[Rikkir246]

Pentax K5IIs. Using sRGB and AWB. Manual F and AF. Have used Bright, Portrait, Natural and Vibrant. Yellows are washed out. Small sunflower in picture has lost golden tone. Reds are too strong with blue undertone and oranges appear red. The zinnia should show pure orange. Vibrant and saturation settings did not achieve true color.

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[SSGGeezer]

Near noon and in hard sunlight is tough. I just plucked a brown eyed Susan to hold up next to my screen and yours is a bit lacking in shading and deeper yellow tones.
Color balance as set in the camera? AWB. I would just set it at daylight and adjust your RAW images in post production as needed.
The Zinnia is strange but I do see oranges trend towards the Reds at times. What do you use to process your Raw images?
Also, what lens and what kind of shape is it in? Any haze or other imperfections? If you want bold saturated colors, A DFA or an older * lens work best for me.

[c.a.m]

Hi @Rikkir246,

Welcome to Pentax Forums!

I can understand your frustration when trying to take accurate pictures of flowers. I've encountered similar issues on occasion.

The issue of capturing authentic colours has been discussed here in Pentax Forums in numerous threads. For example, see this topic concerning Reds: What is it about red? - PentaxForums.com.

I think that reds and yellows are the most challenging colours.

I've had some success by following a few tips:

• Underexpose when shooting in harsh lighting. I think some parts of your flowers have been 'blown out' or nearly so.
• Shoot in diffused lighting (e.g., light overcast; shade; use a portable light shade/diffuser)
• De-saturate the reds in post processing.
• Shoot RAW format for maximum flexibility in post processing.
• Use a white balance reference card and adjust in post processing.

Hope this helps.

- Craig

[AstroDave]

Reds are too strong with blue undertone and oranges appear red

No surprise! The red in most of the Zinnia petals is completely blown out (at least as interpreted by Photoshop Elements when I downloaded your image). Check the color histogram. If you just look at the "luminosity" histogram in PSE, the histogram doesn't look too bad, but that's the combination of R,G, and B. I don't remember as far back as my K-5 (never had a IIs), but if you can, set the camera to display the color histogram on playback.

Bingo: Look at page 30 in the manual: press the INFO button during playback to select color histogram display.

I'd drop your exposure by at least one, and maybe two stops. And as noted by SSGGeezer, go with Daylight WB (or appropriate for the lighting).

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Last edited by AstroDave; 08-15-2020 at 03:11 PM.

[mikesbike]

In the first example, for sure the contrast is set a bit too high, which will also affect color.

Color precision of outdoor shots as opposed to a controlled lighting setup of indoor studios, is tricky because the sun's angle in the sky is constantly changing and causes constant color shifting.

If shooting RAW, the post processing of the RAW file can be a big factor.

If shooting JPEGs, if using the "Bright" category, contrast and sharpening are somewhat elevated by default, as well as color intensity. Not so using the "Natural" setting. Each has a somewhat different color palette. But if still not satisfied, you can go within the menu of the category and change the parameters of each aspect. This camera can take the slightly elevated sharpening without negative effects from what I can see, but also I've found one should implement "Fine Sharpening" by using the thumb dial, which has been shown with some camera models to negate the negative effects, and also does result in better fine detail. This may include better control of severe contrast, blown out highlights, etc. just an impression, not verified.

[johnyates]

To prevent over exposure and blown out channels when shooting flowers, try using spot metering .

Daylight white balance would help too.

[Paul the Sunman]

MODERATOR: this thread should be combined with the one of the same name from yesterday.

[stevebrot]

Welcome to the Pentax Forums!

Both photos are about one stop overexposed. Mild underexposure generally results in more obvious saturation.

As for "true" color...Good luck with that one if shooting JPEG with auto white balance. The camera will do its best, but the aesthetics will be those of Ricoh/Pentax marketing, even with best efforts using in-camera adjustments.* The path to "truth" lies with starting with proper exposure, working with RAW, having some notion of the spectral balance of the light hitting the subject (so-called white balance) and maybe even resorting to session-specific color profiles.

-- OR --

One might simply shoot RAW and wing it with the color and curve tweaks in post-processing, sort of creative-like.


Steve

* The same is true, regardless of brand; each has its signature JPEG "look".

[stihlmania]

Pentax K5IIs. Using sRGB and AWB. Manual F and AF. Have used Bright, Portrait, Natural and Vibrant. Yellows are washed out. Small sunflower in picture has lost golden tone. Reds are too strong with blue undertone and oranges appear red. The zinnia should show pure orange. Vibrant and saturation settings did not achieve true color.

What everyone else has already posted!

[Kozlok]

I spent just few seconds in lightroom adjusting the luminance and hue sliders, and using Auto exposure, and a few other tweaks to try to get what you described.

59B63CA4-6E29-4CBB-8BEF-CF1595A86465.jpg

1B907207-8F25-4658-A486-E28E9A31F8DE.jpg

[Bruce Clark]

I endorse previous comments. Having both a K-7 and K-5 IIs I can state I find the reds in the latter camera to be trickier to get right. The K-5 IIs is superior in many aspects but I find the reds to be troublesome.

On the positive side, I feel that having identified limitations with jpeg shooting, you are ready to begin shooting in RAW. The processing power of which will open a a whole new vista of opportunity.

[dms]

As mentioned already, daylight WB would help. AWB is not likely to be very accurate. A pure white or grey surface (e.g., a 18% grey card) could be used to set the WB, or simply take a photo of the white or grey card and then later use it to adjust the WB (although it would be better probably if RAW was used).

As regards the exposure, if it was a sunny day a reflected light reading is very tough to do, while the sunny f/16 rule is more accurate and simplicity itself. Or use the 18% grey card ** to get the exposure, or use an incident light meter, or use the reflected light meter but take a reading of the blue sky far away from sun and horizon.

Bottom line if you want it to be spot on, then you need to educate yourself about exposure--you cannot expect the camera to know what it should be, unless it was taking a picture of the grey card.

BTW looking at the exif data the exposure is about 1-2/3 stops more than required (better to say optimum) for in full sun!
_____
** It actually is a bit less straightforward to use a grey card for exposure, if you want to be very precise. Thus I would suggest it is not the best way, as likely it should be 10 to 12% grey, or angled away from the taking lens/meter for the reading, or adjust the reading 1/2 e.v.

[Sykil]

Highly chromatic colors in nature that tend toward long-wavelength hues usually have an extremely sharp fall-off in reflectance before they hit green wavelengths of light - like, to complete absorbance. This is most noticeable for red and orange. This can cause oversaturation, compression, and lack of detail in bright red-leaning hues because 75% of the photodiodes responsible for imaging that subject are receiving little to no information. If your subject reflects at least a little bit of light that the green subpixels will register, the camera handles it a lot better, but deep red flowers often don't.

To illustrate, here's a picture of a rose from my back yard on Ilford HP5 Plus film - a black and white orthochromatic film. Orthochromatic film doesn't register the entire visible spectrum - red in particular. The spectral sensitivity of this film takes a nosedive in orange and falls to 0 somewhere around 650nm, about where red starts. You can see my rose is very dark because most of the light is exactly in that range that the film doesn't register.

As others have mentioned, underexposure helps a lot in scenarios like this by allowing the red channel to see some variance in response rather than maxing out at every photodiode. That's really helpful for preserving detail in an area of your image where resolution may be dropping to 25%. Also, pixel shift is actually super helpful for this sort of thing, which you can mimic with image stacking.

[Rikkir246]

Many, many thanks for the knowledgeable and extensive comments. I want to digest the information here, shoot accordingly, and get back. The help is so appreciated. I've been struggling with these issues for a long while. I live off-the-grid without internet. Just have a cell signal for iPad and a MacBook. Does anyone know of a stand-alone RAW processor that would work well.

Sorry that I started a second thread.

Rich

[SpecialK]

Many, many thanks for the knowledgeable and extensive comments. I want to digest the information here, shoot accordingly, and get back. The help is so appreciated. I've been struggling with these issues for a long while. I live off-the-grid without internet. Just have a cell signal for iPad and a MacBook. Does anyone know of a stand-alone RAW processor that would work well.

Sorry that I started a second thread.

Rich

It has all been posted here. You'll have to slog through it :-)

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/32-digital-processing-software-printing/

I moved from the Pentax software to PS Elements v6 years ago, now at v15 and holding.