blown-out red roses

[f16sunshine]

I could have extended my comment about Mirrorless...
Cover glass/filter thickness and filtering capability has been getting thinner as registers get shorter.
It's true of the M8, the M9 and now with mirror less cameras as well.
Less is less.

 

[YYV_146]

I could have extended my comment about Mirrorless...
Cover glass/filter thickness and filtering capability has been getting thinner as registers get shorter.
It's true of the M8, the M9 and now with mirror less cameras as well.
Less is less.

Only thinner for APS-C mirrorless. If I'm not mistaken, M43 cameras have thicker cover glass than the majority of DSLRs.

The M8 and M9 have the thinnest cover glass on the market. The M9 also has IR issues, though nowhere as serious as the issues with the M8. While I haven't noticed any IR issues with other mirrorless bodies, I doubt they have very thick cover glass, as there is no noticeable performance penalty with longer M lenses...

 

[willie_901]

Which brands render reds better?

I have not tried all the brands. However there are endless anecdotal reports from photographers who revel in their cameras ability to render color... including reds. On RFF it is common to read photographers who strongly prefer the M8/M9 color rendition. On Nikon Forums you will read comments that D200 colors (CCD) and superior to newer models (CMOS). Then there's the Fujifilm DSLR proponents. And these are just the Forums I spend or spent time reading. Other brands and model enjoy good reputations as well. By contrast their are brands and models that some disparage as having a plastic, fake look to their color rendition (including reds).

Typically this is mis-attributed to CCD v CMOS, or lens coatings, or some other voo-doo explanation. In fact the differences are most often due to careful exposure and the light-frequency selectivity of the color-filter array micro-lenses.

 

[semilog]

I could have extended my comment about Mirrorless...
Cover glass/filter thickness and filtering capability has been getting thinner as registers get shorter.
It's true of the M8, the M9 and now with mirror less cameras as well.
Less is less.

That is true of the M8/9. For mirrorless systems and DSLRs in general, the opposite is true: in most cases mirrorless bodies have cover glasses as thick or thicker than those on DSLRs.

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter

Thicker cover glasses cut more IR, and they also keep dust further from the sensor plane, making it less likely to be evident in photographs.

 

[ssmc]

Only thinner for APS-C mirrorless. If I'm not mistaken, M43 cameras have thicker cover glass than the majority of DSLRs.

The M8 and M9 have the thinnest cover glass on the market. The M9 also has IR issues, though nowhere as serious as the issues with the M8. While I haven't noticed any IR issues with other mirrorless bodies, I doubt they have very thick cover glass, as there is no noticeable performance penalty with longer M lenses...

This is true - truer than I would have credited if I hadn't seen the picture for myself: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/the-glass-in-the-path-sensor-stacks-and-adapted-lenses

My D70 had pretty bad IR issues, solved with a B+W 486 filter (which caused its own problems zooming out past 24mm), but it seems to be a lot less or a problem on newer DSLRs, or at least, the 4 bodies I've owned since then didn't exhibit anything noticeable, and you sure don't read much about it any more. But the D70 was exceptionally sharp for a 6MP camera, so I suspect that the filter pack was on the thin side.

Some flowers have colors that are just plain out of gamut no matter what you do - you can only get an approximation to how they looked in real life. Here are some tips, FWIW:

- set your camera to Adobe RGB. This does nothing for the RAW file but will give you a slightly more accurate histogram, because the histogram is generated from a low-res embedded jpg, which gets its colorspace from the camera setting.

- open and process the RAW files in the widest 16-bit colorspace your editor will allow. This is usually but not always ProPhotoRGB. Even if you are only going to display as 8-bit sRGB jpgs on a monitor, you will get (sometimes) dramatically superior results if you do anything to the file

- wide-gamut monitors are very pricey but calibrating the one you have can make a huge difference and the tools are not prohibitively expensive

- this one's for real sticklers 😉 : note that bit-depth and colorspace conversions are noncommutative, i.e. going from (say) ProPhotoRGB -> sRGB, then from 16-bit to 8-bit, does not give the same result as 16-bit to 8-bit then ProPhotoRGB -> sRGB. But the difference is minor, at best (try it and see!)

- make sure the conversion to whatever bit-depth and colorspace you are going to finish with is the very last thing you do

- pro printers can output from ProPhotoRGB 16-bit TIFFs, but for display you probably want something more manageable. If you aren't sure how the images will be viewed (especially over the web) then 1996-vintage sRGB is really the only way to be sure the results won't look peculiar

HTH,
Scott

 

[Ranchu]

I wouldn't necessarily recommend setting the camera to Adobe98, Adobe98 and prophoto don't have much better reds than srgb. Many cameras save raws into a look-up-table version of srgb but not of Adobe98. This can be used if you use the manufacturer's raw converter. Doing that might also help with the roses.

http://wiki.nuaj.net/index.php?title=File:StandardProfilesGamutCoverage.jpg

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Poppies are far worse than red roses to photograph. Ditto bluebells and violets in the woods.

I always use CW or Spot metering and then bracket the shot from exposed to very under exposed. And take care with the background as green when under exposed tends towards black.

I'm also wary of taking pictures of flowers in bright sunlight. Cloudy days are best but to the eye the real thing (the flower not its photo) looks best in sunlight...

Regards, David

 

[Richard G]

I've had trouble with red on the M9, particularly an orange cast. I've had other shots where the red has been just as I want it, and indeed, with some under exposure.

 

[Bille]

Would the Sigma Merrill cameras not produce the best reds??

Technically, yes

http://www.ddisoftware.com/sd14-5d/

 

[f16sunshine]

That is true of the M8/9. For mirrorless systems and DSLRs in general, the opposite is true: in most cases mirrorless bodies have cover glasses as thick or thicker than those on DSLRs.

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter

Thicker cover glasses cut more IR, and they also keep dust further from the sensor plane, making it less likely to be evident in photographs.

Thanks for the link.
I made an improper assumption manufacturers would be required to reduce the cover glass thickness in order to reduce the register distance.
Cheers!

 

[rjschell]

Ranchu-
The Dan Margulis chapter illustrated and nailed the problem. Unfortunately, I'm using Elements 11 and don't have access to lab color space. Thanks for the help.

 

[alienmeatsack]

I've had this same issue myself and was not sure how much of it was film, lens, exposure and then the flower itself. I've noticed some colors tend to get blown out easier, some films are the same. Many times the effect works visually, but I do want to learn how to judge when it will happen so I can be in control as much as possible.

One example was the tulips I shot a few weeks back. They bordered on blown out where they looked almost fake. The shots turned out nicely, so I was happy. I chalked the effect up to the expired film and the brightness of the sun shining through the petals of the tulips themselves.

As I read the thread, I took some mental notes to put into my next efforts of materials of this kind of color and translucency. I do love to learn to control what I can in my photos but I also like being slightly out of control and getting those cool happy accidents.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

FWIW, I often wonder if flowers shine beyond our visual range and the camera or metering system (digital or film) doesn't see it and so over exposes the flower. Or, perhaps, the camera sees it and responds but the meter doesn't...

So my rule of thumb is to get a spot reading on the flower and then bracket towards under exposure.

Regards, David

 

[Ranchu]

Definitely a lot going on! Though most of these are UV..

http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html

some have IR..

http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_ANEM_NEM.html

 

[Sparrow]

Sadly I fear the problem is that it is a poor photo in the first place ... alas, not making a silk purse from a sow's ear is still a truism, and the OP's photo tends to the ear-end of the spectrum

 

[Ranchu]

Don't post drunk. The pic was an example of what the OP was talking about, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Sparrow]

... Ha ... sorry, but no amount of adjustment or profiling will rescue a poor photo ... and no amount of alcohol will improve that example