Color Phase factory biased?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

In my front yard, I have a very good object for testing color fidelity of various PPs of my cameras: a wooden shed with tar paper roof. The boards are natural brownish, and - depending on the actual daylight - can adopt a slightly yellowish or reddish tint; also the dark-brown roof can have some magenta cast to it...

Some of you guys remember the shed I described, as I posted lots of its pictures back when testing my EX1 camera, so I'll spare you and not post again :)

Anyway, here is what I have found testing various PPs for my FS100: no matter what other settings are, unless I turn Color Phase all the way down (to -7), both the wooden boards and the roof have definitely too much red/magenta to them.

So, I dare say the factory picture settings of this camera are definitely biased towards red/magenta ! This should always be kept in mind when adjusting your PPs.. . Almost as important as setting your WB right!

[Cees van Kempen]

Thanks for this information Piotr. I noticed this red/magenta shift as well and have been struggling to match my FS100 with my EX3. May I ask you what PP's you use on your FS100 and EX1?

[Chris Medico]

I wonder if IR is playing any part in the red/magenta shift?

Piotr, do you have an IR filter you can try and see if it makes a difference?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Chris & Cees,

We know all too well how reddish the skin tones can be without taking special care of them in our PPs. This, plus far from perfect highlights rolloff, make people's faces one of the most challenging subject for an average FS100 user.

My wooden shed with tar-paper roof example above only proves the point that the factory hue is definitely off, towards the red tones, and must be shifted in the opposite direction. Both the skin tones and wood or tar paper are "hot" objects, so IR contamination may play its role here, too - but even if it does, it's not as bad as it's on the original EX1 (before the R revision).

That said, due to the S35 sensor's ability to create shallow DOF we tend to use wide apertures - this leads to heavy use of external ND filtering - and that in turn can amplify the IR contamination effect.

I'm no fan of stacking lots of filters in front of the lens - but as soon as the weather here gets better and I have some time for playing around, I'll try to combine my Tiffen T1 filter that I bought specifically for my EX1, with the Heliopan Vari ND. Will shoot the "hot" wooden shed, and post some comparisons of results (if Chris allows me to :-)).