Magic Matt
Enlightened
I've split this from a thread in Flashlight General Discussion as it was veering off topic...
That's a massive area of debate on many photography forums, so I'll summarise - if you want more, I suggest we take it out of this thread as it's somewhat off topic.
Colour rendition is very fluid - every link in the chain has an effect on it. It's not just the lighting, but also the lens on the camera, the camera sensor, the processing in the camera, and the processing of the RAW data into another file format that the computer can display... and of course the display (monitor). Software can also repair poor rendition to some degree, and all of these processes can have some degree of processing to get closer to the 'ideal'.
The RAW format is not an accurate representation of the image - it's just the data as it came off your sensor. It needs processing of some sort to translate it into an accurate image, and depending on what you use to do that, and the settings you dial in, the image could be close to what the eye sees or a million miles from it. I see quite a marked difference between using Photoshop CS2 and Canon DPP at their 'standard' settings for example. Some converters deliberately create a constrasty, saturated, artificially warm image, some try to equalise the exposure with auto-white-balance, and some are all-manual. All have their merits and uses.
It's for this reason I shoot colour reference charts - it gives me a reference point for the photos under that lighting, because I know that if I want my image to be accurate, the adjustments I make, even if doing no more than converting RAW to something else, have to get as close to that chart as is possible. You also need the data for the chart so you know what the colours are supposed to be (which is why printing them yourself is a waste of time without a calibrated printing system).
The question is always how fussy you want, or need, to be for the job. I worry about it for product photography if I'm getting paid for it. If I'm taking snaps of the countryside on a walk, I couldn't care less as long as the picture looks nice.
That's a massive area of debate on many photography forums, so I'll summarise - if you want more, I suggest we take it out of this thread as it's somewhat off topic.
Colour rendition is very fluid - every link in the chain has an effect on it. It's not just the lighting, but also the lens on the camera, the camera sensor, the processing in the camera, and the processing of the RAW data into another file format that the computer can display... and of course the display (monitor). Software can also repair poor rendition to some degree, and all of these processes can have some degree of processing to get closer to the 'ideal'.
The RAW format is not an accurate representation of the image - it's just the data as it came off your sensor. It needs processing of some sort to translate it into an accurate image, and depending on what you use to do that, and the settings you dial in, the image could be close to what the eye sees or a million miles from it. I see quite a marked difference between using Photoshop CS2 and Canon DPP at their 'standard' settings for example. Some converters deliberately create a constrasty, saturated, artificially warm image, some try to equalise the exposure with auto-white-balance, and some are all-manual. All have their merits and uses.
It's for this reason I shoot colour reference charts - it gives me a reference point for the photos under that lighting, because I know that if I want my image to be accurate, the adjustments I make, even if doing no more than converting RAW to something else, have to get as close to that chart as is possible. You also need the data for the chart so you know what the colours are supposed to be (which is why printing them yourself is a waste of time without a calibrated printing system).
The question is always how fussy you want, or need, to be for the job. I worry about it for product photography if I'm getting paid for it. If I'm taking snaps of the countryside on a walk, I couldn't care less as long as the picture looks nice.
