Another birder
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I don't dare post this on the Canon R forum, but it is pretty amusing:
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TN on "color science"
- Thread starter Another birder
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Funny, and much of his comments about taste and preferences are spot on! I don't always agree fully with Tony, but this one was just great!
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boy_wander
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This is only applicable to stills. But for video color science does matter especially with 8 bit sub sampling since you can't push colors too much.
Ha ha, I am a longtime Sony user/fan and I must say I am surprised and even maybe skeptical of the results. (Not that it's super relevant to me - I haven't used OOC JPEGS for years.)
Be nice to see a blind test with RAW files & let the participants try to process them. (Might be hard to keep that blind, though...)
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Be nice to see a blind test with RAW files & let the participants try to process them. (Might be hard to keep that blind, though...)
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Astrophotographer 10
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I was somewhat surprised but not entirely.
Back when the A9 was new there was a blind test of images from the A9, Canon 1DX2, Nikon D5 and Fuji XT2.
I was surprised I picked the vast majority of Sony ones I liked best then Canon then Fuji and Nikon was decidedly last (yellow/green cast).
They were unlabelled sample photos of the same scene with each of the 4 cameras.
The only weird colour I noticed was with my A7r2 and Batis 25 lens greens in foliage were weird in one shade of green which was excessively bright when the scene didn't show that at all.
Greg.
Paul Barnard
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joger
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agreed ;-)Yup. People should stop talking about the 'color sience' bullsh*t. Especially if you shoot RAW it doesn't matter at all.
I liked that Canon ended last since those users are the worst
I was a Canon shooter posting in the Canon forum and once I got my A7R II and posted a comparison I was literally thrown out of the forum simply by stating the obvious - brand loyalty seems to be the new religion for many.
I've owned Nikon, Canon and now Sony and I am happy to sell everything and get a new brand once there are significant advantages with the other brand.
I talk to tons of photography beginners in my courses and a disruptive change from brand A to B is almost for none of them thinkable - they all fear to loose money even though or because they spent a fortune for equipment.
I sold both Nikon and Canon gear and the loss was totally bearable - in other words I did not even notice the financial impact.
All in all this was one of the best summaries I've ever seen and TN is really capable of getting to the essence and daw the right conclusions. CUODS for him and his work - very good video.
Totally agree, nice story.agreed ;-)Yup. People should stop talking about the 'color sience' bullsh*t. Especially if you shoot RAW it doesn't matter at all.
I liked that Canon ended last since those users are the worst
I was a Canon shooter posting in the Canon forum and once I got my A7R II and posted a comparison I was literally thrown out of the forum simply by stating the obvious - brand loyalty seems to be the new religion for many.
I've owned Nikon, Canon and now Sony and I am happy to sell everything and get a new brand once there are significant advantages with the other brand.
I talk to tons of photography beginners in my courses and a disruptive change from brand A to B is almost for none of them thinkable - they all fear to loose money even though or because they spent a fortune for equipment.
I sold both Nikon and Canon gear and the loss was totally bearable - in other words I did not even notice the financial impact.
All in all this was one of the best summaries I've ever seen and TN is really capable of getting to the essence and daw the right conclusions. CUODS for him and his work - very good video.
I shoot Sony now, but I used Nikon before. At work I sometimes use the Canon 6D from my boss. Everybody raves about the colors of that camera, but all I saw was pretty average RAW files with maybe a bit more contrast than from Sony out of the camera, but with a lot less headroom (dynamic range) to play with. I prefer my A6500 and A7II for that reason.
When the light and White Balance is equal, the colors are pretty much equal too I noticed.
All those people complaining about 'color science' are also the reason I don't look at the comments below the sample galleries from DPreview anymore.
When there is a Canon or Leica sample gallery everybody looks to be in awe of the colors, but with a Sony gallery everybody seems to hate the colors. Even when there is no difference at all! Would be fun if they change the exif of a Sony file to Canon and see what happens... I bet you everyone will like it
Arcimboldo
Leading Member
TL;DR While I agree that "color science" is bullcrap, color separation IMHO is actually an important trait of a camera's sensor to let you achieve the colors you want.
Long version:
Well, although I'm not the least bit interested in JPEG and only use RAW, this video is certainly amusing and enlightening, and confirms my perception that "color science" is a totally overused buzzword meaning mostly nothing.
There is a statistical fallacy in it, however: Those 8% Tony is talking about several times, of poll participants picking the same pictures as favorites no matter whether labelled with numbers or (not necessarily correct) camera manufacturers, are not those who are able to pick the color they like best regardless of brand. At the very least you have to subtract those who actually picked in the number label case the image of their favorite brand, and secondly you also have to take into account that of those which are actually brand agnostic you still have to subtract the number of those which could have picked the same image just by accident. Anyway, this doesn't change the clear tendency of Tony's results that color science isn't, to paraphrase a famous quote by Richard Feynman. Actually quite to the contrary.
That being said, what I actually think is important is color separation, that is the ability of the sensor or Bayer CFA to yield different data for different colors, in particular similar colors like different shades of red, so that you can actually work with the RAW image to get the color response you want to see in that particular photograph. It has been said that medium format camera manufacturers - which were basically Hasselblad and Phase One not that long ago, but nowadays we also have Fujifilm, Leica, and maybe others - optimize their sensor CFAs to get better color separation at the cost of higher noise, them being for pros and all that, and that therefore medium format color is, or has the potential to be, better than 35 mm sensor color. Anyway, look at these measurements:
https://blog.kasson.com/gfx-50s/a7riii-z7-gfx-color-accuracy-with-adobe-neutral-profile/
I'd certainly guess that the camera with the most accurate color should be the one the RAW data of which you can best work with. Yes, this presumably is as much about the color accuracy of the Adobe profiles as about that of the different sensors' capabilities to separate color. But assuming that most probably those profiles are not guesswork on the parts of Adobe but have been computed from measurements of actual cameras by means of a spectrometer, these are statements about the color accuracy that is possible with these different cameras. Jim, correct me if you think this is me over-interpreting your results.
Long version:
Well, although I'm not the least bit interested in JPEG and only use RAW, this video is certainly amusing and enlightening, and confirms my perception that "color science" is a totally overused buzzword meaning mostly nothing.
There is a statistical fallacy in it, however: Those 8% Tony is talking about several times, of poll participants picking the same pictures as favorites no matter whether labelled with numbers or (not necessarily correct) camera manufacturers, are not those who are able to pick the color they like best regardless of brand. At the very least you have to subtract those who actually picked in the number label case the image of their favorite brand, and secondly you also have to take into account that of those which are actually brand agnostic you still have to subtract the number of those which could have picked the same image just by accident. Anyway, this doesn't change the clear tendency of Tony's results that color science isn't, to paraphrase a famous quote by Richard Feynman. Actually quite to the contrary.
That being said, what I actually think is important is color separation, that is the ability of the sensor or Bayer CFA to yield different data for different colors, in particular similar colors like different shades of red, so that you can actually work with the RAW image to get the color response you want to see in that particular photograph. It has been said that medium format camera manufacturers - which were basically Hasselblad and Phase One not that long ago, but nowadays we also have Fujifilm, Leica, and maybe others - optimize their sensor CFAs to get better color separation at the cost of higher noise, them being for pros and all that, and that therefore medium format color is, or has the potential to be, better than 35 mm sensor color. Anyway, look at these measurements:
https://blog.kasson.com/gfx-50s/a7riii-z7-gfx-color-accuracy-with-adobe-neutral-profile/
I'd certainly guess that the camera with the most accurate color should be the one the RAW data of which you can best work with. Yes, this presumably is as much about the color accuracy of the Adobe profiles as about that of the different sensors' capabilities to separate color. But assuming that most probably those profiles are not guesswork on the parts of Adobe but have been computed from measurements of actual cameras by means of a spectrometer, these are statements about the color accuracy that is possible with these different cameras. Jim, correct me if you think this is me over-interpreting your results.
Beaverhelmet
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I wouldn't dare to do it either. Canon fanboys conviction of the "Canon superior colour science" is on a religious level, and arguing with religious fanatics will never turn out pretty and definitely not worth the effort.
It for sure was an interesting video to watch and it goes to show that few are able to actually identify what are good colours as Tony explained in the video. Also amusing to see how many in a blind test voted Sony to have the best colours...
PWPhotography
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The Davinator
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The PDN test put the Fuji ahead of the a9 for quality color. So much for everyone hating Fuji.
Raziel Orlando
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From my experience m4/3 fanboys are the worst.Yup. People should stop talking about the 'color sience' bullsh*t. Especially if you shoot RAW it doesn't matter at all.
I liked that Canon ended last since those users are the worst
tbcass
Veteran Member
They can't handle the truth.
What I don't understand is how Tony interprets the large gap between the brands' color ratings in his poll to conclude that color science does not matter. If it didn't, all brands would score about the same.
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