Ed Okie , Jul 20, 2006; 01:18 p.m.
The color red appears by far the most difficult to render properly with digital
cameras. A normal red object in real life jumps to "lipstick red" on my
color-calibrated monitor. A bright-red object grows worse jumping to "day-glo-red".
Have any Canon 5D or 30D users arrived at a camera adjustment/setting that
tempers red to a realistic level - and still keeps other colors in balance?
Clearly the camera's saturation control makes the problem worse (plus the
adjustments are far too coarse).
The best I've come up with in outdoor situations is the "Neutral" Picture Style,
Sharpness 2, Contrast -1, Saturation -1, Color Tone -2. But it still isn't
right! Shooting wildlife red-capped Sandhill Cranes for the past several months
inevitably delivers the same result - brilliant ruby-red heads. Their heads are
a muted red, not brilliant red. Same with red sports cars, athlete jerseys, etc.
Buying the 5D I assumed this problem was finally addressed in Canon's "pro-grade
camera." It isn't despite the $3000 tab. Remains the same as it was in the 30D
through 10D. I remain stumped!
John Bellenis , Jul 20, 2006; 01:41 p.m.
My advice would to be totally ignore ANY of the camera settings and to stop shooting jpgs.
If you shoot RAW and convert through Photoshop CS2 you can calibrate the red hue and
red saturation individually to your tastes in ACR 3.3 (which supports the 5D).
One of the joys of the "pro-grade cameras" is the ability to shoot RAW and the flexibility
and control that gives you after the fact. Once you get a streamlined workflow established
and have read and digested Bruce Fraser's excellent book "Real World Camera Raw with
Photoshop CS2" I can guarantee that you won't let your camera make color, WB,
saturation, contrast, sharpness, etc. decisions for you, and probably won't ever shoot
another jpg!
Lester Wareham , Jul 20, 2006; 01:51 p.m.
I agree with the suggestion to just shoot RAW.
If you use a RAW converter like CS2 ACR you will often see that strong red or blue subject areas are actually clipping the red or blue respectively channel in your target colour space. You can then adjust exposure and or saturation to deal with this.
Alternatively if you must shoot JPEG try underexposing by 1/2 stop where you have strong colours.
Daniel Cheung , Jul 20, 2006; 01:56 p.m.
Do you absolutely need the perfect color reproduction directly out of the camera? You should beable to easily correct for the colors in photoshop. For that red capped crane for example, you can adjust saturation. select the red channel, click the red cap, then change the saturation and change the hue to offer a more realistic image.
Andy Radin , Jul 20, 2006; 02:03 p.m.
I've had great luck with shooting RAW with my 5D and using the Fors/RagsInc calibration technique with a gretagmacbeth ColorChecker. I, and most others, come out with a calibration set that counter-intuitively boosts the red saturation quite a bit. However there's also a significant shift in the red channel hue. My theory is that the sensor and/or stock ACR calibration is deficient in orange or purple, and the hue shift and saturation boost fills in the hole and gives you reds that look much more natural and rich and don't require as much global saturation. Who knows, it definitely seems to work. To my eyes the results are richer and less pastel than stock, and with an additional global saturation boost are almost velvia-like with a lot of pop and contrast.
You can search here, fredmiranda.com, dpreview.com etc for people's posted calibration numbers to give it a whirl. Most of them seem to be similar in broad strokes for a given model. I can post mine late tonight if you like.
FYI, with my D70 I had a similar situation - colors were interesting but just didn't have any life. I sold the camera before discovering the calibration routine, but found some other people's calibrations and tried them to great effect. With that camera, it's highly deficient in green saturation.
If you're a stickler for detail, you'll want seperate calibrations for daylight and tungsten. Other types of light seem to fall pretty close to one or the other. I made my 5D daylight calibration part of the default settings, that's how much I liked it. Haven't seen the red problem since.
Puppy Face , Jul 20, 2006; 02:32 p.m.
Human sensitivity to color and perception thereof varies considerably, so realistic color is
a
moving target. You can never make everyone happy. With that said, I agree, it's time to go
RAW and convert according to taste with tweaks in PS. Staright JPEGS ain't never gonna
please
beyond point 'n shoot. With the PS color selecton menu you can muffle and stroke red to a
dull rust if needed.
I've never cared for neutral or realistic colors and always choose films like Velvia,
Kodachrome or Portra 160VC for the vivid albeit unrealistic hues. With the 5D RAW I'm in
fake
color heaven as I can stroke 'n poke 'em 'till the cows come home. If Canon DSLRs only
yielded perfectly neutral and realistic colors, few would buy one.
Gary Jean , Jul 20, 2006; 02:44 p.m.
Shoot RAW. In DPP, Faithful Picture Style is a good start for reds. In ACR, hold the ALT key while sliding the exposure slider until you see that you aren't clipping any reds. If the reduced exposure is too dark, increase the brightness slider. Re-check the red clipping.
Ross Murphy 
, Jul 20, 2006; 06:20 p.m.
easy fix with any software for post proccesing, Bibble, Capture One, ACR, etc, etc
Desmond Kidman , Jul 20, 2006; 09:14 p.m.
Although this has been repeated above, it is so important it's worth repeating again: SHOOT RAW.
Before I bought a digital camera I had read so many threads by folks claiming digital has such a limited dynamic range, has such red difficulty, digital artifacts, and various other complaints over and over. Despite the controversy I bought digital (1Ds2) because business realities forced me to. I started out shooting raw, and I started wondering 'what about all of the digital problems, I'm not seeing any...'
Then one day I was running out of card room on a shoot that was not going to be enlarged very far. So I shot in largest j-peg, thinking I'd notice little difference. WRONG! So there were the problems! Highlight blowouts, blocked up shadows, color problems. Now, when I read harsh criticism of digital I check further to see of the person was shooting j-pegs. So often that seems to be the case.
Folks, shoot raw files. Cards are getting cheaper and cheaper. Buy bigger or more cards, or both. The difference is major.
Robin Sibson , Jul 21, 2006; 03:25 a.m.
I think Lester has identified the problem here, and it is one that I encounter quite commonly in botanical work with intensely red, or less commonly blue, flowers. You CANNOT fix this problem in post-processing, since by then it is too late, and you probably cannot fix it at all if you work with 8-bit images, so RAW is the way to go. Remember that the usual advice about "expose to the right but don't blow out the highlights" applies to each colour channel. It is remarkable how quickly the red channel saturates when confronted with some natural reds, and you need to set the exposure to a level that by most criteria would be regarded as significant under-exposure to avoid this. Then you can indeed adjust the image in post processing. But remember too, that your monitor and printer may also have a problem with some of these colours. The Canon i9950, with its red (actually, a sort of orange-scarlet) ink is capable of doing quite a good job.
