Don looking at the P30+ and P40+ in CS4 you may notice the P30+ looks to have a touch more saturation and less DR by about 1/3 of a stop. The P40+ files are more open in the shadows and the profile has a little less saturation which obviously we can tweak. At least that is what I am seeing and the P45+ even has more saturation. Must be how these profiles are set in C1
Guy:
Good topics. I just wanted to add my experience over the last 12 years of selling p1 cameras we have always battled this when customers want to upgrade from one back to another. First thing they do is compare the 2 captures and see that there is a difference. As many have stated the different chips Dasal and Kodak can look different because of the way the profile responds to the brand of chip. For many they can adapt to the new look of the new camera but for some change creates too many questions and extra color work. They want more resolution but not more color correction work.
In most cases as you guys have noticed the dynamic range also look different too. This is caused by the camera profile being applied. When using C1 it is very intelligent so it picks a default color profile that was designed for that particular camera. If you open the image say in Lightroom and do not have LR apply a camera profile, you will see that the color and dynamic range is very similar to all the chips. But we have all become very a custom to the beautiful rending quality C1 produces as it tags the particular profile to correspond to the model # of the back you are using. I have seen many times in demos that if the customer is really keen on continuing to use his RAW processor of choice, if it is not C1, the first look at the image when opened, is very weak in contrast and color saturation. This is because the file is being opened Raw and no Camera (input) profile is being applied. Sure with a little massaging people can use controls to get this to look they want it to look, but it takes a few extra steps and when you have 500 images this becomes a workflow problem.
Most recently I showed P45+ and P65+ to a customer who shoots for soft drink companies (coke) and he and his clients are used to the color of red cans that his P25 was producing for 5 years. He did not like the color of the reds produced with P45+ or P65+.
In my opinion the P25 flash profile had too much yellow in the reds which made them look very warm. They has become a custom to liking that. When presented with an image from p45+ or P65+ the red was much more neutral but unpleasing to the photographers and his clients. The H25 is even more dramatic and has also created some issues for a food client that wants the new chips to look like his H25. Especially when he is looking to use on a 2nd set during heavy food production. This food shooter really loves the color he has been using for 5 years and asked his biggest client one day in a blind test to pick the best image shot with both backs H25 and P45+. He then went on to ask his client if he sent them images from both cameras would that be an issue and he immediately said yes. He went on to comment that when they shot film on 2 sets it always matched. And that is why they never used 2 different film types when shooting a catalog.
In the past we would pick different profiles and apply them trying to make the P45+ and p65+ images look like the P25. On some images that looked okay but for the most part there was a color cross over, much the way you see in color printing where the highlights may be slightly green and the shadows slightly magenta. This causes more problems that cannot be fixed, even with a lot of PS tricks.
All this time (12 years) we have inquired to the engineers at P1 why they cannot make 2 camera backs match in color, even if it is from the same type of Kodak chip. There answer was to use Color Editor to tweak the colors slightly so they resemble the color lets say the P25 was producing. And this works better, in my opinion, than trying to use different profiles.
It really gets down to subject matter and color content. With a landscape images we are looking for pleasing color that creates the mood of the image. In catalog and advertising applications, reproducing accurate colors at the camera level and in the printed piece is really critical for manufactures of clothes, leathers, paint on cars, and any shade of color. I cannot tell you how many times Color Editor has saved my butt and camera sale in major accounts.
I wanted to also say that I have made custom camera profiles with many products but Color Eye 20/20 from integrated-color.com seems to be the best I have used. It is very simple to use and produces very accurate colors from the camera. We just have to keep it in perspective because sometimes neutral colors and accurate custom white balance does not always produce images that we feel have the mood that film produced. Food and interiors are two perfect examples of this.
We can put a man on the moon but we cannot make 2 different vintages of camera backs match in color. That is the lesson I learned and wanted to pass on. Take a look at all the flat screens the next time you are at a electronics store and you will see the same issue.
Chris Snipes
Phase One Reseller
Image Production, Inc
www.imageproduction.com
[email protected]