examples - Nikon skin tones are fantastic (canon on same level?)

[z2122]

a used canon APSC for 5 years and switched this year to Nikon D610. I am really happy - the D610 is a amazing masterpiece for that money. before i bought I read a lot on this forum and was aware of a AF system that is maybe not so top (compared to D800 or D7100 ) and a read a lot about skintones. Reading some posts here, I got the opinion, that Nikon skintones are not as good as Canon skintones. Now I was with some friends in Croatia. Friend of mine has a 5DMkII with a 85 f1.2L and I used D610 with 70-200 f4. I have to say, that I am fully happy with the skintones. Also AF is very good.

this are pictures that were taken without special arrangement and it was not the intention to make a comparision. this idea popped up, when i got the pictures from my friend and found out, that there is the same situation and the pictures are similar. RAW and little bit of contrast in LR.

Waht is your opinion about skintones?

D610



5D MKII

 

[z2122]

fyi: both pictures were taken in raw and processed without any colour correction.... so colours are directly out of cameras. (I used LR and my friend with teh 5DMkII used the Canon standard RAW converter)

 

[clarnibass]

The Canon photo is maybe a fraction warmer. Whether that's good or bad, or even matters at all, is up to you to decide. Both look fine. IMO the f/1.2 aperture is not great for that specific photo.

 

[z2122]

The Canon photo is maybe a fraction warmer. Whether that's good or bad, or even matters at all, is up to you to decide. Both look fine. IMO the f/1.2 aperture is not great for that specific photo.

yes, my friend of mine is using f1.2 too often.

 

[ppires85]

The Canon photo is maybe a fraction warmer. Whether that's good or bad, or even matters at all, is up to you to decide. Both look fine. IMO the f/1.2 aperture is not great for that specific photo.

yes, my friend of mine is using f1.2 too often.

I agree it wasn't wise to shoot 1.2, specially at that angle. Also I'm sure nikon 70-200 f4 is sharper at f4 if compared to 85mm 1.2 ... I think it would take until f2 to get sharper. As people told here, it is a bit about color temperature and w/B. I moved into canon and I regret not because of skin color. But because of the unholy trinity of awesome 1.8G lenses, which can produce images very close and at some cases even better than canon L lenses...

 

[ImageAmateur]

a used canon APSC for 5 years and switched this year to Nikon D610. I am really happy - the D610 is a amazing masterpiece for that money. before i bought I read a lot on this forum and was aware of a AF system that is maybe not so top (compared to D800 or D7100 ) and a read a lot about skintones. Reading some posts here, I got the opinion, that Nikon skintones are not as good as Canon skintones. Now I was with some friends in Croatia. Friend of mine has a 5DMkII with a 85 f1.2L and I used D610 with 70-200 f4. I have to say, that I am fully happy with the skintones. Also AF is very good.

this are pictures that were taken without special arrangement and it was not the intention to make a comparision. this idea popped up, when i got the pictures from my friend and found out, that there is the same situation and the pictures are similar. RAW and little bit of contrast in LR.

Waht is your opinion about skintones?

D610

5D MKII

I think those are realistic. I have no problem with accurate and even pleasing skintones with my D300.

I don't do a lot of portraits, but I do shoot a lot in harsh lighting with a wide range of skintoness, usually in the same images.

The images reflect the skintones well and accurately, the results therefore even after adjusting for the harsh direct sunlight, obviously uncontrolled.

I have a calibrated monitor, I process RAW, usually starting the conversion with Capture One 7 and if not ACDsee Pro 7.

The images I print come out as per screen. I printed a few recently, as per usual, with a variety of skintones and the printed image rendered accurately and actually , very pleasingly, if I may say so. The person I did them for loved them.

My own opinion is that a good RAW software and a good color profile in that software (for the day) is the key to accurate color and tones.

I am not even very experienced in photography, amateur only,. so if I can do it...

An aside - the thing about JPEG is, there are baked in settings and color profile. So when they are processed, one is starting with the baked in white balance, color settings, that may simply not be applicable to the situation on the day/ event. There is no way the camera engineers can put in one setting (even within each WB parameter) or color setting that accurately reflects / interprets the variety lighting and colors that each day and event has.

So, JPEG is the worst possible place to start when one is after any color accuracy, including skintones.

But, if one gets things right in JPEG, good on you.

Personally, aside from immediately sending a news photo / event photo off to an editor asap (or as a backup in the second card slot if you have one), I just don't see why anyone shoots JPEG, after spending thousands on a DSLR and lenses.

But we each choose differently. That is what makes the world after all.

Cheers.

--
Wishing You Good Light.

 

[M Lammerse]

Hi Z,

The D610 is using scene recognition which is a combination of AWB/metering/AF. Already since the D300/D3 Nikon uses this system and I know personally well that it works in most cases very good. Especially indoors, under artificial light AWB is much better.

What you mostly want is a good color representation of the captured scene in your image. If that is a person on a terrace sipping on a beer or an ice lake makes no difference.

I often have to portrait Japanese people, and they prefer usually their skin tones a bit paler, Europeans are usually the opposite and prefer it warmer.

So if you say the color representation in d610 images is usually fantastic, I agree.

Michel

a used canon APSC for 5 years and switched this year to Nikon D610. I am really happy - the D610 is a amazing masterpiece for that money. before i bought I read a lot on this forum and was aware of a AF system that is maybe not so top (compared to D800 or D7100 ) and a read a lot about skintones. Reading some posts here, I got the opinion, that Nikon skintones are not as good as Canon skintones. Now I was with some friends in Croatia. Friend of mine has a 5DMkII with a 85 f1.2L and I used D610 with 70-200 f4. I have to say, that I am fully happy with the skintones. Also AF is very good.

this are pictures that were taken without special arrangement and it was not the intention to make a comparision. this idea popped up, when i got the pictures from my friend and found out, that there is the same situation and the pictures are similar. RAW and little bit of contrast in LR.

Waht is your opinion about skintones?

D610



5D MKII

--
- Light is everything -

Michel Lammerse Photography – Light is everything

www.fotopropaganda.com

Blog – Foto Propaganda Photography

www.fotopropaganda.com

Michel Lammerse

Explore Michel Lammerse’s 347 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[Stacey_K]

fyi: both pictures were taken in raw and processed without any colour correction.... so colours are directly out of cameras. (I used LR and my friend with teh 5DMkII used the Canon standard RAW converter)

Color from LR processed RAWs aren't going to be the same as OOC jpegs or processed with nikons standard RAW engine. I assume you know this?

 

[Stacey_K]

Personally, aside from immediately sending a news photo / event photo off to an editor asap (or as a backup in the second card slot if you have one), I just don't see why anyone shoots JPEG, after spending thousands on a DSLR and lenses.

If you shot for money, at an event I might have several dozen images to deal with (keepers not just throw away shots) and to spend time manually balancing the color in each file from RAW will take more time than I spent shooting the event.

Other times I am asked to shoot 100+ portraits of a company's employees or of church members (largest group so far was 350 members with all different types of skin colors to deal with), again to spend hours at a computer manually adjusting skin tones from RAW on each shot isn't my idea of fun, especially when some cameras, like the D200 and the D700 in Dx2 mode don't require this and can produce very close results in the OOC jpegs.

I can understand if you have 2-3 shots from a day of shooting you feel are keepers, that you would spend the time carefully editing the RAW file, especially if this is a hobby. Don't assume everyone works the same way and discount so easily why -decent- OOC jpegs are important to some people.

 

[z2122]

fyi: both pictures were taken in raw and processed without any colour correction.... so colours are directly out of cameras. (I used LR and my friend with teh 5DMkII used the Canon standard RAW converter)

Color from LR processed RAWs aren't going to be the same as OOC jpegs or processed with nikons standard RAW engine. I assume you know this?

 

[z2122]

z2122, post: 53811060, member: 188764"]
a used canon APSC for 5 years and switched this year to Nikon D610. I am really happy - the D610 is a amazing masterpiece for that money. before i bought I read a lot on this forum and was aware of a AF system that is maybe not so top (compared to D800 or D7100 ) and a read a lot about skintones. Reading some posts here, I got the opinion, that Nikon skintones are not as good as Canon skintones. Now I was with some friends in Croatia. Friend of mine has a 5DMkII with a 85 f1.2L and I used D610 with 70-200 f4. I have to say, that I am fully happy with the skintones. Also AF is very good.

this are pictures that were taken without special arrangement and it was not the intention to make a comparision. this idea popped up, when i got the pictures from my friend and found out, that there is the same situation and the pictures are similar. RAW and little bit of contrast in LR.

Waht is your opinion about skintones?

D610



5D MKII

--
- Light is everything -

Michel Lammerse Photography – Light is everything

www.fotopropaganda.com

Blog – Foto Propaganda Photography

www.fotopropaganda.com

Michel Lammerse

Explore Michel Lammerse’s 347 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

[/QUOTE]
yes, that i mean .....
i do not find a lot of issues with d610 - nearly perfect ....
but there is one disadvantage : it is seducing me to buy good glass ;-) :-D

 

[TOF guy]

Color from LR processed RAWs aren't going to be the same as OOC jpegs or processed with nikons standard RAW engine. I assume you know this?

There is a difference but they are not that different. And sometimes the ACR skin tone works a little better than NX, sometimes it's the other around. Often they are just as good as one as the other.

But maybe I do not know what to look for. It would be helpful to have an example. It would not have to be a whole portrait: part of the cheek, a hand, etc. will suffice (to protect a customer identity if this is a concern). Posting the OOC crop and the same after processing to your liking would be very helpful, please. I hope you can find the time to do this.

 

[TOF guy]

adjusting skin tones from RAW on each shot when some cameras, like the D200 and the D700 in Dx2 mode don't require this and can produce very close results in the OOC jpegs.

Just to make sure: no camera settings getting in the way of the results you want ?

 

[Robin Casady]

Personally, aside from immediately sending a news photo / event photo off to an editor asap (or as a backup in the second card slot if you have one), I just don't see why anyone shoots JPEG, after spending thousands on a DSLR and lenses.

If you shot for money, at an event I might have several dozen images to deal with (keepers not just throw away shots) and to spend time manually balancing the color in each file from RAW will take more time than I spent shooting the event.

So, you are saying that the color changes from one shot to the next? The camera profile would be the same unless you specifically change it. Does the lighting vary, necessitating the use of AWB?

Other times I am asked to shoot 100+ portraits of a company's employees or of church members (largest group so far was 350 members with all different types of skin colors to deal with), again to spend hours at a computer manually adjusting skin tones from RAW on each shot isn't my idea of fun, especially when some cameras, like the D200 and the D700 in Dx2 mode don't require this and can produce very close results in the OOC jpegs.

I can understand if you have 2-3 shots from a day of shooting you feel are keepers, that you would spend the time carefully editing the RAW file, especially if this is a hobby. Don't assume everyone works the same way and discount so easily why -decent- OOC jpegs are important to some people.

If you shoot these portraits with consistent lighting AWB shouldn't be necessary. If you shot them in RAW the process in Lightroom 5 would be to import the images, adjust one, select all, and apply the settings of the first shot to all. This shouldn't take much time. You would import them with a preset you have previously set up as something that works most of the time. So, adjustments to first image should be minimal.

Then you go through them and pick the keepers. You could make adjustments to some, if necessary. With the keepers selected you export as JPEG and go do something else. The advantage is that if things go wrong with color or exposure you can recover more easily than with JPEG only.

You could also shoot RAW + JPEG and use the RAW when the JPEG doesn't look right.

 

[The Name is Bond]

Those pics are crying out for a 70s treatment

 

[JF69]

Color from LR processed RAWs aren't going to be the same as OOC jpegs or processed with nikons standard RAW engine. I assume you know this?

There is a difference but they are not that different. And sometimes the ACR skin tone works a little better than NX, sometimes it's the other around. Often they are just as good as one as the other.

Thierry, did you even read the posts before you vented out at Stacey? You missed the point being discussed (big time, B_I_G time); before asking "what point" please take time to read the posts again.

But maybe I do not know what to look for. It would be helpful to have an example. It would not have to be a whole portrait: part of the cheek, a hand, etc. will suffice (to protect a customer identity if this is a concern). Posting the OOC crop and the same after processing to your liking would be very helpful, please. I hope you can find the time to do this.

Why would she do this? It's you who's making a completely irrelevant point, so the onus of "proof" is on you. Of course since you're missing the point, it will be useless.

 

[The Name is Bond]

Why would she do this? It's you who's making a completely irrelevant point, so the onus of "proof" is on you. Of course since you're missing the point, it will be useless.

That's all very well, JF69, but you didn't 'like' my 1970s edition.

 

[JF69]

Why would she do this? It's you who's making a completely irrelevant point, so the onus of "proof" is on you. Of course since you're missing the point, it will be useless.

That's all very well, JF69, but you didn't 'like' my 1970s edition.

??
What's that got to do with anything? I wasn't replying to you; maybe you're viewing in "flat view" not threaded view, which might have misled you.

I just took a peep at your rendition, nice & nostalgic

(PS: for the sake of netiquette, did you ask permission before editing the OP's pic?)

 

[The Name is Bond]

Why would she do this? It's you who's making a completely irrelevant point, so the onus of "proof" is on you. Of course since you're missing the point, it will be useless.

That's all very well, JF69, but you didn't 'like' my 1970s edition.

??
What's that got to do with anything? I wasn't replying to you; you're viewing in "flat view" not threaded view, which might have misled you.

I was introducing a note of levity. But yes, I didn't think of 'threaded view', but your reply certainly had me chuckling heartily.

I just took a peep at your rendition, nice & nostalgic

Thanks!

(PS: for the sake of netiquette, did you ask permission before editing the OP's pic?)

No, but I have to tell you that such things are not in my gentleman's manual on etiquette.

 

[TOF guy]

before you vented out at Stacey?

Nobody "vented" at Stacey