Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: Ghaag on February 06, 2019, 05:11:27 pm

Title: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 06, 2019, 05:11:27 pm
I have owned the H6D for several months now, and prior the that the H4D and before that the H2d.  One of the things I have loved about the Hasselblad is the beautiful skin tones, but they are just not as good on the H6D as my H4d (which I kept as a backup).  Nothing has changed in my processing other than an updated version of Phocus, I am unsure if it is something I am doing or what is going on.  If anyone can shed light on this I would love to hear from you.
Thanks in advance,
Greg
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on February 07, 2019, 02:26:31 am
I have owned the H6D for several months now, and prior the that the H4D and before that the H2d.  One of the things I have loved about the Hasselblad is the beautiful skin tones, but they are just not as good on the H6D as my H4d (which I kept as a backup).  Nothing has changed in my processing other than an updated version of Phocus, I am unsure if it is something I am doing or what is going on.  If anyone can shed light on this I would love to hear from you.
Thanks in advance,
Greg

Your H4D is CCD, the H6D is CMOS. Apples and oranges, the sensors are  completely different tech, and different makers too.

My belief is there *is* a texture difference between these technologies, but I have been told by many on this forum that this is not so.

I would try to underexpose strongly on the H6D and bring the level back up in post, that might possibly improve things a bit.

BTW, which H4D do you have? The H4D 40 and 50, the 60 is Dalsa, , the H6D series all have Sony.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 07, 2019, 06:34:57 am
Thank you for the reply Edmond, I have the H4D-40.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: BobShaw on February 07, 2019, 04:26:12 pm
The updated Phocus has two versions selectable by a dropdown box in the right hand side. Read the readme and see if this has anything to do with it. It also has camera controls that work on H5D and later. Just guessing, but check those also.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 07, 2019, 06:59:16 pm
The updated Phocus has two versions selectable by a dropdown box in the right hand side. Read the readme and see if this has anything to do with it. It also has camera controls that work on H5D and later. Just guessing, but check those also.

Thanks Bob, I will take a look at that.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on February 07, 2019, 09:18:31 pm
Thank you for the reply Edmond, I have the H4D-40.

Greg,

 This has a Kodak-developed CCD sensor with microlenses, about 1 stop faster than the H4D50 which has a similar slightly larger sensor which I believe does not have microlenses. The H4D60 has a Dalsa sensor.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 10, 2019, 08:57:55 pm
Your H4D is CCD, the H6D is CMOS. Apples and oranges, the sensors are  completely different tech, and different makers too.

My belief is there *is* a texture difference between these technologies, but I have been told by many on this forum that this is not so.

I would try to underexpose strongly on the H6D and bring the level back up in post, that might possibly improve things a bit.

BTW, which H4D do you have? The H4D 40 and 50, the 60 is Dalsa, , the H6D series all have Sony.

Edmund

Edmond,
I followed your suggestion and underexposed by about 1 1/4 stop and this seemed to help.  I still need to work on improving and get this figured out, but thanks for the help.
Greg

Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on February 11, 2019, 12:46:47 am
Edmond,
I followed your suggestion and underexposed by about 1 1/4 stop and this seemed to help.  I still need to work on improving and get this figured out, but thanks for the help.
Greg

Greg,

 Yes, I recognise a bit of what I'd call the dreaded "CMOS look", and what everyone on forum tells me doesn't exist and I'm imagining as an armchair photographer. You've got it almost under control. I remember having the same issues. I would go down by another stop (just in the Raw file, bring back in post) , take the strobes down there if you can (even if it crushes the blacks in the end) and use a lens that is a bit wider open to get some sparkle effects on the skin. You probably need to really cut the strobe light levels, if your units can do that. Figure out  how to recreate a filmlike highlight rolloff in post. You will also probably have to deal with texture loss in the speculars on the forehead, nose and cheekbones with makeup, and use more diffused or redirected light. Get someone who is a bit smarter than me about studio to help you here (they'll tell you I've got it all wrong, but at least they'll help) - or just use your old setup - if the camera took good pics, and the software rendered nicely, why break something that works?

In my short stints shooting people with strobes a long time ago I had similar issues with some cameras and not others. My feeling is that with skin color and texture issues it's usually easier to just use lights and a camera that works like you like it,  rather than spend days and days fixing the pics from the setup that doesn't. And happily you already own a camera that works.

I wish someone with real and current practical experience would chime in, there are some really experienced studio photographers on this forum.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Doug Peterson on February 11, 2019, 01:41:47 pm
I will restrain myself on this, since my company does not sell Hasselblad, which obviously very much biases me...

I would only suggest that you try the same subject with a Phase One IQ3 Trichromatic or IQ4 as processed in Capture One 12 before you conclude that the issue is CCD vs CMOS as Edmund suggests. I strongly suspect you'll be very pleased with what you see.

The final look of an image is the totality of a complex chain of hardware, software, profiling and tuning. The desire to simplify the difference between two cameras or camera systems to a single variable (e.g. CCD vs CMOS) is very very tempting, but almost always wrong.

Not all CMOS cameras are equal just as not all CCD cameras were equal.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Doug Peterson on February 11, 2019, 01:44:25 pm
In my short stints shooting people with strobes a long time ago I had similar issues with some cameras and not others. My feeling is that with skin color and texture issues it's usually easier to just use lights and a camera that works like you like it,  rather than spend days and days fixing the pics from the setup that doesn't. And happily you already own a camera that works.

On this we completely agree :).
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: MichaelEzra on February 11, 2019, 03:50:22 pm
Skintones can look absolutely fine with any modern camera.
Sample above is not white balanced and red channel is near clipping in the highlights of the face.
Clipping the red channel will have a strong effect on skintones.
I applied some corrections in ACR and attached result for illustration.
Enjoy your H6D;)

Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 11, 2019, 04:51:03 pm
Skintones can look absolutely fine with any modern camera.
Sample above is not white balanced and red channel is near clipping in the highlights of the face.
Clipping the red channel will have a strong effect on skintones.
I applied some corrections in ACR and attached result for illustration.
Enjoy your H6D;)

Michael,
Thank you for working on the image, I will take a look at that.
Thanks again,
Greg
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: HywelPhillips on February 11, 2019, 06:20:49 pm
My experience as a studio photographer lends me to concur with the advice to underexpose if you're struggling with the skin tones.

Clipping in the red channel can be impossible to spot in camera (unless you have true raw histograms, which we mostly don't). And that's a sure-fire way to funky skin tones in post.

For my H3DII I found the camera had lots of head-room before clipping started to happen in the skin tones, so much so that I usually rate it at ISO 64 or 80 rather than ISO 100 i.e. overexpose by a third of a stop compared with the flash meter reading. I found the "blinkies" to be quite reliable on that camera - they only appeared as the red channel was starting to clip.

But my A7RII/III are much "hotter" and I often underexpose by as a full stop or more on pale skin especially compared with the flash meter reading. Fortunately these modern sensors are so noise-free and ISO-invariant that bringing things back up in post is pretty non-destructive even on the deep shadows.

My exposure compensation dial lives at -2/3 as a default whenever I'm shooting people aperture priority in available light; for flash I just stop down two thirds of a stop on the lens compared with the flash meter reading for those cameras. And the blinkies seem to be much less reliable in showing when clipping is starting- I don't really trust them on the Sonys. So much safer to dial in a good dose of underexposure.

Interestingly, the video guys reckon 70% (of full luma) is as high as it is safe to go on skin tones. The video encoding mangles the signal compared with RAW, but then again so does making a JPEG in camera and using that as the basis of the histogram and blinkies. And personally I'm nervous even of getting that high- I'd rather keep the skin tones around 65% to give me a bit of headroom for highlights.

The Canons I used to shoot with were pretty close to "right" but I still tended to underexpose by one or thirds of a stop. Expose to the right is all very well, but it is so easy for a model to drift a little closer to one of the softboxes and start blowing the reds in the highlights. A tiny bit can be recoverable but is never ideal. If the greens start to go as well the shot needs to be thrown away as it'll never look acceptable. I'll accept fewer photons and more noise to ensure that I don't get any clipping- especially in the studio where I control how deep the deepest shadows are. 

I don't think it anything "bad" about the newer Hasselblad. It's just that the whole sensor and readout is different, and you've got to find the exposure settings which work for your own lighting with each camera individually.

Cheers, Hywel

Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on February 11, 2019, 06:47:17 pm
On this we completely agree :).

Doug,

 I will choose to hear that the talented photographer agrees with me ;)
 
Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on February 11, 2019, 06:56:50 pm
Quote from: Doug Peterson link=topic=128947.msg1095were quite good on 031#msg1095031 date=1549910507
---snip---
Not all CMOS cameras are equal just as not all CCD cameras were equal.

Yes - I have owned a bunch of CMOS Canons and some were quite good on skin and some horrid, and some were actually wrong but in a nice way.

A useful trick to fix  asymmetric channels is to put a filter on the camera rather than hoping white balance in post will solve every problem.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on February 11, 2019, 07:41:25 pm
My experience as a studio photographer lends me to concur with the advice to underexpose if you're struggling with the skin tones.

Clipping in the red channel can be impossible to spot in camera (unless you have true raw histograms, which we mostly don't). And that's a sure-fire way to funky skin tones in post.

For my H3DII I found the camera had lots of head-room before clipping started to happen in the skin tones, so much so that I usually rate it at ISO 64 or 80 rather than ISO 100 i.e. overexpose by a third of a stop compared with the flash meter reading. I found the "blinkies" to be quite reliable on that camera - they only appeared as the red channel was starting to clip.

But my A7RII/III are much "hotter" and I often underexpose by as a full stop or more on pale skin especially compared with the flash meter reading. Fortunately these modern sensors are so noise-free and ISO-invariant that bringing things back up in post is pretty non-destructive even on the deep shadows.

My exposure compensation dial lives at -2/3 as a default whenever I'm shooting people aperture priority in available light; for flash I just stop down two thirds of a stop on the lens compared with the flash meter reading for those cameras. And the blinkies seem to be much less reliable in showing when clipping is starting- I don't really trust them on the Sonys. So much safer to dial in a good dose of underexposure.

Interestingly, the video guys reckon 70% (of full luma) is as high as it is safe to go on skin tones. The video encoding mangles the signal compared with RAW, but then again so does making a JPEG in camera and using that as the basis of the histogram and blinkies. And personally I'm nervous even of getting that high- I'd rather keep the skin tones around 65% to give me a bit of headroom for highlights.

The Canons I used to shoot with were pretty close to "right" but I still tended to underexpose by one or thirds of a stop. Expose to the right is all very well, but it is so easy for a model to drift a little closer to one of the softboxes and start blowing the reds in the highlights. A tiny bit can be recoverable but is never ideal. If the greens start to go as well the shot needs to be thrown away as it'll never look acceptable. I'll accept fewer photons and more noise to ensure that I don't get any clipping- especially in the studio where I control how deep the deepest shadows are. 

I don't think it anything "bad" about the newer Hasselblad. It's just that the whole sensor and readout is different, and you've got to find the exposure settings which work for your own lighting with each camera individually.

Cheers, Hywel

Thanks for sharing your experience Hywel!
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: BAB on March 02, 2019, 06:57:23 pm
Greg
are you shooting tethered? if not you should at least to get all the settings right.
1. when you get the exposure right in camera without changing the EV slider in Phocus...by exposing to the right just before clipping (turn on clipping) highlights/ then bring the curves from the top right quarter just slightly to the right.
2. work with your contrast slider get it right on your screen.
3. you can add some black level with the slider
4. you must establish your gray card or white balance this is critical, move the eyedropper around the sample before you click a spot try something around 170-180 not 128
5. work your saturation slightly less to taste
Now you can shoot away and be assured you will not need almost any adjustments in Phocus.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on March 04, 2019, 07:41:12 pm
Greg
are you shooting tethered? if not you should at least to get all the settings right.
1. when you get the exposure right in camera without changing the EV slider in Phocus...by exposing to the right just before clipping (turn on clipping) highlights/ then bring the curves from the top right quarter just slightly to the right.
2. work with your contrast slider get it right on your screen.
3. you can add some black level with the slider
4. you must establish your gray card or white balance this is critical, move the eyedropper around the sample before you click a spot try something around 170-180 not 128
5. work your saturation slightly less to taste
Now you can shoot away and be assured you will not need almost any adjustments in Phocus.

BAB,
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, I will review my workflow and incorporate the things I might not be doing!
Thanks again,
Greg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 05, 2019, 04:18:37 am
BAB,
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, I will review my workflow and incorporate the things I might not be doing!
Thanks again,
Greg

Greg,

I've played this game. If you are seeing texture issues, only light, makeup and underexposure will bring relief.
Of course all the other advice is solid and will improve image color and tone, but it won't fix texture loss.
I suspect there might also be some IR sensitivity issues involved here.

There is another magical solution to this type of problem - use a camera that doesn't show the problem :)
Edmund

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Garry Sarre on March 05, 2019, 06:33:28 pm
Skintones can look absolutely fine with any modern camera.
Sample above is not white balanced and red channel is near clipping in the highlights of the face.
Clipping the red channel will have a strong effect on skintones.
I applied some corrections in ACR and attached result for illustration.
Enjoy your H6D;)

Michael, just wondering how you knew the sample was not white balanced without a gray card.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: BAB on March 05, 2019, 07:01:38 pm
maybe from the white gold earrings? hard to balance of that or the whites of the eyes.
anyway the lighting is very soft and a bit flat for my taste but she looks like she has great skin.


on another road take an image of another face or the same face with a color checker included and email the raw (or portion of) the raw image to Hasselblad in NYC they will return an answer immediately as to what might be going on.

Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: imagetone on March 07, 2019, 02:04:31 pm
maybe from the white gold earrings? hard to balance of that or the whites of the eyes.

White gold earrings (although I can see mostly diamonds/white stones) will reflect everything they see, including skin.

Tony
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: MichaelEzra on March 07, 2019, 02:41:21 pm
Michael, just wondering how you knew the sample was not white balanced without a gray card.

Hi Gary, I can simply see that the color is off, the whole image is screaming "magenta!".
Make sure that you start with calibrated monitor, only then you know that what you see on the screen reflects accurately what it is in the digital file.
In original post the skin does not have a color of a skin of a live person.. simply tweaking white balance one can fix that - its only two sliders; start with temperature, then tint, then repeat to fine-fune.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: fdisilvestro on March 07, 2019, 06:17:12 pm
A tool like the RGB parade (found in most video editors) helps in determining these kind of issues. Too bad that Photo editors do not include it
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 08, 2019, 04:47:47 pm
A tool like the RGB parade (found in most video editors) helps in determining these kind of issues. Too bad that Photo editors do not include it

All of this is true, but in fact I've seen this before and what's happening is channel loss because of overexposure, otherwise the Raw converter can fix stuff if you play around with the sliders long enough. RGB parade etc is essential in video because mostly people aren't shooting Raw so the channels are baked in.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: BobShaw on March 08, 2019, 06:07:16 pm
Make sure that you start with calibrated monitor, only then you know that what you see on the screen reflects accurately what it is in the digital file.
In original post the skin does not have a color of a skin of a live person.. simply tweaking white balance one can fix that - its only two sliders; start with temperature, then tint, then repeat to fine-fune.
The only way to determine what is in a digital file colour wise is to read the colour values.
The monitor is irrelevant really if the purpose is CORRECT colour.
There are tools in all editors to do that and even the Digital Colour Monitor app on the Mac.
The colour picker will get the white balance correct if there is a neutral target shot at the time.
I would venture to suggest that the tones were correct out of the camera and something has gone wrong later.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: MichaelEzra on March 08, 2019, 10:08:42 pm
The only way to determine what is in a digital file colour wise is to read the colour values.
The monitor is irrelevant really if the purpose is CORRECT colour.
There are tools in all editors to do that and even the Digital Colour Monitor app on the Mac.
The colour picker will get the white balance correct if there is a neutral target shot at the time.
I would venture to suggest that the tones were correct out of the camera and something has gone wrong later.

It is not The Only Way:)

The first way is to look at the screen and see, and that screen is better be calibrated. If one cannot see that human skin looks purple, forget the color picker, better fix that screen first.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 09, 2019, 09:19:42 pm
It is not The Only Way:)

The first way is to look at the screen and see, and that screen is better be calibrated. If one cannot see that human skin looks purple, forget the color picker, better fix that screen first.

Some reason is finding its way back into this debate.

Interestingly, I looked at an H4D40 this week that was selling for 1700 Euros here in Paris, from a dealer.  I made some test shots. The screen on the back showed people ("caucasians")  totally magenta, however I set the wb. The shop told me the unit was "perfect". My opinion was no buy, because I need to see fairly accurate color while I shoot, to "feel the light". Clearly this is not a point of view shared by many in the MF community or else more attention would be paid to those screens in the back of the cameras.

Edmund

Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: thyl on March 12, 2019, 02:12:21 am
Greg,

 This has a Kodak-developed CCD sensor with microlenses, about 1 stop faster than the H4D50 which has a similar slightly larger sensor which I believe does not have microlenses. The H4D60 has a Dalsa sensor.

Edmund

And this might be the explanation. The Kodak sensors use different dyes for the Bayer filters. Just like with the dyes used in film emulsion, this imho will have an effect on the colour rendering, though more subtle than with film. It is a question of what the debayer-processing can do with the information obtained from individual pixels. Hasselblad has significant knowledge in the colour rendition, but some colours cannot be correctly guessed when the information is "smeared" by using dyes with too broad a pass-through spectrum.
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: ErikKaffehr on March 12, 2019, 03:18:06 pm
Hi BC,

Thanks for sharing knowledge, experiment and images!

Best regards
Erik
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on March 12, 2019, 03:21:24 pm
As we all know everything has a lot to do with “the look".  Lens, processing suite/pipeline, light quality, ambient colour bounce and more than I know.

We are in the process of producing this project which is interesting as it covers multiple ethnicities in London with the creative brief of respect.   In still and motion imagery, so we’re working with a lot of skin tones.

I always go overkill so I had four Canons, two phase digital backs for my contax(s), A sony a7sII, two MX Reds and a Leica S2.

We shot in the smallest studio with an industrial look I’ve ever worked in and was concerned about ambient colour bounce.

The lighting was continuous with a Large Kino Flow (with grid) as a key, multiple 1 ft. leds for accents and foam board for broad fill.

Even though we photographed every subject in the room with minimum set dressing we also photographed everyone on a black background.

What concerned me about the rental studio was the size and to minimize the ambient colour bounce which to me seems more of an issue with cmos than ccd cameras.

Now if you’d have asked me a few years ago which I prefer ccd or cmos I’d have said the first for a lot of reasons so for this project I shot with a red MX Epic and for stills my Leica S2.

Today I’m only 80% sure because I have two types of cameras that to me look like ccd which also to me looks more like film, those being the Reds and a Olympus em-5 I (bought on a whim).   It’s interesting that the em-5 to me really isn’t a pro camera and a little small, but the file is beautiful.  I’ve never had great luck with sony sensors and the em-5 is a sony sensor.   In fact I liked the em-5 so much I wanted that look in a slightly larger package and bought the em-1 sight unseen because it was larger, I had the glass and I thought it would look the same, but it didn’t, it looked nothing like the em-5 and I went online (which I should have done earlier) and found out the em-5 had a sony sensor, the em-1 a Panasonic designed sensor.

Anyway, sorry for such a long post, but as I mentioned there is so much more to the ‘look” than just a camera and sensor.    What surprised me was grading in cinema digital with my REDs.    If I put a file in RED’s cine-x grading suite and then put the same file in DiVinci Resolve, the Resolve file is 50% better in all aspects. 

I’ll end this with saying one of the most difficult parts of getting the look you want the world to see is one what screen and machine a client is viewing it on.    90% of the AD’s I work with are using an I-mac, usually one or two generations back so I do our base grade (stills or motion) using the stock calibration on a mac glossy screen.    Later I’ll grade the motion on a broadcast monitor, or a calibrated computer screen, but if you work a wide gamut dell screen, it will looked very crushed on a client’s I-mac.

As a friend of mine has always said, colour in the digital world is still the wild west.

Here are two images of the dozen’s of actors we just photographed with the S2.   This is just stage one of the project and though the backgrounds are different the lighting is very close to the same, even though there is a difference, part of it is the skin tones of the actors, the other is the second photo that is pulling in ambient bounce from the tight studio.

(http://www.russellrutherford.com/700_px_s2_blk.jpg)

(http://www.russellrutherford.com/s2_700Px_4_chairs.jpg)

Even though the lighting is very close in each image, where Edmund says to underexpose, I only do that with ccd sensors to add a film grain look, which I did on the second image.   The first image I upped the power of the key and the fill and shot at the same exposure which smooths  everything out.

This image I've inserted to show how three very different skin tones work with the Leica.

(http://www.russellrutherford.com/s2_650_px_final_L1000540c.jpg)

IMO

BC

BC,
Thank you for sharing, I have heard good things about the Leica cameras!
Greg
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 12, 2019, 04:04:08 pm

As we all know everything has a lot to do with “the look".  Lens, processing suite/pipeline, light quality, ambient colour bounce and more than I know.

--SNIP--
I always go overkill so I had four Canons, two phase digital backs for my contax(s), A sony a7sII, two MX Reds and a Leica S2.


--SNIP--
BC

J,
 Superb pix, thank you for sharing.

 I don't know what will help the OP. Most of us in our time - like you did with the Olympus  E-M1- have weeded out what causes us difficulty.

 EDIT: OP seems to be giving up, the camera is listed on buy/sell.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Steve Hendrix on March 13, 2019, 04:22:34 pm
J,
 Superb pix, thank you for sharing.

 I don't know what will help the OP. Most of us in our time - like you did with the Olympus  E-M1- have weeded out what causes us difficulty.

 EDIT: OP seems to be giving up, the camera is listed on buy/sell.

Edmund


I did reach out to Greg offline and the solution was an upgraded neutral grey card. Sometimes it is simply time to refresh that card. Solved it.


Steve Hendrix/CI
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 13, 2019, 11:16:17 pm

I did reach out to Greg offline and the solution was an upgraded neutral grey card. Sometimes it is simply time to refresh that card. Solved it.


Steve Hendrix/CI

I hope Greg buys you a good lunch :)
This place defies all laws of society. We have helpful dealers, soon we'll get true specs in the adverts :)

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Conner999 on March 14, 2019, 11:31:50 am
To posters re: the rear LCD on an H4D/H5D showing say too magenta too green an image - there is an easy fix.

It's pretty well known that the older pre-H6 LCDs where not exactly perfect WB.  While purely a 'cosmetic' issue, being picky, it drove me nuts when reviewing shots on the rear LCD when we acquired our first H5D.

The issue is that the Tint aspect of WB cannot be set in H4/5 cameras, only Temp. Tint is only adjusted in the camera when a custom WB is done.  You can play with the on camera WB settings & K temps all day and while the RAW files will obviously be fine and the LCD get warmer/cooler, it will/may still show an 'off' magenta/green Tint.


The solution is too simply bias the jpeg tint used by the camera (for previews) to dial-in the rear LCD:

Get some low-value (e.g. 1/8) Green, Magenta, CTO and CTB gels and cut in the shape of a small grey card (say 4x6").

Then periodically shoot a daylight (or tungsten, etc) custom WB -with just the bare grey card (takes 5 sec on an H series). 

If the LCD shows too magenta, clip 1-2 sheets of 1/8 magenta to the grey card (too add green) and re-shoot the WB to get the rear LCD how you like it/how it shows reality.

You can thus add a mix of gels to the bare card to fine tune the WB of the LCD as you see fit.

Once done, save it under a custom profile and use for as long as desired.

We keep 1-2 daylight/flash and tungsten profiles saved in camera at any time and load the applicable one when shooting. We just keep a small card & its' gels in a Ziploc in our case should we need it.  The layers used in the last daylight WB are kept clipped to the card as a reference while the rest sit free in the bag.

Obviously, since this only adjusts the JPG 'formula' used for screen preview (and obviously any saved jpegs), it does squat to the RAW files and they can be adjusted in Phocus, etc., as usual.

 
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 14, 2019, 05:30:42 pm
To posters re: the rear LCD on an H4D/H5D showing say too magenta too green an image - there is an easy fix.

It's pretty well known that the older pre-H6 LCDs where not exactly perfect WB.  While purely a 'cosmetic' issue, being picky, it drove me nuts when reviewing shots on the rear LCD when we acquired our first H5D.

The issue is that the Tint aspect of WB cannot be set in H4/5 cameras, only Temp. Tint is only adjusted in the camera when a custom WB is done.  You can play with the on camera WB settings & K temps all day and while the RAW files will obviously be fine and the LCD get warmer/cooler, it will/may still show an 'off' magenta/green Tint.


The solution is too simply bias the jpeg tint used by the camera (for previews) to dial-in the rear LCD:

Get some low-value (e.g. 1/8) Green, Magenta, CTO and CTB gels and cut in the shape of a small grey card (say 4x6").

Then periodically shoot a daylight (or tungsten, etc) custom WB -with just the bare grey card (takes 5 sec on an H series). 

If the LCD shows too magenta, clip 1-2 sheets of 1/8 magenta to the grey card (too add green) and re-shoot the WB to get the rear LCD how you like it/how it shows reality.

You can thus add a mix of gels to the bare card to fine tune the WB of the LCD as you see fit.

Once done, save it under a custom profile and use for as long as desired.

We keep 1-2 daylight/flash and tungsten profiles saved in camera at any time and load the applicable one when shooting. We just keep a small card & its' gels in a Ziploc in our case should we need it.  The layers used in the last daylight WB are kept clipped to the card as a reference while the rest sit free in the bag.

Obviously, since this only adjusts the JPG 'formula' used for screen preview (and obviously any saved jpegs), it does squat to the RAW files and they can be adjusted in Phocus, etc., as usual.

Interesting.

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: ErikKaffehr on March 24, 2019, 11:00:56 am
I hope Greg buys you a good lunch :)
This place defies all laws of society. We have helpful dealers, soon we'll get true specs in the adverts :)

Edmund
Hi,

It seems to be great advice from Steve. Somewhat confusing though... I must say, if I would get a MFD back for 30k$US, I would try to make a proper comparison shooting the same subject with both cameras at the same time. Using the same color checker as reference. It is just too obvious...

Let just say, I do not understand a thing.

Best regards
Erik
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: Ghaag on March 24, 2019, 02:59:10 pm
Thanks to everyone for their feedback!  As a follow up to this, I have modified my workflow to include a ColorChecker Passport in sessions.  I white balance and create a color profile from this and everything is spot on.  For me to get skin tones I am pleased with, using the ColorChecker Passport to create a color profile has been an important addition.
Thanks again,
Greg
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: eronald on March 24, 2019, 04:11:09 pm
Thanks to everyone for their feedback!  As a follow up to this, I have modified my workflow to include a ColorChecker Passport in sessions.  I white balance and create a color profile from this and everything is spot on.  For me to get skin tones I am pleased with, using the ColorChecker Passport to create a color profile has been an important addition.
Thanks again,
Greg

As I was one of the color consultants who  provided input to Xrite for Passport, I feel flattered :)

Edmund
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: G* on March 25, 2019, 12:42:26 pm
@bcooter:

This is a little off topic, but your post got me thinking: A used S2 + standard lens nowadays costs about the same as a Z7 + lens (and FTZ, depending on where you live). Currently I am more and more disappointed by the lenses for my D800E. For architecture and landscape I like zero distortion, no CA and a creamy bokeh. For convenience I like AF, so I’m not into an Otus … And I have to admit that there’s also springtime GAS and I remember how stunned I was holding a S2 shortly after its debut at a dealer’s. That body felt fantastic!

Here’s the question: Are S-lenses as special as I read every once in a while? Will I be happy with the RAW files at base ISO compared to the CMOS-files of the D800E? Or should I go for a relatively open system, forget about AF (or trust live view magnification) and put some exotic glass on the Z7, like maybe … M-lenses?

Best, Gunnar
Title: Re: Skin tones on Hasselblad H6D
Post by: tazdog on May 08, 2019, 04:08:26 pm
Skintones can look absolutely fine with any modern camera.
Sample above is not white balanced and red channel is near clipping in the highlights of the face.
Clipping the red channel will have a strong effect on skintones.
I applied some corrections in ACR and attached result for illustration.
Enjoy your H6D;)

Well done