look is left when typical professional post-processing work has been applied, and I'm very skeptical about that those that have do that type of post-processing actually need some specific camera to get better color, they should do good with any reasonable camera. It's extremely difficult to see which camera is which if we get post-processed images in our hands, unless you look for lens artifacts and similar and draw conclusions from that.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I don't claim it being a software only issue, only much more a software issue than photographers in general tend to believe. The problem as I see it is that photographers ditch cameras based on color rendition without first ever trying making their own profile. It's hard to blame them though, the availability of easy to use and still good profiling software is limited.

Indeed.

Anyway, I think it's wrong to draw conclusions on a camera's color performance based on default rendering in some raw converter, and that's exactly what photographers do all the time.

That's also what I've been saying, the camera is not at fault, it's the rendering to color that needs to be improved (before blaming the wrong party).

Cheers,
Bart

[eronald]

Indeed.

That's also what I've been saying, the camera is not at fault, it's the rendering to color that needs to be improved (before blaming the wrong party).

Cheers,
Bart

All cameras will fail the luther ives condition differently, and thus render in differently strange ways. Also, the profile has culturally adjusted skin tones baked in ...remember, there used to be orange, yellow and green boxes of film

[synn]

As someone who has made the effort to make profiles for every camera he has owned in recent times, I can safely say that the hardware choices are not completely overcome by profiling.

[Manoli]

All cameras will fail the luther ives condition differently, and thus render in differently strange ways. Also, the profile has culturally adjusted skin tones baked in ...remember, there used to be orange, yellow and green boxes of film

Was there ever a more persuasive argument in favour of the Leica Monochrom ? 

M

[eronald]

Was there ever a more persuasive argument in favour of the Leica Monochrom ?  

M

Manoli,

 You have spoken masterfully like a true Sophist.  

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Was there ever a more persuasive argument in favour of the Leica Monochrom ? 

It fails the Luther Ives condition even more than most Bayer CFA filtered sensors. It also has one of the worst color reproduction characteristics

All cameras will fail the luther ives condition differently, and thus render in differently strange ways.

The differences between the CFAs are relatively small if compared to human vision (which is significantly different), so they will all be similarly wrong.

Also, the profile has culturally adjusted skin tones baked in ...remember, there used to be orange, yellow and green boxes of film

There are many kinds of profiles possible. Canon also delivers their cameras with a variety of choices (e.g. Neutral, Faithful, Daylight, etc.) out of the box, and additionally offers a Picture Style Editor which allow to create one's own 'style' to be used by the camera and/or their Raw converter. Raw converters like Capture One allow to create and use user edited (ICC) profiles, and ACR allows to use tweaked DNG profiles. So there is not a "the profile", there is a vast number of choices, and options for users to create their own.

All that demonstrates that it's not meaningful to blame a camera in isolation, there are too many other factors that also have a much more significant influence on the resulting color rendering.

Given that the 5DS / 5DS R is not designed as a high ISO camera also means that more attention could be given to the choice of CFA filter properties, instead of being more transparent and less selective to gain some speed benefits.

Cheers,
Bart

[sailronin]

My cat has just taken a photo with a new Samsung smartphone that, to my eye, looks like it was taken with an IQ380. Ok to post some pics here ?

Love it...
Maybe we can start a Canon page...oh wait, they have their own groups.