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Blog Red

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No not ‘Retired Extremely Dangerous’ (yet ; ) but just a bloggette about my camera settings and its seeming inability to capture the colour red.
Problem being my Canon G7 digital camera, yes has manual settings and part manual settings as in classic photography and also ‘evaluative’ metering but the ‘processor’ seems a bit thick at times.
The problem is my red azalea which my camera insists on rendering as pinkish when it has vivid scarlet flowers.

Heres a few pics to compare, feel free to tell me what you think.

Ok this is a straight plain shot on auto exposure. See Reds are rendered with pink that isnt there.

On the ‘vivid’ setting bumps up saturation and contrast but reds the same.

It had a neutral setting so now looks washed out

A positive film setting, I guess this is suppossed to mimic rendering of pos 35mm which would be more tolerant of under and over exposure (which it isnt)

Ok so heres what it looks like plain auto in B&W. Ok so it assumes the average is the midtone gray (which it isnt) and so part of the problem here is its overexposing. Both the green n red are darker in reality

I also tried it on a vivid blue setting thinking it would be worse but its the sameish

Vivid green not much change

and vivid red, again sameish

And heres a plain shot today to see if its a difference in light, not really

Ok so how about I stick my hand in and let it see my skin as a midtone. And yep sure enough the greens are nearer the darker tone they actually are but the reds , whilst better, still have some pink

Ok so underexpose a full stop and yep better but a tad too dark

underexposed 2/3rds of a stop, yep getting about right

and underexposed 2/3rds of a stop on the vivid setting

Well I think the last but one is nearest so far but still not correct. I’ll give it some more thought hmmm.

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Comments

 

Hi Mr. Terrible..

just about everything except "Simply Red" ...

... good luck with future colour experiments ... ;o)

1 Aug, 2011

 

Oh! Oh! I know exactly what you're talking about! I took pics of a poppy called 'Ladybird' which is obviously red and black...and the flipping' camera practically huffed! I've come to the same conclusion as you, I knock mine back about a 1/3 of a stop on vivid, so its slightly underexposed and keep it there almost all the time. The vivid setting on my camera is supposed to help with sharpness, but as you say, I think it definitely makes the image more intense, or saturated. I also think the pics show better on a computer screen so that's the setting I use for my blogs.
I've even picked professional photographers brains on this red problem, and they said, and I quote- "what do you think photoshop's for!" Charming eh! Lol!

1 Aug, 2011

 

under exposing a definite improvement.
i have the canon G10 ~ do you have the same trouble with blue/purple??

1 Aug, 2011

 

Hi Sticki, I've had a look at my pics and mine seem to be ok, maybe slighty pale but not too bad.

1 Aug, 2011

 

Libet, the professional photographer that said 'that' is one that i'd run a mile from for professional work, wouldn't you agree ?

The skill in photography IS NOT about cheating with *****y 'Photoshop' etc it's about having the basic skills to use your camera proficiently.
You've hit on a subject that makes my blood boil !!!!!

Any old Joe Public can set themself up as a 'photographer' these days and i know from a friends experience that they are often utter cowboys.
GRRRRR ;-)

(sorry to hijack your blog, Stevie)

2 Aug, 2011

bjs
Bjs
 

Yes I find this problem ongoing and judging by some of the pictures on GOY plenty of others do as well,I resort to Photo shop quite often having found macro gives poor colour results with my camera, I often create the close up shots in photo shop.but of course it all takes time and at this time of year its at a premium.
Louise I agree there are a lot of cowboy professionals, as in most trades but making alterations in Photo shop is no different to altering stops useing filters and all the other paraphernalia that people attach to there camera,the skill with the camera for me is pointing it in the right direction at the right time to capture what is often a fleeting moment, the rest if need be can be done later.Now that will be controversial !

2 Aug, 2011

 

Pulls the pin and throws the grenade into the colour pit, incomminnng ; )

Libet, well i agree with you on the keeping my camera set on vivid and less 1/3 of a stop. This seems to be fine in normal lighting or greyer days but when the sun comes on full its too contrasty.
The vivid/sharpness is rerally a bit of a con as all its doing is adding in a bit of contrast to give the 'illusion' of sharpness. Leica (who make the best lenses in the world) pull this trick a little and made thier lenses to perform in this way., However Zeiss (of former west Germany not east) had a better apo-chromaticity (sorry!) in my opinion.
Also mine only delivers a JPeg image so I dont have the RAW file to photoshop.
Thing is, however good the exposure its still adding in a pinkier aspect.

ST, I would say I have noticed it a bit as the correct for everything seems to besomewhere between normal setting and vivid. I might have to get a grey card or colour card and reset the white balance for the lighting conditions and maybe even set a custom colour setting. However this would detract from capturing the different days.

Louise1, hijack away, I prefer a debate always : )
well I guess thats the price paid for digital and software, better access to photgraphy for the masses but with maybe a loss of skill at the top end.
However back in the day when i used to sell cameras I used to feel that alot of the 'Pro' photgraphers were just creaming in the wedding and commercial market as the 'art' of photgraphy stood still.
But looking at sites like FlickR you can see some(millions) great pics on there so that has made it harder for the cowboy maybe.

BJS well I dont mind photshoping so much if as you say its the equivalent of what you would do on the ground. And also, I remember when I was a student, there was a machine you could put your 35mm neg into and see the pos and play around with the filters and actually 'see' what could be printed and then do it by hand. Always more on the neg than you would think so i guess the Raw file is the equivalent.
However If i could stick a polariser on there I would.

I think the bottom line with digi folks is you are dealing with a Sensor and a 'processor' at the end of the day and it depends how good those are.

2 Aug, 2011

 

Thing is, if I was using a 35mm and a Zeiss lens and a good pos film, that 'red' would be perfect.

2 Aug, 2011

 

This is azalea "Keramsino" Steve, isnĀ“t it?
Do not worry about exposition, if you make pale photo, you can call it experiment. Majority of modern artists are creating by accident anyway.

2 Aug, 2011

 

i can take raw photos with mine Stevie ~ is it the computer that is stopping that bit??

2 Aug, 2011

 

Made me giggle!
Buy an old fashioned camera Mr Terrible!?
Good luck!

2 Aug, 2011

 

ST yes I was aware that the later models had the RAW file, typical eh. But I like the idea of get it right and then thats it. Keeps me aware of what I am doing.

Lulu. giggle!!!!!!!! Lulu????? you think this is funnnyy? eh ; ), Does this blog 'ammmuuussee you (said in a Joe pesci- goodfellas way ; )
I can assure you this is deadly serious.
Actually I was standing looking down at the azalea only this morning muttering to myself ''hmm there is a bit of pink in there''.
I think if i can under expose 2/3rd of a stop with half the vivid.

I'll keep you updated ; )

2 Aug, 2011

 

Yeah but, yeah but....if you had the old fashioned camera it might just work!
I am amused by your blog(s) always am!
I mainly use my ericcson mobile camera!....it always seems to get the reds right! Ha!
Thx for the link!
And anyway, it's good to giggle, like Pixi make me laugh whilst we are coming up with cras horsey puns, found myself laughing outloud in the woods yesterday thinking up more puns!!

2 Aug, 2011

 

sorry they didnt sort that out with earlier models ~ i didnt realise ~ have you contacted canon to ask them about true red colour??

2 Aug, 2011

 

ericcson mobile!!!! whats the world coming to!!!! well actually that sounds like good sense and your pic quality is very good.

ST i'll investigate further

2 Aug, 2011

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