Which (affordable) camera has the best tonality and highlight rolloff?

After I've been in the photography hobby for almost 10 years now, I come to appreciate a rich tonality and a smooth highlight rolloff more and more. In the earlier years of this hobby I was more into Megapixels, sharpness and details (a.k.a. the typical pixel peeper).

Which raises the question: Which (relatively) current camera would you recommend when it comes to tonality and highlight rolloff?

For example: I really like the looks of the out of camera JPEGs from an Fuji S5 Pro. I know that its Super CCD Sensor is responsible for that but unfortunately you don't get these in current cameras anymore. And the megapixel count is a bit too less for me. Since I love to look at my photos on my 4K OLED TV, I'd like to have at least 12 MP which gives me at least a little room for cropping or oversampling the Image.

The camera of choice doesn't have to be the most current (but probably not older than 5 years), it doesn't have to have the most Megapixels or the best dynamic range. It also doesn't need to have the sharpest lens (if it's a fixed) but it should produce a rich tonality and nice highlight rolloffs.

It doesn't matter if it is a fixed or interchangeable lens, if it's a compact camera or a mirrorless or a DSLR. I am open for any suggestions.

It would be nice if it could produce very good out of camera JPEGs, since I don't like spending too much time finetuning the RAW Images.

So what are your suggestions for a street price not higher than $2000 (including a lens)?

Assessing tonality and highlight rolloff is very subjective. It will also depend very much on the camera's processing, if you want camera-processed jpegs. Most cameras offer many diferent styles of processing. It will probably depend more on the lighting conditions and your skill at controlling that.

If that is your main criterion for choosing a camera, I think you will find it difficult to get objective third-party advice.

quintana said:

The camera of choice doesn't have to be the most current (but probably not older than 5 years), it doesn't have to have the most Megapixels or the best dynamic range.

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Yes it does need dynamic range really, unless you plan on beating the laws of physics.

The S5 was a CCD camera with an extra 1.5 stops of effective highlight dynamic range due to the S&R pixel pairings it used. Some people might have claimed more for it, but trying to get more than that made the highlights go purple I seem to remember.

You're not going to get the highlight dynamic range you need before you apply that highlight roll-off curve, with an old low dynamic range camera (e.g. something before Sony 2012 sensors. Not an a900 or 5D III).

quintana said:

It also doesn't need to have the sharpest lens (if it's a fixed) but it should produce a rich tonality and nice highlight rolloffs.

Click to expand...

The kind of tonality that will let you see into the shadows like medium format used to do should have you heading off to fairly modern full frame.

A D800 for example will have a long dynamic range, and you can apply a more S-shaped curve to the output to get smoother highlight rolloff. Of course that wouldn't necessarily do you much good with a short DR camera where the last stop or more of detail is obliterated to maximum white. With a D800 for example you could meter for the highlights and do a -2 exposure compensation which on Canon of the time would net you noise and probably red banding.

So: Sony based FF sensor of D600/D800 vintage or newer and post process it with your favorite preset. Don't go for one of the dedicated sports/PJ cameras like a D5 or Sony A9 which sacrifice DR.

The D600 is probably the best value option that I can think of, cameras usually are when the reputation gets tarnished by a recall. Choose the right range of serial number or get confirmation it underwent the recall if you're nervous, it will still come out less than $1000.

Sony a6500, as well as Nikon D3400 & D5600, have about 14 stops dynamic range at base ISO, which seems remarkable (to me) for APS-C sensors. As long as you don't over expose this should translate into what you're after. The Nikons lack live histograms but the metering is generally excellent.

quintana said:

After I've been in the photography hobby for almost 10 years now, I come to appreciate a rich tonality and a smooth highlight rolloff more and more. In the earlier years of this hobby I was more into Megapixels, sharpness and details (a.k.a. the typical pixel peeper).

Which raises the question: Which (relatively) current camera would you recommend when it comes to tonality and highlight rolloff?

For example: I really like the looks of the out of camera JPEGs from an Fuji S5 Pro. I know that its Super CCD Sensor is responsible for that but unfortunately you don't get these in current cameras anymore. And the megapixel count is a bit too less for me. Since I love to look at my photos on my 4K OLED TV, I'd like to have at least 12 MP which gives me at least a little room for cropping or oversampling the Image.

The camera of choice doesn't have to be the most current (but probably not older than 5 years), it doesn't have to have the most Megapixels or the best dynamic range. It also doesn't need to have the sharpest lens (if it's a fixed) but it should produce a rich tonality and nice highlight rolloffs.

It doesn't matter if it is a fixed or interchangeable lens, if it's a compact camera or a mirrorless or a DSLR. I am open for any suggestions.

It would be nice if it could produce very good out of camera JPEGs, since I don't like spending too much time finetuning the RAW Images.

So what are your suggestions for a street price not higher than $2000 (including a lens)?

Click to expand...

I suppose "tonality" and highlight "roll offs" may be subjective

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

Fujifilm cameras have tone controls built in for JPGs, the best I know of. Also, for B&W in particular, the Olympus PEN-F has more options than most.

Kelly Cook

fishy wishy said:

You're not going to get the highlight dynamic range you need before you apply that highlight roll-off curve, with an old low dynamic range camera (e.g. something before Sony 2012 sensors. Not an a900 or 5D III).

Click to expand...

fishy-wishy is right as rain as far as I know. However, funny he should mention the A900...

The Sony A700/900/A850 (announced 2007/2008/2009) had an unusual Creative Style setting called "Zone". Creative Style is where you could customize image contrast, sharpness, saturation and "Zone" of various Creative Styles (Sunset, Vivid, Neutral, etc). Sony never really explained what Zone did. Imaging Resource guessed it had something to do with tone curve treatment of highlights & shadows (search the Exposure section for "zone").

I went out and quickly shot a couple samples of different Zone settings. The shutter speeds were very different but that might just be my inability to exactly match both scenes. It might be doing something but the effect is not large. I can try again in manual mode to match shutter speeds if you guys are interested:



--
Lance H

lehill said:

fishy wishy said:

You're not going to get the highlight dynamic range you need before you apply that highlight roll-off curve, with an old low dynamic range camera (e.g. something before Sony 2012 sensors. Not an a900 or 5D III).

Click to expand...

fishy-wishy is right as rain as far as I know. However, funny he should mention the A900...

The Sony A700/900/A850 (announced 2007/2008/2009) had an unusual Creative Style setting called "Zone". Creative Style is where you could customize image contrast, sharpness, saturation and "Zone" of various Creative Styles (Sunset, Vivid, Neutral, etc). Sony never really explained what Zone did. Imaging Resource guessed it had something to do with tone curve treatment of highlights & shadows (search the Exposure section for "zone").

I went out and quickly shot a couple samples of different Zone settings. The shutter speeds were very different but that might just be my inability to exactly match both scenes. It might be doing something but the effect is not large. I can try again in manual mode to match shutter speeds if you guys are interested:



--
Lance H

Click to expand...

Cool. But Fuji JPG tone controls are significantly stronger than that example.

Kelly

lehill said:

fishy wishy said:

You're not going to get the highlight dynamic range you need before you apply that highlight roll-off curve, with an old low dynamic range camera (e.g. something before Sony 2012 sensors. Not an a900 or 5D III).

Click to expand...

fishy-wishy is right as rain as far as I know. However, funny he should mention the A900...

The Sony A700/900/A850 (announced 2007/2008/2009) had an unusual Creative Style setting called "Zone". Creative Style is where you could customize image contrast, sharpness, saturation and "Zone" of various Creative Styles (Sunset, Vivid, Neutral, etc). Sony never really explained what Zone did. Imaging Resource guessed it had something to do with tone curve treatment of highlights & shadows (search the Exposure section for "zone").

I went out and quickly shot a couple samples of different Zone settings. The shutter speeds were very different but that might just be my inability to exactly match both scenes. It might be doing something but the effect is not large. I can try again in manual mode to match shutter speeds if you guys are interested:



--
Lance H

Click to expand...

I had the a850 for a little while but never knew about these presets! Mind you, I'm used to sorting things out in raw. I quite liked the a850 but when I looked at it rationally its sensor was quite behind the times by the time the D600 etc came out. It was giving up a stop of high iso and a stop and a half in low iso to the later cameras. That's a lot, like the difference between FF and crop sensors. You could do nice photos with it but it's not going to pull the maximum amount from a scene like OP is asking though.

I tried to find a rendering similar to the S5pro jpegs for years but I never succeeded.

Yet the current Fuji models (XT2, XT20, etc) are the closest match, and they provide the most pleasant tonalities in jpeg.