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DP1m and halogen lights - who ate my colors ?!?

Started Apr 14, 2017 | Discussions thread
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goblin
goblin Veteran Member • Posts: 3,752
DP1m and halogen lights - who ate my colors ?!?
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Hi All

I was really hesitating where to put this one - here or in the lighting forum, so I guess I'll start here.

I have been using my trusty DP1m to shoot garments for a few years, and other than the usual complaints about Sigma having castrated the ultimate studio camera to just a good one (why making the ultimate studio camera - leaf shutter for almost all speed flash sync, and the sharpness we know, to kill it with tiny batteries, no remote shutter release of any kind ?), I was pretty happy.

I was using a funky setup with Alzo bulbs (5500k me think), which, other than the annoying green cast at the edges of white garments sometimes. was quite fine.

Then I decided I needed led pannels (need the space, I shoot in a corner), went to B&H, and after a nice chat with the very nice an helpful seller, realized that ideally I'd need an Arri Sky something something LED pannel (ideally - two of them ) at $6k a pop. Errr... Not for me.

Then he showed me that thing from the past: the Lowel Tota.

"...Do you have any power issues ? Are you afraid of the the heat ? No ? Here. They make your life a furnace, you'll need outlets on a dedicated circuit, but otherwise it's fine... And all halogens have a CRI of 99+ anyway, so you're good..."

A few weeks and a stint on Fleabay later, behold: a pair of Totas, plus accessories, at the price of a week of daily Starbucks visits.

I like them, They make my shooting spot a sauna, but somehow I like them. And the results are good. And, and, and...

And my pinks are gone. And my greens are gone. And my colors are as flat as that Resident Evil lady.

I have an x-rite color passport in every shot (not at home now, can't publish, but will do ASAP), so I thought - ok, just little click on the gray during import in ACR to Photoshop, like I did with tha Alzos will be fine, no ?

No Sir, no M'am. My colors are completely, totally off.

Now, the reason I am writing here: Even with the Alzos, getting a pink fushia or any sort of fluorescent color was a nightmare, where any other of my cameras (Olympus, Nikon), would get it right straight off the bat.

But it was still possible to get that nice fushia/pinkish back, by playing with the color saturation slider (typically - when using the Saturation tool in Photoshop - by dragging that top slider a few units towards the left. My pinks would look red, then turn to that correct color with this slider.

I know - the DP1m, actually sees the stuff correctly, as fushia does not exist, it's our eyes that create it, or something like that, or whatever. But I still need that illusion

Not with my halogens. They'd go through different sorts of red, but that'a about it. And the most important: fushia stuff actually doesn't look fushia under my Totas. It dis so under the Alzos. Again - what matters to me is is to get it back in Photoshop, doesn't matter how it looks under my lights, but I can't.

And, btw, xrite passport colorchecker whatever will not make a profile for the DP1m, as it refuses my raws to start with and doesn't like when I try to trick it with dngs.

So:

- I shoot raw, then export to tiff and use the tiff in PS.

- My WB is calibrated to the neutral grey on the Colorchecker Passport (to no avail).

- I am not sure what type of bulbs came with my Totas. Could it be that ? But shouldn' all hallogens be the same  in color rendering, or ? If not - how on Earth did the previous owner shoot with them ?

- It is not a color shift. It's like some colors are simply missing, or completely muted. So far I've had problems with pinks, purples and greens.

I feel like I'll be looking into those new Yongnuo LED pannels B&H just started to sell. A lot of them. But still - what's the deal with my Totas ? What am I doing wrong ?

Thanks

 goblin's gear list:goblin's gear list
Ricoh GXR P10 28-300mm F3.5-5.6 VC Sigma DP1 Merrill Sigma DP2 Merrill Sigma DP3 Merrill Sigma dp2 Quattro +73 more
Sigma DP1 Merrill
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