Sinar e75LV problem with Brumbaer eMotionDNG

[bdp]

Hi Martin,

As Thierry said the green cast problem that requires high tint settings to correct is now gone - it didn't affect image quality it just meant that tint needed to be around 70 instead of 0 for the average image. But the WB settings are pretty bad to be honest - I import pictures taken with the Sunny setting on the back and have a bizarre WB of something like 4327 for the temp and -37 for the tint.... who knows why - I have told Sinar and so has my dealer, but so far there is no firmware update in the back to make them more normal. If I click on the preset 'sun' setting in the WB preset of eXposure I get 5600 and 0 tint - surely the back should be the same. I don't know why the tungsten WB preset setting in eXposure is at 6000K instead of 3400 or thereabouts. But I don't use these presets anyway, and have shot my own Macbeth card targets for a sunny day, a cloudy day, inside my studio in daylight etc, and I use these along with a grey card WB with further custom fine tuning to my taste. I don't know anyone who uses the WB presets in LR for example and expects them to be accurate, but I do hear you on the back's presets. I encourage you to lobby Sinar to fix this, along with the low quality preview that shows screen moire. I recently complained to my dealer about this softness of the small size previews, and wished we could perhaps have a setting for higher quality previews at the base size. I think most computers are powerful enough now to deal with the increased processor demands required to produce a better preview in a short time, and even not, if there was a setting to change it for slower machines that would be good.

Ben

[baudolino]

Dear Thierry,

OK, I take your advice to shoot the color target at the beginning of every session. I look forward to the next time I shoot a regatta from a fast moving motor boat  - I will wave the macbeth color target in the air in front of my lens and do my best not to get it blown away; perhaps I will even manage to get a focused shot of it if I ask the skipper to hold it for me :-). And next time I shoot my dogs I will train them to hold the macbeth chart in their mouth for a while :-). Maybe I should not be using a medium format digital back unless I want to change my priorities and start shooting models in a studio for some worthwhile magazine. Apologies for my sarcasm, the idea just amuses me (I know that under ideal conditions, shooting the target first of course makes sense and yes, I know I can do it before I get on the boat and before I start shooting my dogs.....)

To complete my education as to white balance - in the light of your recommendation, what use if any are then the preset color profiles in the back or in eXposure if they do not get me even remotely close to correct WB? If I set "tungsten" on my Nikon D3 and then process the raw files in LR/C1/NX2, the images do not show a heavy yellow cast (and I am not even talking about the custom camera-specific presets at the bottom of the Develop module in LR). Why can't I rely on the e75 / eXposure dream team at least to comprehend from my settings ("tungsten" dialled in on all fronts...) that the raw file should be processed with a WB of around 2800K and not 7000K or whatever other irrelevant setting the software chooses? Your reply seems to indicate (and reinforce my suspicion) that the WB presets in the back and in eXposure are totally dysfunctional - not like "not entirely accurate" but more like "miles off the mark, completely useless, only pretending to exist" - I find this hard to believe. My experience tells me this - if I shoot a color target at the start of every session, then I see no need to fine tune calibration - it is all there, three clicks in curves in PS and I am done, paste the settings across all subsequent files. My logic then suggests that (a) the inbuilt profiles in the back and eXposure should get me close to the correct WB in situations where I can't/don't want to use the color chart, then ( if I do not like these profiles, I can calibrate. This is how LR works for supported cameras, n'est-ce pas?

Curiously, I get no casts with Captureshop, it just seems to get the initial color balance very close, most of the time even under tungsten lights. It even gets gray clouds gray (and not blue) and fine dark structures (like aerials on roofs) are shown black, without magenta or blue edges (I have experienced all of the above issues with Brumbaer and the version of eXposure that came on the CD; have not tested the new eXposure fully yet). But of course Captureshop only saves Tiffs and offers only very crude adjustment tools, so back to eXposure and do my best to make it work.

Maybe this is a naive suggestion: Can't Sinar persuade Adobe to start supporting its backs in ACR and develop a few working custom profiles for Lightroom? Unlike studio photographers, I don't really need to shoot tethered and would welcome a more straightforward workflow, including the ability to download/process images on Windows computers.

Best regards,

Martin

Dear Martin,

yes, you can "Color Calibrate" and create a color matrix, but the most important, to begin with and to get rid of your "strong" color cast which you seem to have, is the WB. After that, if the default color calibration does not fit your taste you can create your own one in eXposure, like in Brumbaer. But most of the time it is not necessary. Necessary is to shoot a neutral grey, at the beginning of a session. Even if the light changes a bit, it will not affect that much, unless the weather goes from sunny to cloudy, or else. But then simply re-shoot a neutral grey and that's it. Really not a big deal, and other backs do work the same way. That will for sure get you "reasonably close", as you put it, believe me.

A color calibration comes then in a SECOND step, not before making a WB, respectively to replace it.

As for the slider in eXposure being at 5500K, am sorry, but I have not tried the latest version of eXposure and can't speak without experience. I would contact Sinar to ask them the question.

Best regards,
Thierry

[bdp]

Hi Martin,

In my experience if you have a few saved calibration targets that will be perfectly fine. So one for sun, one for a cloudy day, one in the shade etc. Then just select these and apply them later when you import from CF card. I agree with you about the strange presets in the back - contact Sinar tech support and encourage them to fix it. But in practice you can just apply a setting to all your pictures as soon as you have imported them in a couple of clicks, so it's not a bad problem in my opinion. For example, to get you in the ballpark just apply a WB of 2800K to all your tungsten shots by making the first one 2800K then command-c that picture once selected in the contact sheet, select all, then command-v to apply the settings to all the pictures. That is a quick step and does the same as the back would have done anyway.

Ben

[ThierryH]

Dear Thierry,

OK, I take your advice to shoot the color target at the beginning of every session. I look forward to the next time I shoot a regatta from a fast moving motor boat  - I will wave the macbeth color target in the air in front of my lens and do my best not to get it blown away; perhaps I will even manage to get a focused shot of it if I ask the skipper to hold it for me :-). And next time I shoot my dogs I will train them to hold the macbeth chart in their mouth for a while :-). Maybe I should not be using a medium format digital back unless I want to change my priorities and start shooting models in a studio for some worthwhile magazine. Apologies for my sarcasm, the idea just amuses me (I know that under ideal conditions, shooting the target first of course makes sense and yes, I know I can do it before I get on the boat and before I start shooting my dogs.....)

To complete my education as to white balance - in the light of your recommendation, what use if any are then the preset color profiles in the back or in eXposure if they do not get me even remotely close to correct WB? If I set "tungsten" on my Nikon D3 and then process the raw files in LR/C1/NX2, the images do not show a heavy yellow cast (and I am not even talking about the custom camera-specific presets at the bottom of the Develop module in LR). Why can't I rely on the e75 / eXposure dream team at least to comprehend from my settings ("tungsten" dialled in on all fronts...) that the raw file should be processed with a WB of around 2800K and not 7000K or whatever other irrelevant setting the software chooses? Your reply seems to indicate (and reinforce my suspicion) that the WB presets in the back and in eXposure are totally dysfunctional - not like "not entirely accurate" but more like "miles off the mark, completely useless, only pretending to exist" - I find this hard to believe. My experience tells me this - if I shoot a color target at the start of every session, then I see no need to fine tune calibration - it is all there, three clicks in curves in PS and I am done, paste the settings across all subsequent files. My logic then suggests that (a) the inbuilt profiles in the back and eXposure should get me close to the correct WB in situations where I can't/don't want to use the color chart, then ( if I do not like these profiles, I can calibrate. This is how LR works for supported cameras, n'est-ce pas?

Curiously, I get no casts with Captureshop, it just seems to get the initial color balance very close, most of the time even under tungsten lights. It even gets gray clouds gray (and not blue) and fine dark structures (like aerials on roofs) are shown black, without magenta or blue edges (I have experienced all of the above issues with Brumbaer and the version of eXposure that came on the CD; have not tested the new eXposure fully yet). But of course Captureshop only saves Tiffs and offers only very crude adjustment tools, so back to eXposure and do my best to make it work.

Maybe this is a naive suggestion: Can't Sinar persuade Adobe to start supporting its backs in ACR and develop a few working custom profiles for Lightroom? Unlike studio photographers, I don't really need to shoot tethered and would welcome a more straightforward workflow, including the ability to download/process images on Windows computers.

Best regards,

Martin

Dear Martin,

You are right, and I said it, like Ben, the default in-camera profiles are not accurate, for whatever reason which I don't know. And yes, do contact Sinar to make them work on it. This being said, in-camera profiles are only DEFAULT profiles, made under certain light conditions, which (should) bring you close enough with the first shot, most of the time very close, but sometimes not.
And as said by Ben, yes you can do and save a few CC's and then select them according to the light with copy/paste

BUT I insist on the fact that shooting a grey chart at the begin of each session is a life-saver. If your initial light isn't exactly the same as the one you have shot your CC for, then you have no way to correct it accurately. The grey chart makes it possible to bring your image(s) to the exact values of "neutrality". That is why I do (did) never bother to use those in-camera profiles, accurate or not. I do understand that it is not convenient in some situations, like the one you have described (funny   ), but I believe that it is possible without a big deal to quickly shoot such an image at the beginning.

Best regards,
Thierry