Lenses with "good" colors

[airfang]

I have always been wondering, when people say the color you get from a specific lens is good, which color do they actually refer to?


- color you get from the camera settings (white balance, picture-style)


- or if you shoot RAW, the optimal color set you obtained from adjusting WB and picture style in DPP? (this should be the same as adjusting them in the camera, right?)


- or the color you obtained after applying photoshop techniques? (this is unlikely to be what they are referring to, right?)


- or the color is relative: using the same settings but different lenses to tell the difference

[MVers]

When someone speaks about 'good color' they are referring to the lenses ability to render colors accurately straight out of the camera (no PP) as they are seen by the naked eye. For instance you will often hear things about some Sigma lenses having a yellow cast--that is not good when it comes to color rendition.

[Keith B]

"- or the color is relative: using the same settings but different lenses to tell the difference"





I can shoot with my Canon 50 1.4 at f/4 then set my 24-105 4.0L to 50mm and f/4 and the colors out of the 24-105 will be more lush and vivid.


I can pretty much end up with similar colors making corrections in Aperture, but it is always better to start out with best, most accurate, true-to- life image.

[airfang]

Thanks for explaining!


But I am still wondering what does it mean by "straight out of the camera" in terms of WB and picture style settings.

[Keith B]

Basically you want to nail everything in the camera like exposure and WB. In the case of jpeg shots and picture styling, sharpening and saturation too. If you leave dialing in you images to post production the image will lose detail and gain noise among other things.


Oh and time, it will save you time.

[airfang]

But as digital files, is there any difference between setting WB & PS in camera and in DPP? I only shoot in RAW now btw.

[Keith B]

I'm sure you will find different opinions on this too, but I think it is pretty important to get the white balance pretty close in the camera.


I've had images images I shot AWB under Tungsten lights and AWB did a poor job and as I corrected the WB in RAW I lost detail in edges where white met dark colors. I didn't have a shot under the same conditions correctly white balanced to compare, but I got to think I'd have been off with with a proper WB.

[airfang]

good idea, next time I will take similar shots but with different in-camera settings and see the difference with the ones adjusted in DPP...


but come to think of it, it is a digital file per se, what would be the difference of processing it in camera vs. processing it on a computer? Computational-wise, the processing on a computer should be more powerful, no?

[Ken Schwarz]

I find that the quality of color from a lens depends on its contrast first and foremost. The expensive Canon lenses all have excellent contrast, and the quality difference of pictures taken with them is immediately obvious, even when viewed at small sizes. That's not to say that the less expensive Canon lenses have poor contrast--there are no bad ones in my experience--but the "L" lenses and the expensive specialist non-L primes are all extremely good in this regard.


Now, for an example of contrast which is actually even better than that from a Canon "L" lens, here is a picture taken through a telescope (a 600mm/f6 refractor) that has only three (oil-spaced) elements and extensive baffling to prevent internal reflections. It has very nearly 100% transmission across the visible spectrum and essentially zero chromatic aberration. The colors are exceedingly pure, even in this JPEG. Because it has fixed aperture at f/6, it's really hard to use as a terrestrial lens, but with Live View I was able to get it to work.





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Note that this was shot with window light at ISO 3200! It would have been even better at ISO 400-800, but I needed the speed to get a reasonable shutter speed for indoors.

[peety3]

Color is relative - different lenses will show different renditions. Example: the 85L will represent colors so well that you'll hate to go back to another lens.


Regarding WB and PS, I believe the WB and PS settings are stored in fields deep inside RAW images, and are handed to the various software tools (DPP, ACR, Picasa, whatever) to guide them in their rendition. Therefore, you can correct for a wrong WB setting if you shoot RAW, since it merely changes the rendition. However, you must ensure that you don't expose so bright (or dark) that any of the color channels (RGB) hit their limits, throwing away information that might be critical to rendering the image as seen.


Related example:





In this shot, lit "entirely" by flash, I have two main lights (A, B) at a 1:2.8 balance (I think). The background (C) lights (two 430EX, gelled to "Christmas tree green") are being triggered at -1 stop relative to the A:B balance (I think). Because my 1D3 meters a little weak with flash (maybe all the time...), I dialed in +2/3 or possibly +1 stop flash compensation, so the overall flash levels are somewhat high. The background flash level, since it's only lighting a portion of the scene, was trying to compensate, and fired "too strong" for this shot. In the center of its pattern, there's so much light that the green channel hit 255 (or 100%, or 11111111111111) and the red/blue channels came close or hit max as well. As such, it comes out white, or nearly so. Oops...