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11-11-2012, 12:26 PM   #1
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Pentax 645D colours and the Sigma Merrill

Thought I would share this observation from the weekend: Pentax 645D vs Sigma Merrill colours

11-11-2012, 03:21 PM   #2
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This is what I would expect. Take two RAW files from two different cameras and put them through two different RAW converters and I would expect wildly disparate results. This sort of thing even happens when you take a single RAW file and put it through two different converters.

So the big question in my mind remains...What color were the animals to your eye? Yellow, orange, or red?


Steve
11-12-2012, 03:05 AM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by stevebrot Quote
So the big question in my mind remains...What color were the animals to your eye? Yellow, orange, or red?
Doesn't even that depend on the person? Especially when it comes to reds, people don't all see the same.
The interesting questions this raises is.. can I take the first photo and edit it to look like the second, is that still "true to nature" or is that "deception"? (to me it looks like the two versions of that landscape shot evoke very different moods)
And that raises the next question - how much can one edit colours and tones? How can anyone put down a line and say "that is still natural, but the other is a lie"? Because they are all just representations, none are the real correct measurements. In my opinion, this is the biggest argument against "purists" who think that photos are just documentation of reality.
11-12-2012, 08:06 AM - 1 Like   #4
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QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
Doesn't even that depend on the person? Especially when it comes to reds, people don't all see the same.
The interesting questions this raises is.. can I take the first photo and edit it to look like the second, is that still "true to nature" or is that "deception"? (to me it looks like the two versions of that landscape shot evoke very different moods)
And that raises the next question - how much can one edit colours and tones? How can anyone put down a line and say "that is still natural, but the other is a lie"? Because they are all just representations, none are the real correct measurements. In my opinion, this is the biggest argument against "purists" who think that photos are just documentation of reality.
I think "Purists" are full of crap and do a lot of mislead the general, uneducated public when it comes to photography. I do art festivals for a living, so I see it on a daily basis as I interact with the public. They have the misconception that film shooters are somehow presenting the world exactly as it was and that digital shooters are presenting a manipulation of that reality, since they use post processing. What they don't understand is that the film choice itself has a huge impact on how the image looks, and that 99.99% of color film shooters are using post processing as well!

I always try to educate people that photography is a series of choices and regardless of what medium(s) you use, all good photographers are manipulating the image to a certain degree, regardless of what they tell you. I also say that anyone who claims that they "don't touch their images" is either ignorant to the process and allowing a stupid machine or lab technician to make choices for them, or a flat out liar! Harsh perhaps, but a fair shake I think given the great deal of misleading that has taken place over the decades!

Don't get me wrong, I still think people can be "purists" in that their goal is to get an image true to reality, it's just that people don't understand that 100% of the time it takes at least some "manipulation" of what the camera captured (or choice of film, or digital settings, etc) to get things closer to "reality."

11-12-2012, 02:29 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by Ryan Tischer Quote
I think "Purists" are full of crap and do a lot of mislead the general, uneducated public when it comes to photography. I do art festivals for a living, so I see it on a daily basis as I interact with the public. They have the misconception that film shooters are somehow presenting the world exactly as it was and that digital shooters are presenting a manipulation of that reality, since they use post processing. What they don't understand is that the film choice itself has a huge impact on how the image looks, and that 99.99% of color film shooters are using post processing as well!

I always try to educate people that photography is a series of choices and regardless of what medium(s) you use, all good photographers are manipulating the image to a certain degree, regardless of what they tell you. I also say that anyone who claims that they "don't touch their images" is either ignorant to the process and allowing a stupid machine or lab technician to make choices for them, or a flat out liar! Harsh perhaps, but a fair shake I think given the great deal of misleading that has taken place over the decades!

Don't get me wrong, I still think people can be "purists" in that their goal is to get an image true to reality, it's just that people don't understand that 100% of the time it takes at least some "manipulation" of what the camera captured (or choice of film, or digital settings, etc) to get things closer to "reality."
I could not agree more with your summary. The question about manipulation comes up all the time whenever I show prints to non photographer friends. There is this notion that color has to be accurate and represent exactly what was there. The fact of the matter is that our emotional response to color is so contextual that doing a technically close approximation of what was there is usually boring and "soulless". I think it's more important to retain what the scene felt like than what it actually was. Often times this requires bringing back details or color tones that were lost in translation by the image capture/conversion process.

My comparison between the two cameras was simply to show how the two systems draw color differently and how getting one to look like the other is pretty tough using white balancing alone. Both devices are essentially like different pencils, so is each lens I put on the 645D.

On a general note, it's easy to forget that the scope of the photographic hobby for many is not around actual photography. It is about gear collecting and testing, brand obsession, or simply trying to quantify characteristics of an image using numbers, graphs and theories. I don't see anything wrong with that side of the hobby despite not really being captivated by a graph that explains to me why one sensor is better than the next or why I should really sell everything I bought so far and get a D800. I prefer to be out there, seeing and touching the world, and using whatever tool happens to fit in with my creative mood that day.
11-12-2012, 02:46 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by larkis Quote
The question about manipulation comes up all the time whenever I show prints to non photographer friends. There is this notion that color has to be accurate and represent exactly what was there. The fact of the matter is that our emotional response to color is so contextual that doing a technically close approximation of what was there is usually boring and "soulless". I think it's more important to retain what the scene felt like than what it actually was. Often times this requires bringing back details or color tones that were lost in translation by the image capture/conversion process.
amen.
11-12-2012, 03:04 PM   #7
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QuoteQuote:
Don't get me wrong, I still think people can be "purists" in that their goal is to get an image true to reality, it's just that people don't understand that 100% of the time it takes at least some "manipulation" of what the camera captured (or choice of film, or digital settings, etc) to get things closer to "reality."
People don't understand how much work I have to do to get it "exactly like it was." And then there is the issue of the real world having contrast values as high a 20,000 to one and my print at max being 120:1. You just can't put it like it was on a piece of paper. Then you have the other thing happen, I take a picture of backlit leaves with the light shining through them and people tell me my image is over saturated. Well no, in terms of what I was looking at, it's probably a little undersaturated. But whatever you want to believe.

When I look at a leaf that has, water drops on it, the water drops stand out, because I've probably seen that leaf without the water drop a hundred times before. So when I post process, I make the water drops stand out for the viewer just like it did when I looked at it. Photography captures what is going on inside your head as much as it captures what it outside your head. If you make those water drops pop off the page in PP, that reflects your psychological state at the time, the way you saw them. Reality is always filtered through your psychological state at the time. Nobody knows how it is, we don't see the full spectrum of light, everyone sees things slightly differently. And people see things through different psychological filters. There is no reality that is separate from ourselves. There is no point at which we can stand outside of reality to view it objectively and see "exactly how it is".. And you can be damn sure there's no photograph that's going to do that.

And then there are the "art" shots. Sometimes I take a shot because of what I can do with it. It has nothing to do with reality, it has to do with patterns on a page. I'm shooting with a plan, to oversaturate, bump the contrast out of sight on and make it look like a painter splashed a bunch of paint on a canvas. And because I understand the photographic process, I actually take the picture to do that to... it's art....I have absolutely no intention of capturing what's there as some part of reality.

When people go by at our booth and see out photos, we here over and over.. "they look like paintings." Most don't even care that they are photos. It's the image standing on it's own as what it is, what it came from is irrelevant. Unless of course you are on a photography forum. Then people have "ideas" about what you should and shouldn't do.




Last edited by normhead; 11-12-2012 at 03:14 PM.
11-12-2012, 08:59 PM   #8
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So...what color were the animals?


Steve
11-13-2012, 10:45 AM   #9
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