# Color Science Tested (Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Sony)



## VidThreeNorth (Nov 6, 2018)

Tony Northrup's test of color science.  It sounds like his test is valid.  I am very surprised and it leaves me a lot to think about.

"Best COLOR SCIENCE: Canon vs Nikon vs Sony vs Fujifilm"


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## stapo49 (Nov 6, 2018)

You Fuji users are horrible people lol.

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## VidThreeNorth (Nov 14, 2018)

I think we have a better selection of Fuji users "here".  At least I haven't noticed it. 

This was a long video.  I watched it before "in pieces" -- first watching the beginning, and then the rest.  I have finally watched the whole thing in one sitting, and I think I have to watch it again.

His measurement of "colour science" was mainly subjective, which is valid, and not really something new.  The fact that he documented "brand loyalty" and its effect on image evaluation is new.

About consistency within a brand's line-up:  Mostly I agree with him, but I know that in the Sony line-up it is true only among products of roughly the same developmental age.  The problem is that Sony's line-up includes some older products.  The a5100, a6000 and a6300 are much older than the a6500, a7III and a7RIII.  Upgrading from the a5100 or a6000 to any of the later design cameras can result in improved images.

If anyone knows a student (I think a psychology student?) in a university, running a test like this might make a good thesis topic.


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## TreeofLifeStairs (Nov 14, 2018)

Alright. Sony is number one. Take that Nikon and Cannon.


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## Fujidave (Nov 14, 2018)

I have never watched any of his videos, for some reason I don`t like him.


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## Braineack (Nov 14, 2018)

Fujidave said:


> I have never watched any of his videos, for some reason I don`t like him.



because there was only one good point in the entire 22min video:  Learn how to WB.

the entire test was moot when each image was WB'ed in post.


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## VidThreeNorth (Nov 14, 2018)

Fujidave said:


> I have never watched any of his videos, for some reason I don`t like him.



Seriously?  I you haven't seen any of his videos?  Actually, I do not really disagree with you.  There are so many of these videos "out there" you might as well make judgement calls on that little reason.  I certainly do it every day.  I look at the splash screen and title and often decide on clicking or not on that much alone.



Braineack said:


> because there was only one good point in the entire 22min video:  Learn how to WB.
> 
> the entire test was moot when each image was WB'ed in post.



From a practical standpoint, that is pretty much it.  Or maybe, as I would prefer to look at it, "once you buy a camera, be happy with it and learn to do your editing."

But I was still thinking about this today and here's a picture I took this afternoon at a trade show:

Now the first version was right out of the camera and I was happy with it.  But later in the day, I decided to change it.  I applied Corel's "Smart Photo Fix" with the automatic adjustments.  I don't like the 2nd version because it pushed the skin tone too far yellow.  I'd prefer something in between.  Since this picture is not "going anywhere" (no buyer or anything like that), as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to "finish it" by sweating the edit.  But he's right that the main reason I notice the difference is because I'm specifically looking for it.  If I just print out the first one and give it to someone -- even someone knowledgeable about photography, there's a good chance they'll just look at it and say "looks ok".


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## n614cd (Nov 14, 2018)

Braineack said:


> Fujidave said:
> 
> 
> > I have never watched any of his videos, for some reason I don`t like him.
> ...


I watched it twice. Never did I see where he adjusted WB post processing.  The images were from the Camara jpegs. Now what he did not cover is if he made adjustments in camera to the stock settings. Does not seem likely considering how carefully he mentioned all the other constraints and subjective items.

Tim

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## Tim Tucker 2 (Nov 15, 2018)

I saw this discussed on another forum where it turned into a complete bun-fight and brand war...

I thought the point was that the discussion is pointless as most see exactly what they want to see rather than being objective. Show them a blind test and they make different choices to when you present the same photos against brands, photographers are driven by a desire to believe and re-inforce that they made the correct purchasing choice rather than see subtle differences.

It was interesting in that it clearly showed that most don't look objectively but view with prejudice, seek only to confirm a pre-formed opinion. If nobody really looks properly and nobody understands that they can't separate what they wish to see from what is actually there then it renders most opinion on Photo forums as subjective.

It also raises another interesting question, and points out a contradiction; if the camera manufacturers did make a camera with perceptually accurate colours would anybody notice or even prefer it? As we generally gravitate to more *punch* then we also generally tend to prefer cameras that produce more punchy photos. Would we then consider those photos to have more accurate colour simply because we want to believe that it is?

This raises the contradiction, because we don't see colour correctly and demand punchier photos with neural skin tones then the whole exercise becomes a subjective one about matching our expectations and bias and has little to do with science or accuracy at all.


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## n614cd (Nov 15, 2018)

Tim Tucker 2 said:


> I saw this discussed on another forum where it turned into a complete bun-fight and brand war...
> 
> I thought the point was that the discussion is pointless as most see exactly what they want to see rather than being objective. Show them a blind test and they make different choices to when you present the same photos against brands, photographers are driven by a desire to believe and re-inforce that they made the correct purchasing choice rather than see subtle differences.
> 
> ...


I have been curious about Sigma cameras. So I have been reading up on them. The details and the color punch are often mentioned. Now I wonder about perception....

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## Tim Tucker 2 (Nov 15, 2018)

n614cd said:


> I have been curious about Sigma cameras. So I have been reading up on them. The details and the color punch are often mentioned. Now I wonder about perception....
> 
> Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk



Yes, the problem on the other forum is that the viewers inevitably watched the video with the same prejudice as they used to view the images and so the thread turned into an argument of how the comparison wasn't a valid test of *colour science* because it didn't prove what they wished to believe.

Jpeg engines work on assumptions and averages and the real difference between them is actually very slight compared to the difference we think we see when we don't look objectively. It really does come down simply to which you prefer and not scientific facts...


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## n614cd (Nov 15, 2018)

Tim Tucker 2 said:


> n614cd said:
> 
> 
> > I have been curious about Sigma cameras. So I have been reading up on them. The details and the color punch are often mentioned. Now I wonder about perception....
> ...


It also shows that the effective color for raw data is basically the same between all the major brands now. The difference in color science has more to do with the manufacturer's interpretation and the jpeg processing engine in the camera. Which makes sense when almost everyone except Canon uses a Sony sensor.

 To me this makes the lens ecosystem even more critical and more valuable than the camera sensor or the camera body. It's going to be an interesting next few years.

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## Braineack (Nov 15, 2018)

n614cd said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > Fujidave said:
> ...



14:00. WB > CS.

when he set the white balance on all the images the color no longer mattered to the testers.


this is the most important take-away:  do not make your humans look green or purple.


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## jcdeboever (Nov 15, 2018)

I never cared for bloggers that have affiliate links.


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## Ysarex (Nov 15, 2018)

Tim Tucker 2 said:


> I saw this discussed on another forum where it turned into a complete bun-fight and brand war...
> 
> I thought the point was that the discussion is pointless as most see exactly what they want to see rather than being objective. Show them a blind test and they make different choices to when you present the same photos against brands, photographers are driven by a desire to believe and re-inforce that they made the correct purchasing choice rather than see subtle differences.
> 
> ...





n614cd said:


> It also shows that the effective color for raw data is basically the same between all the major brands now. The difference in color science has more to do with the manufacturer's interpretation and the jpeg processing engine in the camera. Which makes sense when almost everyone except Canon uses a Sony sensor.
> 
> To me this makes the lens ecosystem even more critical and more valuable than the camera sensor or the camera body. It's going to be an interesting next few years.
> 
> Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk



I'd say Tim's synopsis is pretty much on target. I'm not a Tony Northrup fan either but I got a good chuckle out of this one (and I'm a Fuji user!). Needless to say as often as he used the term "color science" in the video not a single second of that 22 minutes had anything remotely to do with science.

This topic is both interesting and often hilariously contentious because of three facts that we do know from the science of human perception.
1. As human animals we posses very acute color discriminatory capability. We can see very minor and very subtle differences between colors when presented with them side by side.
2. Human color memory is somewhere south of abysmal. We simply can not remember that a color is or is not the color we saw previously when the color we saw previously is no longer viewable.
3. Any photographer will vehemently insist that fact #2 above doesn't apply to them.

Therefore to introduce this topic to an audience of photographers is to invite as Tim called it a "complete bun-fight."

Differences in the JPEG renderings of the various camera brands are real and we can take the same photo with camera A and B and view the two images side by side and see that they are different. We can identify the differences we see with specificity and express a preference one over the other. And then presented with a blind test of a dozen each random photos from both camera A and B we will be completely incapable of selecting which is which. It's how we're wired and there's not much we can do about that. We can discriminate side by side variation but can't remember "Canon colors" versus "Nikon colors" versus "Fuji colors" to be able to select them in a blind test.

The mechanism at work that has so many photographers believing otherwise is self-deception. A photographer has heard from other photographers about the wonderful "Fuji colors" and buys a Fuji camera. This new Fuji camera owner then runs out and takes some test photos and while viewing the results exclaims, "Oh yeah! I love these Fuji colors!"

n614cd -- very perceptive comment about lens systems. When I was learning the trade my mentor taught me how to buy camera hardware. He said to me one day when we were doing some shopping, "Lenses take pictures, cameras hold film." When I made the switch to Fuji about 5 years ago it was because I found the lenses I wanted. I was new to Fuji and immediately curious about all the "Fuji colors" and "Fuji film sims" talk that I encountered on all the Fuji dedicated sites. My take was that they were all behaving as described in the previous paragraph. So I did a little Tony Northrup testing myself. On one of the forums dedicated to Fuji I created a new forum user. At the time I had an XE-2 which was released before Fuji introduced their CC film simulation. My new user participated in the forum and then when the XE-2 got a firmware update that included the new CC film sim I posted a collection of photos under the title "XE-2 -- Love the new CC film sim!" What I said I did was go back to some favorite raw files and re-processed them with the CC sim. Here they were and they were great! The rest of the forum gave me some thumbs up and pats on the back and re-affirmed how miraculous that CC film sim was. The photos I posted however were SOOC JPEGs from a Samsung point and shoot. I made sure they included blue skies because if there's any extremes in the Fuji world of "Fuji color" its the sky color rendering of the CC and Velvia film simulations which are so far from realistic that we should be able to at least notice that something is very wrong.

What to say about this I'm not too sure. It befuddled Tony. I think it's appropriate for a photographer who wants to use camera JPEGs to test the different brands and in side by side comparisons make a decision about what s/he prefers and allow that to influence their camera choice. What's hilarious about that however is that if you sneaked into their studio some night and replaced their camera JPEG processor with a Sony BIONZ processor they probably wouldn't notice. If six months later you told them you did it they'd swear all along they thought something was wrong with their camera.

Joe


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## TreeofLifeStairs (Nov 15, 2018)

I thought this was only slightly interesting since as noted before, it wasn’t actually science but a poll of people’s subjective preference. 

I realize I’m guilty of brand loyalty and like to hear that my brand (Sony) is good. It was surprising how much better people thought it was though. 

Am I to understand this correctly though, that he showed jpgs sooc, and that raw files would be much closer in appearance? That means this test is more a test of the camera’s jpg conversion. I never shoot in jpg so I guess this doesn’t really apply to me.


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## waday (Nov 15, 2018)

TreeofLifeStairs said:


> I thought this was only slightly interesting since as noted before, it wasn’t actually science but a poll of people’s subjective preference.
> 
> I realize I’m guilty of brand loyalty and like to hear that my brand (Sony) is good. It was surprising how much better people thought it was though.
> 
> Am I to understand this correctly though, that he showed jpgs sooc, and that raw files would be much closer in appearance? That means this test is more a test of the camera’s jpg conversion. I never shoot in jpg so I guess this doesn’t really apply to me.


I watched this video when it was posted, so I may be forgetting, but... I don't think he indicated that it was science or that he was stating hard facts at all. He seemed to be pretty clear that the results were based on a survey of over a thousand people, and even indicated that he tried to tailor the questions so as not to skew the results. Regarding the term "science", IIRC, he said the term "color science" was being thrown around a lot so he wanted to test it.

Regarding the jpg vs raw, I think that was pretty much what he was saying, wasn't it? That, if taken in raw, everything should be about the same. But, when taken in jpg, the "brand" (i.e., jpg conversion) would be different. So, he surveyed his follows to find which "brand" was the most pleasing to the surveyees' eyes.


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## Ysarex (Nov 16, 2018)

TreeofLifeStairs said:


> I thought this was only slightly interesting since as noted before, it wasn’t actually science but a poll of people’s subjective preference.
> 
> I realize I’m guilty of brand loyalty and like to hear that my brand (Sony) is good. It was surprising how much better people thought it was though.
> 
> Am I to understand this correctly though, that he showed jpgs sooc, and that raw files would be much closer in appearance? That means this test is more a test of the camera’s jpg conversion.



Absolutely, it is only a test of the cameras' JPEG processors. If you shoot and process raw files then the variations that concern you have to do with your brand raw converter's camera input profile. If you shoot and process raw files you have the option to create your own input profile in which case a similar test could be about "your colors."

Joe



TreeofLifeStairs said:


> I never shoot in jpg so I guess this doesn’t really apply to me.


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## VidThreeNorth (Nov 24, 2018)

Every now and then I think of something to add to this, but then I think a bit more and decide that I really need to think about it even more.  Maybe next life-time?

Anyway, one thing I thought was that I didn't think that Tony made up the term "Color Science".  I had thought that it sounded like marketing jargon.  But I poked around and this is what I found:

"The science of color is sometimes called *chromatics*, *colorimetry*, or simply *color science*. It includes the study of the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what is commonly referred to simply as _light_)." -- Wikipedia

Also:

Wyszecki, Günther; Stiles, W.S. (1982). Colour Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley Series in Pure and Applied Optics.

Ok. maybe it is a legitimate term after all.  It still _sounds_ like marketing jargon. . . .


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## Ysarex (Nov 24, 2018)

VidThreeNorth said:


> Every now and then I think of something to add to this, but then I think a bit more and decide that I really need to think about it even more.  Maybe next life-time?
> 
> Anyway, one thing I thought was that I didn't think that Tony made up the term "Color Science".  I had thought that it sounded like marketing jargon.  But I poked around and this is what I found:
> 
> ...



Used in the video and by the people lately throwing it around it is absolutely marketing jargon.

Joe


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## n614cd (Nov 25, 2018)

Ysarex said:


> VidThreeNorth said:
> 
> 
> > Every now and then I think of something to add to this, but then I think a bit more and decide that I really need to think about it even more.  Maybe next life-time?
> ...


Are you sure? I went back and reread the definition,  it specifically says perception of color. And how it is being used in the marketing? Users perception...

Tim

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## Tim Tucker 2 (Nov 25, 2018)

n614cd said:


> Are you sure? I went back and reread the definition, it specifically says perception of color. And how it is being used in the marketing? Users perception...



It works because people want to be told that the cameras they buy are precision instruments backed up by science and fact. Most believe that what they see through their eyes in in fact the image focussed on the back of the retina, that things are absolute (including colour) and can be measured and recorded accurately where they will be seen accurately by the human eye. It is also true that most still think that colour theory describes the way colour works, where in fact it actually describes how the eye works.

Things were really shaken up by Newton when he split white light in a prism. In all it was discovered that there were around 200 visually perceived pure colours. Which raised a problem, if we saw colour accurately then only about 1/200 of the receptors in our eyes will be working when we view the world through a yellow filter. You would expect the image you see to be considerably darker as a result. But it isn't, brightness is maintained. The only conclusion was that the eye simply didn't work as an accurate recording device but maintained a consistency of vision in a wide range of different light conditions.

The actual way that the eye works was revealed by additive colour theory. It was discovered that we can reproduce nearly all visible colour by just using light of three different wavelengths, it does not prove that all light is RGB but that the eye only has three main colour receptors.

Cameras mimic this, they try to maintain the same consistency of vision as the human eye does in a wide variety of lighting conditions. This creates quite a contradiction, because the human eye does not see colour accurately it follows that the camera that reproduces colour the closest to how we see it must also record it inaccurately.

But we wouldn't buy many cameras if we are told that we don't see correctly, that our vision is flawed and therefore we've designed flaws in our camera to compensate, it is not as precision as you think nor as accurate as you wish it to be. Instead they are sold on their ability to achieve *your vision*. However because many want to believe that their vision is absolute so they also believe that the camera with the most visually accurate colour, what they see on a computer screen, is also the one designed to most accurately capture colour. In a way *colour science* is created by users to support their belief that their vision is absolute, what they see is correct.


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## jcdeboever (Nov 25, 2018)

Tim Tucker 2 said:


> n614cd said:
> 
> 
> > Are you sure? I went back and reread the definition, it specifically says perception of color. And how it is being used in the marketing? Users perception...
> ...


AKA, Fujifilm film simulations.


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## Ysarex (Nov 25, 2018)

n614cd said:


> Ysarex said:
> 
> 
> > VidThreeNorth said:
> ...









The term science is easiest to accept and understand when it's hard science. My son is a physicist -- now that's science. Not science: I'm an artist and as Calvin's dad explains many of us are insane. Here's an hilarious bit of entertainment: get 7 or 8 different dictionaries and look up the word color. They don't know what it is. Many will default into the lexicographer's most egregious sin and define color as color. Color is Hue they'll say -- duh. At the next level of error they'll try and define color by describing the mechanisms that produce it still failing to define it. Color is a property of objects or color is a property of light. Pretty soon you start reading about nanometers and wavelengths but you don't get a definition of color. That's because color has no physicality but we tend to think about it as if it did. We're confused.

As a component of conscious human visual perception, color is a sensation in the occipital cortex of the brain produced when the retina of the eye is stimulated by either reflected or direct light energy in the visible spectrum between 400 and 750 nanometers.

Now let's take that definition and distill it down to the essential fact: *color is a sensation*. It's very much like pain. We know what causes pain but, how bad does it hurt; on a scale of 1 to 10? WTF doc? 1 to 10? It hurts!!!! Draw some blood and test it for Pete's sake! Look at it under your damn microscope! It hurts!!!!!

Human perception is fascinating and worth considerable study by scientists, but it's a tricky business to study because we can't grow it in a petri dish, look at it under a microscope or bombard it in a collider. Human perception is messy because it's connected to so much else that is human experience. The color you see is effected by how you feel. How you feel is effected by color. The scientists who study human perception don't have the luxury of just doing hard science. Do we call it science if it has to deal with human feelings? I tell my students that they must never try to work with the color in photographs when they are stressed or tired or upset or hung over or..... The "see what you want to see" lobe of the human brain is activated by stress. The scientists haven't found the "see what you want to see" lobe yet in the brain but we insane artists know for a fact it exists.

So when you encounter the term color science and you can detect that no matter how remote it's connected to someone that wants to sell you something the first most appropriate reaction is to laugh and then consult your friend Hobbes.

Joe


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