I can't seem to get consistent results on reds from my K5...sometimes I think I have it figured out with various settings and then it goes all wrong anyhow. I spent an hour on PBase looking at male Cardinals and trying to determine if this was camera specific or just the K5? Although I did find some nicely done reds on Cardinals, the vast majority were blown out in areas or just plain wrong in hue. I couldn't see where any camera was better than any other camera....I thought some of the best were from the K20D and K7...and I do recall that I thought my K20D was pretty decent with reds.
Anyone else have any comments on this, any problems beyond "normal"? Even when I open a Raw Cardinal it is almost impossible to correct the tint, and blown reds are almost always present...sometimes a lot , sometimes a little, but always present.
Here are three I shot this evening (I have dozens of Cardinals in my yard, so I shoot them often) None of them are really accurate in color, although I worked hard to try and get them right. Another problem is that Cardinals are all differerent shades of red...making it even harder to adjust settings for accuracy.
Females are somewhat easier...less red.
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This was a flaming red...blown reds galore!
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This is the most natural of the three...he was several different shades of red, and I desaturated considerably to tone down the brightest shades.
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I have also observed that the brighter they are the more the reds are likely to "smear and just become red globs, even if you slightly underexpose. Like I stated, I couldn't find any other camera that was consistently better.....is ther something about reds and digital that just don't mix well?
Regards!