R1 color rendition

[B Gavin]

I'll be photographing some artwork later this week and so set up my version of a copy stand and thought I'd post the R1's rendition of a MacBeth ColorChecker just for interest. This is JPG right out of the camera and was only resized to 800 x 600 pixels for upload.

Shot with four Metz 40 MZ flashes at 45 degrees and with polarizing strips accross the reflectors. A B+W polarizer was on the Sony R1 which was rail mounted on Manfrotto 3D head over the target. WB was done using a Studio WhiBal card as a target, but I wasn't happy with the initial rendition of the MacBeth card and added some MIRED adjustment in-camera.



On my screen I can see a slight differences in the rendition of the primary red, blue, green and yellow but the other colors are extremely close. Can't adjust the primaries without affecting the others so this might be as good as it gets - and its actually pretty acceptable IMO.

Comments and / or suggestions welcome!

BG

--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[OTD]

it isn't on my monitor and the area I am not entering text in is white. Compared to this yours is a pale, pale beige. I don't know where I as far as color goes on this monitor.
--
Marion



http://www.pbase.com/stf

 

[B Gavin]

it isn't on my monitor and the area I am not entering text in is white. Compared to this yours is a pale, pale beige. I don't know where I as far as color goes on this monitor.
--
Marion



http://www.pbase.com/stf

You're absolutely correct Marion -a slight under exposure issue. If I do a white point it will adjust the brightness and I end up with this:



The problem is - some of the other colors look closer to the reference when underexposed. This really looks like a situation where I can't have it all!!

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[busch]

This one looks a lot better to me but take that with a grain or two of salt!

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

 

[OTD]

I need to get one of those color checker thinger jobbers. Perhaps someday after I find a desperate woman. Then again if she is that desperate -----
--
Marion



http://www.pbase.com/stf

 

[B Gavin]

This one looks a lot better to me but take that with a grain or two of salt!

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

Hi Busch - thanks for the comment. Now for the questions!! Looks better compared to ..... what exactly? Do you happen to have one of those little MacBeth goodies at your end?

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[busch]

BG, I only have the download version of it.

I look at your white and black and they simply aren't right on my set up. Of course, it could be my set up for sure. As I recall, the MacBeth white is 241,241,241 and the black is 37,37,37 and yours are off. Also, it looks like the levels are off. Now all of this is just my take on it since you asked. I certainly am NOT a color matching expert.

The bottom line is how the images will be used and if the colors match for that purpose.

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

 

[B Gavin]

BG, I only have the download version of it.

I look at your white and black and they simply aren't right on my set up. Of course, it could be my set up for sure. As I recall, the MacBeth white is 241,241,241 and the black is 37,37,37 and yours are off. Also, it looks like the levels are off. Now all of this is just my take on it since you asked. I certainly am NOT a color matching expert.

The bottom line is how the images will be used and if the colors match for that purpose.

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

Well I do appreciate your take on things Busch. I'll have another look at the levels, initially I was just interested in how the camera and JPG engine rendered the overall colors without additional post processing. My initial impressions were that it did a pretty fair job compared to some of the references I'd seen posted on the web. This one that you can link to half-way down the page at 'Evaluation Charts' here for instance. http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm

If you have any suggestions on how to make this more accurate - I'd be very interested. I'll be batch processing about 50 water colors later in the week and the goal is to be as close as possible to the original right out of the camera. And of course - any adjustments made in pp would be much easier if they were accross the board.

Conversion to CMYK for printing will be a completely seperate issue.

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[Ron Poelman]

this white/beige vs colour thing might be a matter of overall monitor brightness.
Some of the newer ones have phenomenal output,
and can really fool you on colours.
Mine (Dell 2709) is tuned down to 30 !

Why not try setting up using a Black/White tool first
and then try the colours last to get to sRGB heaven ?

Have you got these ?
http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?ColorDifferenceCalc.html

p.s. It's only a machine,
if monitors were as good as R1s then we would all be happier !

 

[B Gavin]

this white/beige vs colour thing might be a matter of overall monitor brightness.
Some of the newer ones have phenomenal output,
and can really fool you on colours.
Mine (Dell 2709) is tuned down to 30 !

Why not try setting up using a Black/White tool first
and then try the colours last to get to sRGB heaven ?

Have you got these ?
http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?ColorDifferenceCalc.html

p.s. It's only a machine,
if monitors were as good as R1s then we would all be happier !

Hi Ron! Thanks very much for that link - lots of info there! I'll have a crack at trying some B&W targets - I'd think a grey-scale would be the best bet. I did use one of these to set up my monitor ( http://www.colour-science.com/quality%20test%20tools/test%20files/test%20files%20overview.htm )but suspect there are a lot of issues trying to evaluate this kind of thing over the Internet - different web browsers and even the site I'm hosting that image on will probably result in something a little different that what I'm looking at in-house.

The real objective will be delivering images that reflect the actual artwork as closely as possible when viewed on-screen. I suspect that conversion to CMYK and printing will be a completely different exercise and one I won't be involved in.

I'll let you know how things go. I'll be cooking this up in my kitchen with some black-out curtains and black velvet on the floor over the weekend - probably an abuse of the kitchen but for now the only space I have free. Next month I hope to be better organized - I just moved in last month and it actually surprised me that I could even find all this stuff.



BG

--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[arra]

If you have any suggestions on how to make this more accurate - I'd be very interested. I'll be batch processing about 50 water colors later in the week and the goal is to be as close as possible to the original right out of the camera. And of course - any adjustments made in pp would be much easier if they were accross the board.

Conversion to CMYK for printing will be a completely seperate issue.

BG
--

From Imaging-Resource review of R1:

"The plot above started out as a mistake, I loaded the Adobe RGB test image, but forgot to tell Imatest that it should interpret the data based on that color space, rather than the usual sRGB. Amazingly, using the DSC-R1's Adobe RGB color space setting produced the most accurate color I've found from any digital camera to date "



Whole page:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/R1/R1IMATEST.HTM

--
http://www.pbase.com/arra

 

[Ron Poelman]

greywise, this seemed to be the most comprehensive.
http://www.atrise.com/lutcurve/download.php
maybe give the demo a fling.

I just use Quick Gamma most of the time,
Calibrize is quick but "ignores" Gamma as such.

I think with all of them you reach a "near enough" point fairly quickly.
None are perfect (neither are hardware ones just quietly),
you have to print to check.
I use a little postcard printer, handy.
I agree with the others white wise,
which is why I suggested starting with brightness.
Looks like you'll be fiddling lights a bit for watercolours too, eh ?

That said; Mate, it's going to be hell knocking up a quick Chateaubriand in there,
what are you living off ?

 

[marcel smit]

I'll be photographing some artwork later this week and so set up my version of a copy stand and thought I'd post the R1's rendition of a MacBeth ColorChecker just for interest. This is JPG right out of the camera and was only resized to 800 x 600 pixels for upload.

Shot with four Metz 40 MZ flashes at 45 degrees and with polarizing strips accross the reflectors. A B+W polarizer was on the Sony R1 which was rail mounted on Manfrotto 3D head over the target. WB was done using a Studio WhiBal card as a target, but I wasn't happy with the initial rendition of the MacBeth card and added some MIRED adjustment in-camera.

May i asy how you actually set the WB during that shoot?

Because i can,t recall that you actually can manually set WB during flashing with the R1.

I always shoot a reference picture with the Whibal card, and than correct later during PP in Raw with the white balance tool

--
Best regards,

Marcel Smit

The photographer formally known as MRS

My other threads: http://www.dpreview.com/members/?User=hhivifiuhxii

 

[B Gavin]

I'll be photographing some artwork later this week and so set up my version of a copy stand and thought I'd post the R1's rendition of a MacBeth ColorChecker just for interest. This is JPG right out of the camera and was only resized to 800 x 600 pixels for upload.

Shot with four Metz 40 MZ flashes at 45 degrees and with polarizing strips accross the reflectors. A B+W polarizer was on the Sony R1 which was rail mounted on Manfrotto 3D head over the target. WB was done using a Studio WhiBal card as a target, but I wasn't happy with the initial rendition of the MacBeth card and added some MIRED adjustment in-camera.

May i asy how you actually set the WB during that shoot?

Because i can,t recall that you actually can manually set WB during flashing with the R1.

I always shoot a reference picture with the Whibal card, and than correct later during PP in Raw with the white balance tool

--
Best regards,

Marcel Smit

The photographer formally known as MRS

My other threads: http://www.dpreview.com/members/?User=hhivifiuhxii

Hi Marcel - setting a custom WB point with flash is no different than without flash. You select 'custom WB' and when you press that centre button, the shutter is tripped, the flashes are tripped and the WB is set based on the light that enters the lens.

In this case the flashes were all set at 1/4 power the aperture set at 10 and the shutter speed at 1/500 sec so no ambient light could possibly be an issue. Adding the polarizing film and filter did shift the color and I did reset the WB afterwards as well. Same procedure.

BG

--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[B Gavin]

LOL Barely room to perk coffee Ron! Think I mentioned being out of the country for a few years and I'm just putting things back together again. Had money in the bank when I left and its pretty low at this point. The last studio was a little better set up - give me a month or two and I'll have this place more respectable.



There are a couple other rooms here but there's FULL and need sorting out!

At this point I'm a little more concerned about the little lady. She's still in Colombia and needs regular check-ups for her diabetes so thats where any money is going.

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[B Gavin]

Cool! Thanks for that confirmation!

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!

 

[B Gavin]

And in the long run - it really didn't matter. I was told that they were watercolors - well water media would have been a lot more accurate. Watercolors are transparent. These were a combination of transparent, opaque and some opague metallic water mediums.

It took a lot of pp work using several differnt copies on different layers to get anything closely approximating the originals. The best laid plans of mice and men ..... I had been hoping for a pretty fair rendition right out of the camera.

BG
--
A squirrel in the hand is much harder to shoot than two in the bush!!