Green and magenta wierdness

I find myself wondering if there maybe some camera to camera variation wrt the ‘colour blotching’ that is so widely reported. On the forums it’s often a case of ‘It’s terrible, the camera is a piece of crap’ vs ‘I can’t see it at all’.

Well I love the camera as you will be well aware if you’ve read the blog but yes, I do see green/magenta blotches and not just in shadow areas…. And I see them almost at random in one photograph in particular there is a strong green cast all around the edge, really very strange and so pronounced that the file is pretty much unusable.

WTF?

However in 95% of my photographs I see little or no odd colours but then my eye for colour is rather poor. I have seen this colour shift/blotchiness become exaggerated when trying HDR, in fact I am not, thus far, a fan of tone mapped Foveon images, whereas my 5D3 seems made for this technique.

I read that folks ‘love’ the rich and accurate colour rendering of the Foveon and I have to say that yes, the colours are rich but I have experienced some difficulty making them accurate, however I don’t care that much, they certainly look ‘rich’ and the photos look great, I’m not much of one for trying to make ultra accurate renditions of what my eyes see.

I am, however finding that the DR is really very good indeed, certainly better than the 5D3 with blown highlights recovering detail like magic in LR4.

Oh dear, my poor X100 is being left a bit on the shelf at the moment, I must give the poor wee thing some attention!

That '3D look'........

Certain Zeiss lenses are purported to give a ‘3D look’ and I know there is a lot of debate about the reality of this phenomenon. It is explained by some as wide aperture subject isolation coupled with a high level of microcontrast. I have the fabled Zeiss 21mm Distagon and I can confirm that when used with a large-ish aperture or close to a subject, a definite f3D feel can be produced, (well, I can see it anyway).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/7167462015/in/photostream

Now I read that the DP2M can produce a ‘3D’ feel and I have to say, ‘Yes it certainly can’ and it tends to confirm my theory that this look is simply a combination of the right depth of field and the right degree of sharpness:

'Cropability'....

I’m not sure if the word ‘cropability’ is in the OED,  however it is a useful term to describe the extent to which a file from a digital camera can be cropped and still retain useful technical or aesthetic information. It is a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’ issue admittedly and obviously depends on a wide range of factors. I think however, that it is one of those  ‘you know it when you see it’ things.

Obviously  X100 files do not have anything like the cropability of the 5D3 or DP2M, however it is the significant difference that I see between the 5D3 and DP2M files that is most interesting.

Anybody who reads this will I reckon, already know about the differences/advantages/disadvantages of Bayer and  Foveon sensors, so I’m not going to go there.  Suffice it to say that the 5D3 has 22 MP and the DP2M has, erm, well is it 15.3? 24? 30? 36? 46?

Because the sensor designs are so different, numerical comparisons are invalid in my view, perhaps more telling is the size of the RAW files with the typical 5D3 CR2 coming in at  between 20 and 30 MB whilst the DP2M X3Fs are between 50 and 60 MB . There is an awful lot more information in these files assuming that half of it is not redundant.

Much is made of the apparent greater sharpness in photographs presented by the Foveon files compared to Bayer, with some commentators saying that the Foveon files do not look ‘natural’ because the detail they show appears to be greater than would be seen with the naked eye, while the (allegedly) inherently ‘fuzzier’ Bayer files are more like the unaided eyes level of resolution. This is not so silly, I reckon there maybe something in that, however my eyesight is rubbish and so when I look at distant foliage all I see is a mush of green anyway.

Whatever, this incredible (unreal?) amount of detail does mean that the Foveon files are extremely cropable , in fact, when viewing on a monitor they can actually look much better cropped ( to show the detail) than when seen as a 100% image.

Or, I find it is sometimes possible to get three or four separate photographs out of one single file!

Now I hear people saying that this may be ‘all smoke and mirrors’ and that this ‘look’ may be emulated in PP with any half decent high res file ( like from my 5D3?). Well I’d love to know how that’s done because I’ve spent a lot of time trying to wring every last little bit of clarity out of those files and not succeeded in getting anything like the detail that’s in these X3F’s. Oh dear, ‘clarity’, ‘detail’, ‘res’, I know I should be making some clear and scientific definitions. Get over it!

Still learning...

Had to post this as it provides such great evidence of the utility of the DP2M: I was offered an ice cold glass of this rather wonderful Indian white wine ( no, not an oxymoron) and simply grabbed a shot, this is a crop but certainly has 'that Foveon look'.....

Another comparison

Saturday saw another real opportunity for some real time camera comparisons with a chance being offered to me to photograph our factory gardens. Once again conditions were less than ideal for photography with a harsh white light and a mistiness that obscures distant objects and yet was insufficiently thick to give “atmosphere’.

This was absolutely not a studied comparison, I simply took my whole kit and used what seemed appropriate.

So what did I use? The X100 hardly came  our of the bag apart from a few IR’s, the sensor does react nicely to IR and a 49mm R72 produces really nice results and the OVF means framing is easy.

BW-IR with the X100 + R72 filter

Not surprisingly I used the DSLR for Macro, for true wide angle with the wonderful 21 mm Distagon and for 5 bracket HDRs. Everything else was done with the DP2M.

White hibiscus: EOS 5D3: Sigma 150mm macro

After processing I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the DSLR CR2 RAWs looked, hardly surprising I know but when you get used to the Foveon files everything else does tend to look ‘mushy’. And the CR2’s do take LR4 sharpening spectacularly well.

But once again, the Foveon showed what it is made of. When you get it right…sheer magic. But getting it right is definitely an art, whereas the 5D3 can get a good file from pretty much any situation.  

Bamboo: DP2M

I have considered getting a OVF for the DP2M but in fact, even in the bright white light of yesterday I could still see enough to judge framing. I have ordered a 3 inch Hoodman loupe however to assist with critical framing.

And it was hot and humid, I was dripping sweat and found that the ergonomics of the larger DSLR made for much easier handling. So, what are my conclusions today? I reckon that I can get away with two or maybe three compacts 90% of the time but that 10% that the DSLR covers makes it indispensable to me for now. Having said that, I think my coming trip to France I’m going to leave the DSLR kit and attempt to spend a month with just my three compacts.

Cor, the Fujifilm Finepix X100 is bloody brilliant!

I’ve been concentrating a fair bit on my Sigma DP2M ( with good reason) and had kind of forgotten the immediacy,  ease of use and generally great look that the files from the X100 have. I just had to satisfy my craving for taking some photographs whilst on my lunchbreak and so went up onto the roof of my office to catch some nice warm Indian sunshine and to look around for some photographic subjects… I only have the X100 with me today so….

It’s my belief that with a bit of thought , interesting images can be made almost anywhere except perhaps inside a uniformly coloured sphere…

So I just went and, as my Indian friends say, ‘clicked a few images’ and then came back and had a quick looksee in LR4. Considering all I did was check the ISO and aperture, the images are just great, perhaps not the most compelling subject matter but technically, amazing considering the harshness of the light. I’m still seriously impressed with my lovely black X100 and can’t imagine it not being at the very forefront of my photographic arsenal for some time to come. I know its been said before but the colours and the overall ‘glossy’ look of the files continue to please me very much, especially considering the form factor and the almost point and shoot useability. I’m not sure what those people who say that this camera is full of quirks are on about tbh, it just works for me.

I’ll have a play with these files when I get home tonight and add a couple to this post if there are any of interest.

One thing about India is that during the day ‘low light’ just doesn’t happen, it’s bright!

Tomorrow I’m photographing the works gardens in a semi-official capacity, again, the light is not going to be great, the direction of the sun, the mist/haze and the dust but I have free reign of these  gardens which are fairly huge and so I’ll be disappointed if I can’t make some interesting images and, perhaps more importantly from the perspective of this blog, interesting comparisons. I’ll have the DP2M and EOS 5D3 with my Zeiss glass, should be fun…..

Got home tonight and had a play with some of my X100 files from today: