Unsophisticated Sony colours

Renato1 said:

....... there are plenty of people who used to be at the Konica Minolta forum who wonder why Sony can't put a Creative Style called "Minolta" on their cameras to give us the colours we got from the KM5D and KM7D DSLRs. As far as a I know, no one has ever managed to adjust the colours on the Sony cameras to get KM colours.
Regards,
Renato

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These cameras have a CCD sensor, just like the A100 and A200. All newer Sony cameras (as well as any other manufacturer's) have CMOS sensors.

Some (including myself) find the CCD colors a little better, but of course CMOS is much better in other areas.

mick232 said:

Renato1 said:

....... there are plenty of people who used to be at the Konica Minolta forum who wonder why Sony can't put a Creative Style called "Minolta" on their cameras to give us the colours we got from the KM5D and KM7D DSLRs. As far as a I know, no one has ever managed to adjust the colours on the Sony cameras to get KM colours.
Regards,
Renato

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These cameras have a CCD sensor, just like the A100 and A200. All newer Sony cameras (as well as any other manufacturer's) have CMOS sensors.

Some (including myself) find the CCD colors a little better, but of course CMOS is much better in other areas.

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Yes, you are correct about them being CCD cameras. But the moaning about the disappearance of Minolta colours started the minute the A100 came out.

My recollection was that also there were some there who argued that while the KM cameras were definitely better on skin tones, the Sony cameras were better at most other things. I'm still in two minds about that.
Regards,
Renato

kotmj said:

Having shot now with the A55 for several months, I find the colours -- regardless of Creative Style and setting -- to be subpar compared to Olympus. Thoughts?

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What don't you like about the Colors? They look quite good to me. Since no camera can give perfectly realistic colors maybe your taste just prefers Olympus. It is always possible to fine tune the colors to your liking. BTW, what do you mean by "unsophisticated".

tbcass said:

BTW, what do you mean by "unsophisticated".

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Can't wait for that answer.

I shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG depending on the anticipated end use of the image.

I have a pocketable Olympus XZ-1 with which I also shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG. The Olympus colours are just amazing: vivid, saturated, warmish. In particular, skin colour is rendered in a very flattering way.

Not in a single frame with my A55 and the Minolta AF 50/2.8 Macro, or even the Sony 35/1.8 have I gotten Olympus-equivalent colours. I find the Sony colours yellowish or greenish or waxy depending on settings and the light source. Not once I looked at a pic from the A55 and admired the colours the way the Olympus consistently delivers. I find myself constantly underwhelmed by the colour palette of the A55.

I have a Canon EOS M on its way to me and i will be able to gather some impressions from that camera soon.

Not in a single part of your reply do I find any recognition of the advise given to you in the thread so far. I find myself underwhelmed by your reply, which also is in stark conflict with thereview conclusion by DPR themselves :

"Overall, image quality gives little cause for complaint (and is often excellent), with reliable exposure, color, white balance and focus (when not shooting at high burst rates) reliable enough that you can concentrate on the important stuff, like framing and actually taking the picture."

Cheers,
Ralf

DRO is always off and I use the RAW converter I downloaded from Sony's official website.

I am not optimistic about being able to tweak the RAWs to get sophisticated colours -- I have tried many times with no success and I get eyestrain.

kotmj said:

DRO is always off

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good choice IMHO

kotmj said:

and I use the RAW converter I downloaded from Sony's official website.

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bad choice at it is SLOW, see below

kotmj said:

I am not optimistic about being able to tweak the RAWs to get sophisticated colours -- I have tried many times with no success and I get eyestrain.

Click to expand...

Try a faster converter to get over the eye strain....

Cheers,
Ralf

This is very interesting, a RAW converter with presets to mimic the colour palette of various brands.

I suspect there is more going on (more intelligence, a lot more intelligence) than simply boosting this and that and that I'm personally not able to provide this intelligent colour processing myself. I think there are many lines of algorithms in these cameras that influence colour based on many variables (even in RAW).

Olympus just handles it with aplomb. My Sony, while great in many respects, just doesn't.

kotmj said:

I shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG depending on the anticipated end use of the image.

I have a pocketable Olympus XZ-1 with which I also shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG. The Olympus colours are just amazing: vivid, saturated, warmish. In particular, skin colour is rendered in a very flattering way.

Not in a single frame with my A55 and the Minolta AF 50/2.8 Macro, or even the Sony 35/1.8 have I gotten Olympus-equivalent colours. I find the Sony colours yellowish or greenish or waxy depending on settings and the light source. Not once I looked at a pic from the A55 and admired the colours the way the Olympus consistently delivers. I find myself constantly underwhelmed by the colour palette of the A55.

I have a Canon EOS M on its way to me and i will be able to gather some impressions from that camera soon.

Click to expand...

on what kind of monitor you're comparing and is the monitor calibrated ?

also pls post comparison image including EXIF data, maybe that way you can get some advise how to adjust your camera.

--
*All my Post Processing is done with Capture NX2*
Flickr Photo's
Galleries on DPR

Good idea. I'll post comparison pics between the Olympus and the Sony.

... here

Cheers,
Ralf
www.ralfralph.smugmug.com

kotmj said:

Having shot now with the A55 for several months, I find the colours -- regardless of Creative Style and setting -- to be subpar compared to Olympus. Thoughts?

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I have no experience with those Olympus models, but from a more general point of view I understand your frustration of not getting the colors one wants with the tool one wants to use. It doesn't really matter if those colors are correct, oversaturated, sophisticated or something else.

I have experienced the same when I had a Minolta 7D which made fantastic colors in JPG which I could not reproduce when I processed the raw photos in Lightroom. I made a lot of tweaks in both the camera calibration panel and in the HSL panel in Lightroom, but I never got it quite right.

Now I have a Sony a77, and I have succeeded in tweaking Lightroom to give me colors which are satisfactory. But to be honest, it is probably because I no longer have the 7D JPGs for comparison when I process a photo.

Recently, I have stumbled over an Adobe utility called DNG Profile Editor. This utility creates camera calibration profiles to be used in Lightroom or other Adobe products. Despite the name, it also works for those of us who do not want to use the DNG file format. It has two modes:

• An automatic mode where you shoot a photo of a real color test chart, let the software analyze it and get a profile with correct colors.
• A manual mode where you load a photo and tweak individual colors in the photo to the hue, saturation and luminance you want. Based on your adjustments, the software creates a color profile with your preferred colors.

If I had known about this when I used the 7D, I would have tried this:

• Take a photo in raw+JPG of a color test chart.
• Open the JPG photo and read the RGB values of each color patch in the chart.
• Open the raw photo in the DNG Profile Editor and adjust each patch in the color test chart to have the same RGB value as it has in the JPG file.
• Save the resulting profile and use it in Lightroom.

I don't know if you use Lightroom or any other Adobe product. But if you do, you could try to use this method, with the difference that you take a photo of the same color test chart in the same lighting with each of your two cameras and then make a profile for the Sony file where it hits the RGB values you found in the photo from the Olympus.

kotmj said:

I shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG depending on the anticipated end use of the image.

I have a pocketable Olympus XZ-1 with which I also shoot a combination of RAW and JPEG. The Olympus colours are just amazing: vivid, saturated, warmish. In particular, skin colour is rendered in a very flattering way.

Click to expand...

There's your answer. The XZ-1 is a P&S. P&S cameras in general have over saturated and over sharpened images. To most serious photographers your preference is considered unsophisticated because they are unrealistic (no offense, it's just what you're used to).

kotmj said:

Not in a single frame with my A55 and the Minolta AF 50/2.8 Macro, or even the Sony 35/1.8 have I gotten Olympus-equivalent colours. I find the Sony colours yellowish or greenish or waxy depending on settings and the light source. Not once I looked at a pic from the A55 and admired the colours the way the Olympus consistently delivers. I find myself constantly underwhelmed by the colour palette of the A55.

I have a Canon EOS M on its way to me and i will be able to gather some impressions from that camera soon.

Click to expand...

I certainly can't attest to the A57 or the Olympus but I have read through this entire thread and find that you should move to another camera of choice immediately. It is very important that you are happy with what you have and obviously Sony is a source of serious frustration to you. Why wait any longer. I might add that as an old Minolta, Konica Minolta now Sony user I could not possibly be more pleased with my A77. I shoot exclusively in raw and I have Spyder Pro calibration on my monitor. I enjoy post processing to a point and I must say that I virtually never adjust the White Balance. It is always dead on and beautiful. I have spent a lot of time being frustrated with myself if I get poor quality photos but rarely can I blame the camera. It is a tool. Knowing how to use it to maximum desired results is a lot of fun when you can achieve that. May I suggest a P&S? Any brand you would like.
Darwin

Problem is behind the camera!

kotmj said:

Having shot now with the A55 for several months, I find the colours -- regardless of Creative Style and setting -- to be subpar compared to Olympus. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I have owned every flagship Olympus they have made and I disagree. Olympus lost its way long ago with their colors.

My RAW converter of choice have also color mimicking other brands via a base curve. I cannot say how good they work. The converter is free and heavily developed. Its "Darktable". But the Windows version Is not that stable.

mick232 said:

Renato1 said:

....... there are plenty of people who used to be at the Konica Minolta forum who wonder why Sony can't put a Creative Style called "Minolta" on their cameras to give us the colours we got from the KM5D and KM7D DSLRs. As far as a I know, no one has ever managed to adjust the colours on the Sony cameras to get KM colours.
Regards,
Renato

Click to expand...

These cameras have a CCD sensor, just like the A100 and A200. All newer Sony cameras (as well as any other manufacturer's) have CMOS sensors.

Some (including myself) find the CCD colors a little better, but of course CMOS is much better in other areas.

Click to expand...

CCD and CMOS sensors are color blind. The ability to reproduce colors depend on an array of RGB color filters in front of the sensor and subsequent demosaicing.

What mechanism would you propose giving CCD chips better colors?

I agree that 'colour' is very subjective and more of a personal preference. So many people add filters nowadays anyway which shows you that colour isn't that important.

However, I do expect my cameras to produce colours as close to what I see in real life. Of Canon, Nikon and Sony, I find that Sony produces the most realistic colours. This is from a professional opinion as I shoot with the 5D and D800 as well. Canon oversaturates while Nikon is Nikon.... they have their own style that people grow to love.

Then again, a lot also depends on your lens. Some oversaturate while some are more washed out.

Daniel
Ego Studios
www.egostudios.com.au