Help! Olympus E-PM2 skin tones versus Nikon D7000

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below. Some reviewers seem to find the warmer/redder Olympus tones more lively, but it must be a matter of preference, as I find them a bit unflattering (giving some subjects a gritty/angry look... probably great for street photography, not so much for family photos). I'm able to correct the tones on the computer but does anybody know some quick settings to have them come out the same as the D7000 straight out of camera? The D7K tones are more natural, when compared to the subject next to the computer monitor.

Here's one representative sample comparison. Trust me, I did several, but I'm not going to post them all:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atramos/8247423184/in/photostream/lightbox/

I don't know whether it was the light or what, but the baby looks jaundiced in the Nikon photo.

PStu wrote:

I don't know whether it was the light or what, but the baby looks jaundiced in the Nikon photo.

Yeah I know, but I think that's more of a perception thing, due to the lack of context in the crop.

There was daylight coming in thru translucent blinds from top-left of frame. The blinds are off-white, not exactly photo-quality diffusers, I don't know if that makes a difference here.

And I think I sort of figured out the difference. If I take color saturation down two notches on the E-PM2, I get the same result on the skin tones. But then everything else in the frame gets desaturated too. It's almost like Nikon desaturates just the skin, somehow. BTW, I used the "Portait" picture control in both cameras for this test.

Alex Notpro wrote:

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below. Some reviewers seem to find the warmer/redder Olympus tones more lively, but it must be a matter of preference, as I find them a bit unflattering (giving some subjects a gritty/angry look... probably great for street photography, not so much for family photos). I'm able to correct the tones on the computer but does anybody know some quick settings to have them come out the same as the D7000 straight out of camera? The D7K tones are more natural, when compared to the subject next to the computer monitor.

Here's one representative sample comparison. Trust me, I did several, but I'm not going to post them all:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atramos/8247423184/in/photostream/lightbox/

There's a setting for keep warm white balance on many Oly cameras.  If you turn it off, then the red tones down a lot and it looks much much better!

I just googled and it looks like the E-PM2 has the same setting.  Turn it off and try again!

Use muted on the Oly.

The Olympus colors are much more natural than the Nikon's.  The Nikon's is very greenish and kind of zombie like.  I would check your monitor calibration.  Is your monitor calibrated?

Alex Notpro wrote:

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atramos/8247423184/in/photostream/lightbox/

Like Kevdog suggested, try the "Warm color off" setting on your PM2. It is found in Custom Menu (the cog wheel) section G (Color/WB) -> WBAuto Keep Warm Color-> Off. This option does not work in iAuto, so you need to be in one of the PASM modes.

Vlad

Vlad S wrote:

Alex Notpro wrote:

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atramos/8247423184/in/photostream/lightbox/

Like Kevdog suggested, try the "Warm color off" setting on your PM2. It is found in Custom Menu (the cog wheel) section G (Color/WB) -> WBAuto Keep Warm Color-> Off. This option does not work in iAuto, so you need to be in one of the PASM modes.

Vlad

Try this if you haven't. It makes all the difference.

Alex Notpro wrote:

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below. Some reviewers seem to find the warmer/redder Olympus tones more lively, but it must be a matter of preference, as I find them a bit unflattering (giving some subjects a gritty/angry look... probably great for street photography, not so much for family photos). I'm able to correct the tones on the computer but does anybody know some quick settings to have them come out the same as the D7000 straight out of camera? The D7K tones are more natural, when compared to the subject next to the computer monitor.

Here's one representative sample comparison. Trust me, I did several, but I'm not going to post them all:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atramos/8247423184/in/photostream/lightbox/

IMHO, it is not the colours on the left that need tweaking.

A friend of mine started shooting sport pics with E1+50-200 then moved to E3 but never really worked out the AF C issues, so got D300 first and added D7000, wich do very good for him. After 3 years shooting with the Nikons (he kept one E1 and the E3) he decided to give a try again to the E1 for some group shots. Man, he was nearly in tears when he saw the difference in the skin colors. Believe me, he'll never do group shots again with Nikon.

Alex

I had the "keep warm colors = off" setting on the E-PM2 for this test. It was one of the first things I changed on the camera, like, after 2 test shots

But now I found this interesting article:

http://www.h2hreviews.com/article/Mini-Head-2-Head-Review-Olympus-E-P1-vs-Canon-Rebel-T1i-vs-Nikon-D5000/Portrait-Session-Skin-Tones1.html

It essentially confirms my observation except for the subjective part of which one is "better" - they claim the Nikon is more accurate but "not as nice". They sort of agree with most of you who responded. Oh well. Thanks for the feedback...

Thankfully I always shot "RAW+JPEG" and make a permanent archive of all RAWs, so I could go back and re-process should my tastes change in the future

Well, the Nikon shot isn't very nice at all, on my monitor it has a greenish cast.  On the other hand the Oly shot is a bit too pink,  not unusual for Oly cameras and that's the reason I always have the reds dialed down a bit on all my Oly 4/3 & u4/3 cams (easy to do using the SCP),  generally -1 but often -2 when shooting flowers etc.

Rgds, Rob

Alex Notpro wrote:

The skin tones on the E-PM2 come out very different from the Nikon D7000 by default. See comparison below. Some reviewers seem to find the warmer/redder Olympus tones more lively, but it must be a matter of preference, as I find them a bit unflattering (giving some subjects a gritty/angry look... probably great for street photography, not so much for family photos).

IMHO, the Nikon is HORRIBLE...zombie looking.  The Olympus might pop more than you are used to but it looks much nicer.