better colors from medium and large format...why?

[Dustbak]

Yes, digital delivers a form of intermediate state. You have to roll your own flavor of 'film' after this. If you don't want to spend a lot of effort in this you might also want to check out Alien Skin Exposure 3.0. Excellent plug-in to emulate film with a lot of room for adjusting to taste in a simple way.

[uaiomex]

Peter van den Hamer article "DxOMark Sensor for Benchmarking Cameras" shows in figure 7 that larger sensors have better color depth at low-iso meaning the ability to distinguish more colors. Is this what the OP meant by "better colors"?
For me better color would be the said property above, plus color accuracy from subtle to saturated shades.
Eduardo

[bjanes]

Hi, Doug... do they not mostly use Multi-shot MFD?

Multi-shot is theoretically attractive, but Mark Dubovoy preferred the color from the P65+ to the Hasselblad H3D 50 II Multishot. His evaluation was subjective, but he is a scientist as well as a photographer. Does Phase One have multi-shot?

Regards,

Bill

PS I recently saw an article in a major newspaper about a guy who made big money reproducing artwork for catalog sales. It showed him taking a shot with what appeared to be a Phase One. Does anyone have a link to that article (?WSJ or NYT)

[EricWHiss]

Multi-shot is theoretically attractive, but Mark Dubovoy preferred the color from the P65+ to the Hasselblad H3D 50 II Multishot. His evaluation was subjective, but he is a scientist as well as a photographer. Does Phase One have multi-shot?

Regards,

Bill

PS I recently saw an article in a major newspaper about a guy who made big money reproducing artwork for catalog sales. It showed him taking a shot with what appeared to be a Phase One. Does anyone have a link to that article (?WSJ or NYT)

For judgement on color the last thing I would base a decision on is someone's opinion.  It's well established that many people see color differently and in fact lots of people (mainly men) don't have the full range of color vision.   The best way to evaluate the differences is with something like Imatest that will show you how far each color is off in a quantifiable way.    That would be a starting point but one would still have to figure out how to measure what we are calling tonality and richness or depth of color.   

[bjanes]

For judgement on color the last thing I would base a decision on is someone's opinion.  It's well established that many people see color differently and in fact lots of people (mainly men) don't have the full range of color vision.   The best way to evaluate the differences is with something like Imatest that will show you how far each color is off in a quantifiable way.    That would be a starting point but one would still have to figure out how to measure what we are calling tonality and richness or depth of color.   

If you are a professional photographer, color will be judged by your client. If you are a amateur photographer who is also a hermit, then you can use your own preferences. 

Imatest is a good starting point, but accurate color and pleasing color are two separate things. Most people prefer increased chroma, but hue shifts are generally not desirable, especially with memory colors such as blue sky, foliage, and human skin. With Imatest, I get the best accuracy with ACR and a linear tone curve, but images with those parameters appear dull and dark.

Regards,

Bill

[telyt]

Test your color vision:

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq

[Rob C]

Test your color vision:

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq

On a cold, wet, miserable day, that's one more bit of information that I'm glad I didn't have when I worked in a colour lab; but then, I was younger and more awake then... Ah! Just understood: the guys setting up the test are not perfect either! The sun might come out soon.

;-)

Rob C

[Professional]

Test your color vision:

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq

I did, and i just played with the first upper one and i've got the score 188, then i shacked my .... and played with all the 4 bars, i've got the score: 4

[bjanes]

Peter van den Hamer article "DxOMark Sensor for Benchmarking Cameras" shows in figure 7 that larger sensors have better color depth at low-iso meaning the ability to distinguish more colors. Is this what the OP meant by "better colors"?
For me better color would be the said property above, plus color accuracy from subtle to saturated shades.
Eduardo

The following is a quote from the article:

"Here is DxOMark's definition for their Color Depth score:

    Color Depth is the maximum achievable color sensitivity, expressed in bits. It indicates the number of different colors that the sensor is able to distinguish given its noise.

The metric thus looks at local color variations caused by noise. It does not cover color accuracy – presumably because that can be corrected in post processing and maybe because it opens an eXtra Large can of worms."

So the larger sensor can differentiate more colors up to noise, but an essential question is how many colors can the human visual system perceive simultaneously?

One answer is given in the RIT Color FAQ. The answer is millions and millions, but is well short of 24 bits (16,777,216).

Color accuracy may be more important, and as anyone who has tried to profile a digital camera knows, accuracy is not that easy to obtain and is in fact impossible with current technology. DXO does mention a Sensitivity Metamerism Index as a measure of color accuracy but does not integrate it in DxO Mark.

Regards,

Bill