[reh321]

But there is still a huge difference between jpegs Out of Cam and jpeg Settings out of the Box.
I would assume someone relying on this type of shooting and spending 3k €/$/£ on a camera and lens might have adapted the settings to his likes.

This article says that the K-1ii out-of-box produces accurate colors. With all the fussing about handling of detail, it is good to know that Pentax got colors right. One thing at a time.

[ThorSanchez]

My clients don't know or care if I shoot in RAW or JPEG. They just want the images to look good. I just want a quick turnaround time. I shoot JPEGs and do minimal editing.

My client is mostly me, and a little of family and friends. And I unambiguously get much, much better results shooting RAW and editing.

Recent trip I shot RAW+JPG. Uploaded some JPGs to my Google Photos site from the road to share. Got home and edited the RAWs and Google auto-uploaded the new ones next to the JPGs. For most of them you can tell which is which (with the RAWs being better) just from the small preview images.

So JPG only works for you, but I can't see a situation where it would work for me.

[reh321]

My client is mostly me, and a little of family and friends. And I unambiguously get much, much better results shooting RAW and editing.

Recent trip I shot RAW+JPG. Uploaded some JPGs to my Google Photos site from the road to share. Got home and edited the RAWs and Google auto-uploaded the new ones next to the JPGs. For most of them you can tell which is which (with the RAWs being better) just from the small preview images.

So JPG only works for you, but I can't see a situation where it would work for me.

That's not relevant to this article. Please don't turn this into yet another 'raw' vs JPEG argument. This article is about accuracy of colors when using SOOC JPEG when using default settings. Punct.

[ThorSanchez]

That's not relevant to this article. Please don't turn this into yet another 'raw' vs JPEG argument. This article is about accuracy of colors when using SOOC JPEG when using default settings. Punct.

Okay. If you're using SOOC JPGs change the settings until you think they're "correct". If you make your camera choice based on the factory defaults for a user-changeable setting that's kind of like picking your car based on where the factory puts the 33-way adjustable driver's seat.

[builttospill]

Okay. If you're using SOOC JPGs change the settings until you think they're "correct". If you make your camera choice based on the factory defaults for a user-changeable setting that's kind of like picking your car based on where the factory puts the 33-way adjustable driver's seat.

A JPEG is the camera's output. An adjustable seat isn't the output of a car.

While we certainly adjust settings to make the car or camera more comfortable to use (I switch the rear e-dial to adjust aperture and the front e-dial to adjust shutter speed), there are different settings which affect output. While I adjust many settings in my camera, I don't tune my car's engine for more optimal output. I maintain my car, and certainly baby my camera equipment. But I'm guessing several here make adjustments to their cars, from a simple tuning adjustment (changing JPEG settings) to adding intake, headers, and custom exhaust (buying L plates, fast memory cards, and lens focus calibration charts).

[reh321]

Okay. If you're using SOOC JPGs change the settings until you think they're "correct". If you make your camera choice based on the factory defaults for a user-changeable setting that's kind of like picking your car based on where the factory puts the 33-way adjustable driver's seat.

Hopefully the company picks the settings which provide the best rendering, the rendering by which they want to be judged. If not, that is their problem, because I don't have time to learn their system while evaluating it, just as the government doesn't tune a car engine before emissions / MPG testing.

[MMVIII]

And that is the big issue. Everybody has different likes, so how can you compare cameras not at their default (out of box) settings? You'd be comparing apples to oranges.
WB can be tuned by the user, with unpredictable results across the spectrum, so not exactly a good way to ascertain a camera's WB versus another.
And the same goes for the rest.


If it's not OOC/OOB, it's a tuning competition. From what's been said here, even RAW gives different results depending on which viewer is used!!!


P.S.:Not picking on you or your reply, it's just that it sums it all up in a small sentence.

Fair enough, but still:

If this is the essence of the test than it is even more useless than I would have taken it.

There is a target, that has been used by the testers as a refernce for accurate color reproduction. My terminus "like" was very inclusive, true, some might like completely off colors, some have other preferences. But here the target was to get accurate colors. Spending five minutes with a 4000 €/$ tool to adjust some settings for reaching a goal is putting all cameras in the same position. It is like comparing the outline of pears and just randomly throwing them on a table. Some might appear like oranges from this perspective, some like apples - to further stress your fruit analogy.

But, I'm, out now. It's a matter of taste, wheter to think an out of the box test of such complex equipment makes sense. For me it will not. YMMV, that's it.

[Mikesul]

I shoot RAW+ but most of the time the JPG is just fine with my settings. I still use RAW for the occasion when something needs more tweaking because of unusual shooting conditions or some mistake I made. I tried going jpg only a few years ago but it came back and bite me (That was the K-7). The argument for RAW-only so far has seemed to be that out of the box jpg is not reliable. But modern cameras have an abundance of settings which allow raw like control most of the time. Also jpgs are far more malleable in post than most seem to think. I see no reason not to have my cake and eat it too by using both! Speed of saving and storage has not been a problem for me.

[reh321]

I got into photography as a hobby through my other hobby, as a railfan, and I have largely adopted their ways. Back in the days of film, most photographs meant for railfans were slides; if you did a show, it was a slide show, and the organizers would ask for a promise to use original slides only, because nobody trusted the contents of a photo that had "been messed with". During Christmas Season 1966, I had an intense argument with a friend over a model of a "Burlington" locomotive in a hobby store window - he thought it looked "snazzy", and "Tyco wouldn't just make things up", but I had lived my preteen years along the Burlington, and I had never seen a locomotive like that. In later years, I came to understand that they had taken the silver color from the Burlington's passenger locomotives {which had understated markings} and the markings from the Burlington's freight locomotives {which were painted a drab gray color}. In the following months, the Purdue RR Club had a slide presentation by Jim Boyd, a well-known photographer of railroads at the time; over the next few months, I realized that much of my world worked well with the slogan "I will photograph today before tomorrow comes and everything changes" - and thus the standards I have followed for the past fifty years - first using Kodachrome and then JPEG, allowing only the types of changes made by sports and news photographers for Getty and/or Reuters {which is why getting things as close to 'right' SOOC is so important to me}.

[loyalt]

Hey All:

This from PDN, a review of the cameras that gave the best color reproductions, Pentax K1- Mk2 was #6 overall, and of the FF camera, about 4th! Winners were Sony (3 top awards) Fuji (ever see one in the wild?) Leica P&S and one Panasonic (another rare sighting in the wild), one Nikon and one Canon!


Here is the link!
The Best Cameras for Color Reproduction, Ranked

PS- To do a side-by-side comparison, I copied each gamut image and pasted it next to the K1 gamut image, so I had a quick reference.

Regards,

Thank you for the information!

[Mikesul]

I would suggest that people stop looking to reviews or magazine/blog articles for reliable information. The best source of insight is careful reading and discussion with a broad range of informed users - just what you get here on PF.

By the way, what on earth could be meant by "Best Color"? Sort of like statements that a camera produces "pleasing color". No doubt subjectively true but a completely useless basis for a decision.

No more arguments about opinion pieces, please

[reh321]

By the way, what on earth could be meant by "Best Color"? Sort of like statements that a camera produces "pleasing color". No doubt subjectively true but a completely useless basis for a decision.

In this case "best color" means "most accurate color" - they used each camera to photographed a reference chart and then measured and charted deviations.

[leekil]

Camera processing is only the part of colour reproduction. If camera sensor has bad metamerism (especially as bad as Canon cameras typically have) it will be visible on photos in one way or another.

How does the metamerism show up on Canon?

[Cerebum]

Actually, it is #10 as there are several tied at #2. Even still, given how many cameras there are available this is still good advertising, especially as we know it kicks ass in many other features

---------- Post added 08-02-18 at 12:47 AM ----------

I would suggest that people stop looking to reviews or magazine/blog articles for reliable information. The best source of insight is careful reading and discussion with a broad range of informed users - just what you get here on PF.

By the way, what on earth could be meant by "Best Color"? Sort of like statements that a camera produces "pleasing color". No doubt subjectively true but a completely useless basis for a decision.

No more arguments about opinion pieces, please

Completely agree technically best does not always equate to most pleasing, in fact, in many cases it is the minor imperfections that create the finest art. I always place most weight on the opinions of those I respect most, PF members who actually live with the kit. This kind of comparison is always interesting though and certainly generates debate

[Mikesul]

In this case "best color" means "most accurate color" - they used each camera to photographed a reference chart and then measured and charted deviations.

I know what they meant to say but using a subjective term like best just plays into the boy's car talk phenomenon which plagues photography discussions.