The oly colour 3D look

I've read previous threads on this topic, and will agree with those that argue against this being an Oly-only trait. Any camera can offer a 3D "looking" image if the person taking the photo wishes to produce the effect, because he or she understands aperture, distance to subject, and desired DOF to achieve how much of the effect. The progression from sharp to blur, and how quickly that progression happens, is what creates to a lesser or greater degree, the “appearance” of a 3D looking photo from a non-stereoscopic camera...









Really, it's in DOF and how close one is to the main subject. Any camera can create it. As a matter of fact, I find many of Sergey's wonderful photos to exhibit this effect, and they're from a Nikon.

To say this is an Oly signature is pure hogwash.

As for color, I suppose each manufacturer has it's own color signature, which is highly subjective seeing as how as soon as the photo is dumped into PP, you can kiss that off, or, user modifications via the menu on the camera. IMHO, Oly seems to produce brighter, richer colors, which can be great, or, it can be too much given the situation. Are Nikon colors flatter than Oly? To me, yes. Does that make Oly superior? No, not at all. It simply tells me Oly uses more saturation in its engine, or, their interpretation of red versus Nikon's or Canon's.

This argument, Oly color and Oly 3D, unfortunately, will go on forever and there will never be an end to it. It makes for good debate, if not tiresome and useless debate, as in how far does outer space go.

Be it as it ever may, your argument and mileage will vary.

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Regards,
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Some great examples above in this thread Gareth... perhaps it's not an effect you can simulate in your mock-up test - maybe get out into the sunlight and repeat your test with a more suitable subject?

I don't know whether you've read this article by Mike Chaney... but it may offer you some insights :
http://www.outbackphoto.com/dp_essentials/dp_essentials_05/essay.html

I wonder whether the beautiful 3D colour shown above, is a result of the unique way Olympus glass renders an image on a 4/3rd sensor... combined with the exceptional jpeg engine.

I appreciate you trying to find out where the Oly magic is coming from, but I think it will require some real world testing. Have you been able to capture anything like the amazing 3D colour with your Nikon D300 or D3 yet?

Kind Regards

Brian
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PDXguy said:

IMHO, Oly seems to produce
brighter, richer colors, which can be great, or, it can be too much
given the situation. Are Nikon colors flatter than Oly? To me, yes.
Does that make Oly superior? No, not at all. It simply tells me Oly
uses more saturation in its engine, or, their interpretation of red
versus Nikon's or Canon's.

Click to expand...

Maybe it's the interpretation of red which contributes to the 3d effect? Mike seems to think it's to do with the sharpness of the red channel :
http://www.outbackphoto.com/dp_essentials/dp_essentials_05/essay.html

And it looks like the foveon sensor demonstrates this best of all.

Kind Regards

Brian
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Well I for one dont believe that the concept of 3d images exists for oly or for that matter any camera including the sigma's where its often cited along with film like qualities. Heck if you want film like shoot film....I do.

Its all hogwash.....many of the examples refered to as exhibiting this phenomena are as a result of subject matter, dof, lighting and composition and pretty much ANY camera would have replicated the scene.

Sure olys have nice colours, sure they saturate the red channel but the 3d image is a myth pure and simple.....
best
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'Always look on the bright side life...'

Hi!

I have found that I can (re-)produce pretty much any look I want with any camera out there (apart from DOF related limitations). Nothing "special" about Oly or any other brand (other than the sensor-caused Foveon differences).

Regards
Alex

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subject isolation by DOF explains just one side of the effect in which OLY as a matter of fact is not as flexible as the competiton. I also doubt that OLY in general is superior in this field (3D look) to the competition.

But my experience shows that where shallow DOF is NOT the explanation to the 3D effect OLY does really well. I for my part think the effect has more to due with how the light falls on a subject and how a lens can resolve that subtle light and shadow detail - good shadow detail therefore might be a key to the 3D effect?.

The following examples show what I think is a clear 3D effect which is not a result of shallow DOF.

e3 14-54mm



.. or this one in which the girl really seems to be in front of the two women while all three are more or less equally sharp.

e3 14-54mm



Klaus

I agree with those who say the 3-D effect is related to DOF. Specifically, the best 3-D photos would have the OOF stuff around the In-focus subject mater mimic as closely as possible what the human eye would see if it were to focus on the subject-matter, then the eye is effectively tricked into thinking it is looking at reality.

To me, it is more uncanny/unnerving as the your eye scans the image from the OOF - infocus- OOF part of the image. As your eye locks in on the infocus part of the image and the OOF part matches your eye's expectation you get the WOW-3D factor that hits you right between the eyes (no pun intended)

-John

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klauser said:

subject isolation by DOF explains just one side of the effect in
which OLY as a matter of fact is not as flexible as the competiton. I
also doubt that OLY in general is superior in this field (3D look) to
the competition.

But my experience shows that where shallow DOF is NOT the explanation
to the 3D effect OLY does really well. I for my part think the effect
has more to due with how the light falls on a subject and how a lens
can resolve that subtle light and shadow detail

Click to expand...

I entirely agree that the DOF is only 1 of the factors that can contribute to the "3-D" effect. As you've said and posted examples of, lighting (and I guess its different effect on different regions of the photo) is a very important factor and by itself can render the "3-D feel". I don't know though that olympus dSLRs would capitalize on this more than other camera brands (unless colour gets factored in as well...)

Thanks for posting images - enjoy watching and am learning as well. I especially like the first one, very very nice where the lighting's effect is evident (at least to my eyes/interpretation).

... a kind of personal kind of looking and sight abilities. Every Pearson see colors and B/W on hes/her own way.
It is a kind of quasi 3D look. Real 3D is something else.

I can't point with finger it is DOF or something else what causes this effect. I believe it is a combination of factors, like DOF, special lenses coating, and how camera can work with light which rich the sensor.
IMO, this "3D" exist and it is result of all the factors involved in process.
DEPTH OF COLOR is maybe the most important factor.
I know that, because I'm working in the printing house as Offset printer.
Every day I'm able to see differences in printed materials.

I know it is different media. Printing inks came on the paper one by one, like layers.

Change the order which color you add first, second, etc. and final picture can look different, better or worse.

Main factors IMHO are depth of color, DOF, contrast and sharpness in combination.

What is sensor and what is software business to work with, I'm not sure, but some manufacturers obviously has better recipes than others.
I might be totally wrong of course.

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Cheers

Miro
E-3, E-500 +.....................in profile

First of all, gratulations with your superb contest. You give us a hard time but it's fun.

At first I like the 4-th foto the best : it has the most 3D look to me. I'm pretty convinced that foto 1 and 4 are made by a 3/4- camera. That of the slight noise you can see in the white's of the inside of the box and in the darker parts of the pictures. My guess : 1 oly 510 (littlebit unsharp), 2 canon ?? , 3 nikon d 300 (very smooth, not so bright darkblue's, less noise in dark part between nose and chart, 4 E-3 ???

But this shows that the mentioned camera's are very, very close. It's the owner that makes the difference in the way he uses his camera.

Blah, blah, blah...

Thanks for the test. In my best days I'd be hard pressed to discern which camera made which and, in the end, my thoughts are really not all that important.

What is important is the final image and teddy bears, jam, etc. are not saleable images.

All of the current DSLRs are very capable of capturing excellent images in the hands of a good photographer. Developed properly, any of these cameras are quite capable and these arguments are, again, IMO, quite useless.

I use Olympus cameras because I've invested in them. Had I started in the DSLR world with Canon or Nikon, I'd still be with either of those brands. I'm a hobbiest and don't really need all of the latest technology although I'd like it. The enjoyment comes from making an image from time to time that is liked by my peers.

Thanks again for the post and the comparison but, in the end, what difference does it make?
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I like them in this order: 1, 4, 3, 2 (or 1, 4, 2, 3) - with 1 much better than the others. A function of colors and tonality I think, translating into a 3D look perhaps.
Whether all can be made similar in post processing, I don't know.

and I believe that's the major factor in these two images just posted. Perspective along with the viewer's sense of relative sizes of objects. For example we make the natural assumption that all the fence posts are the same height and the horses are approximately the same size; this, in combination with the perspective rendered in the image, lends to the 3D interpretation.

This reminds me of the Hollywood props of buildings, etc. manufactured with compressed perspective that, when viewed from precisely the right spot, appear to be normal buildings with lots of 3D depth.

In composition, when shooting a distant object (building, landscape, etc.), it's often nice to have some foreground elements to lend a sense of depth to the image; this is particularly effective if the foreground objects are of a known size relative to the distant elements.

Great post Gareth!

I have maintained time and time again that when you shoot any of the top end DSLRs in RAW and PP using the same converter there's little difference between them.

Your post proves the point!

Thanks,
Vin

Photoworks said:

I have maintained time and time again that when you shoot any of the
top end DSLRs in RAW and PP using the same converter there's little
difference between them.

Your post proves the point!

Click to expand...

Well ... to be fair, I'm not sure it does for everything. If I may explain.

I think it does for certain scenarios. Nobody has been able to come forward and say "image x is from an Oly camera and you can clearly see the ....". I certainly can't see any significant difference - not at these web sizes anyway. So I have a feeling there isn't anything inherent in the sensors (and if one considers that they are just 'buckets' that collect photons of a certain colour and then the numbers coming from the analogue to digital converters can be scaled mathematically as you wish, then its not really surprising).

But there are other factors that can give a 'look'.

Quite a few people have posted images that have shallow DOF, thus obviously they give visual clues as to what is in focus, what isn't etc. I guess it gives a sense of three dimensionality, but that isn't what the 'oly 3D look' is about and we shouldn't get confused equating it with ultra shallow DOF or telephoto/macro images where the background is OOF. I've seen people post pictures that are completely stopped down with almost everything in focus and claim its looks 3D. Klaus posted an example above.

Less and less people seem to be using tripods. Back in film days, often you HAD to use a tripod. People used to stop down a lot (hell ... basic disposable cameras were fixed at something like f8 and EVERYTHING was designed to be in focus!). if you use a modern DLSR in something like P or 'sports' mode, then most of the time the cameras will shoot wide open with a restricted DOF even on a cheap kit lens. Might it be that the smaller sensor and extended DOF of fourthirds allows more than normal to be in focus and this many pictures look more like the old film images we were used to in the past? Is this the thing that gives the 'look' ?

And of course if any part of the image is out of focus, then the rendering of this (as in the bokeh) might also give a different feel to the overall image quality, so it might be lens construction coming into play? Very subtle in some cases, but nevertheless its there. What needs to be done here is to use the same lenses on different brand cameras and see what happens. But first we need to be able to accurately identify some image types that clearly show the look in the first place!

People have said in the past that Oly images are very 'film like'. Hmmm... well I sort of agree .. at least with older cameras like the E1 and E300, but only when you use out of camera JPGs or use oly conversions. And then the 'film look' to my eyes is just that the noise distribution over the image looks similar to grainy film. Lets not go there!

So lastly, we are left with the image processing. The sharpening algorithm MIGHT play a part, might not. The emphasis on certain colours certainly would give a distinct overall colour signature to images which you might prefer out of personal preference.

If I had the time, this is an area I'd love to do some research into because I think there is more to it than meets the eye (pun intended). There is lots I don't understand. Two of the images in the test I posted are E3 and D300. I'm buggered if I can see ANY difference looking at the gretag reference charts, however my experience tells me that I can generally look at prints of peoples faces and tell you which ones were taken by an oly camera because of the additional redness in the skin tones. I have some theories, but at the moment I can't easily explain this just by looking at the test charts where the reds and the pinks (and in fact ALL the colors) look so close.

But that's one of the reason I find photography so fascinating. Its where art meets science!

Cheers
G.

Bootstrap said:

Thanks again for the post and the comparison but, in the end, what
difference does it make?

Click to expand...

Well ... it makes a difference to me because I like to understand what I'm doing and why images look a certain way.
Is there a need to process oly images in Studio?

Do these images have a certain indefinable quality that will help sales because customers ALSO subconsciously love some 'look' that oly cameras give? or doesn't it matter and I can use anything as long as I PP them the same way??

Lots of reasons.

This is also a technical forum and I thought it would be interesting to have some technical discussion.

G.

klauser said:

But my experience shows that where shallow DOF is NOT the explanation
to the 3D effect OLY does really well. I for my part think the effect
has more to due with how the light falls on a subject and how a lens
can resolve that subtle light and shadow detail - good shadow detail
therefore might be a key to the 3D effect?.

The following examples show what I think is a clear 3D effect which
is not a result of shallow DOF.

Click to expand...

Interesting and thanks for posting an extended DOF shot. So does anyone else agree that this image has some special look?

Your comment on resolving subtle light and shadow detail is also interesting. Some other manufacturers lenses are to my eyes clearly different (and I think inferior) to oly ones. But then some other sensors do give more DR so there is more shadow detail ?!?

Big Ga said:

Bootstrap said:

Thanks again for the post and the comparison but, in the end, what
difference does it make?

Click to expand...

Well ... it makes a difference to me because I like to understand
what I'm doing and why images look a certain way.
Is there a need to process oly images in Studio?
Do these images have a certain indefinable quality that will help
sales because customers ALSO subconsciously love some 'look' that oly
cameras give? or doesn't it matter and I can use anything as long as
I PP them the same way??

Click to expand...

Well the answer there my friend is to pick one well exposed oly frame and convert it in a number of raw convertors and YOU choose which one you like.

Your problem is given the different systems you use that any indefinable quality becomes lost in the wash using one convertor for all and worrying about colour matching an album for example.

Have you shot the same scene with say 3 different brands and used their individual convertors to see what ya get? As I said acr tends to level the playing field...........
best
--
Geoff Roughton



'Always look on the bright side life...'

The following examples show the 3D effect purely as a result of perspective - we just know that there has to be depth and thus we see it in the pictures.

E-500 11-54mm



e-500 11-22mm



Klaus

I think the visual effect which people are referring to as 3D colour needs good quality colour... i.e. good sunlit image? perhaps a reason for Gareth's mock-up test at the top of this thread for being of little use in this instance...

Maybe worth taking some of the best examples of 3D colour and processing them in B&W, to see the difference, and also trying a number of different converters. Perhaps ACR, rather than 'leveling' the playing fieild is 'mushing' the playing field?

Kind Regards

Brian
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