civilized ku # 898 ~ the reason why
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 05:33PM 
"The light" on Main Street ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenOn civilized ku # 897, Martijn (no link provided) asked:
The camera being referred to has to be the Panasonic GH2. What makes you so careful to not disclose these details?
I rarely refer to picture making gear by name. That's because The Landscapist most definitely is not a gear site. In addition to that, in the entry in question, the topic was not about a specific camera's ability to render color. The topic was about the idea of "accurate" color (or reasonably so).
In any event, I have not made a picture with the mentioned camera so I could not comment one way or another regarding its ability to render "accurate" color.
That said, I do find it rather curious, albeit not surprising since "punchy" color is preferred by most picture makers (especially the landscape crowd), that the review in question referred to a camera's ability to render "accurate" color as a liability rather than as a point in its favor.
Reader Comments (3)
Well, if you ask me color should be accurate by default. Then let the post processing begin. But if your base is off then what you want to do with that becomes more difficult.
Let me add that this applies to RAW. I have one camera now that seems to produce "vivid" RAW files and it's a challenge to reign them back in. But interestingly it produces stunning B&W conversions very easily. I think dynamic range plays a role in that though.
The whole concept of color accuracy reminds me of an Agfa (the late film maker) advertisement in the eighties, basically suggesting that with its film the color in the photography and the color of the subject would be the same.
As both in film and digital there are conversion processes from the reflected photons/light waves into their imago (for lack of a better word) and from there into the viewers eye and brain, accuracy is an ideal but in the real world not possible.
And I think that technical accuracy is not necessary, as long as the raw material provides grounds to achieve the image impression that the photographer wants. What Andrew describes as "vivid RAW" most probably is the result of a poor calibration chain from the sensor through the firmware through the color profile of the raw converter to the screen - the camera might be off, the software could have a poor profile, the monitor calibration might be the culprit and the lighting at the work desk will have influence, too.
The "accuracy" subject of the mentioned review is most important for those jpg-only photographers (many of them prefer "vivid"), who do not want to spend substantial effort on an image but want "lovely" results right from the memory card/printer chain - for snapshots from the holidays this certainly is a valid attitude. And many camera reviews are written for these folks, as they are by far the largest number of readers as well as buyers.
Moving away from the technical accuracy, it becomes obvious, that the photographer's *idea* of a color is the decisive factor in the rendering chain towards an artistic print. The subtle changes Mark showed in ku #892, and especially the limiting to areas of the image only, probably never might have been the result of a fully mechanized recording process, no matter how expensive the gear.
And that's why I do not care much about a camera's built-in color accuracy.
Apropos of nothing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/26/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-rereading
You have referenced Barthes frequently. Thought you might find this interesting.