[Leica] Digital: colour rendition and image quality

[scott at adrenaline.com (Scott McLoughlin)]

I don't know anything about the D1, but what are the white balance
controls available on this camera?  I find WB has a huge effect on
color rendition on my D70, and when color matters (or it's convenient),
I always take a custom white balance reading.

Scott

Peter Dzwig wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I have just spent a few days photographing and recording some of my 
> late father's paintings before they were sent on semi-permanent loan 
> to the University of Torun in Poland.
>
> I decided for fairly obvious reasons to use my D-1 to take digital 
> images of the  70-odd paintings which have been shipped. I was 
> horrified at the variation in colour between the painting itself, what 
> I saw on the screen and what I actually got on the SD card. Of course 
> I am aware that my eye and the camera don't have the same response 
> characteristics; but interestingly I could do little to get the camera 
> to come close...
>
> Is this my D-1, is it common or is there some reasonable explanation?
>
> Further, my father painted largely abstract works (you might describe 
> him as an abstract expressionist, but it's not particularly accurate). 
> On those where the boundaries between areas of colour were not 
> distinct the camera appeared to have difficulty in producing a sharp 
> image. The opposite being true where there were strong boundaries. I 
> am coming to the conclusion that the image-reconstruction algorithms 
> taking the output from the chip and building the resultant image in 
> memory must have been fooled. Any thoughts??
>
> FWIW, conditions were flat daylight, no auxiliary lighting.
>
> Thanks for any thoughts - as I have a lot more still to do I would 
> like to know if anyone can suggest correction techniques.
>
> Although this is a fairly stringent test - and an unusual one - when 
> all is said and done the D-1 is a Leica and should have done better.
>
> Peter Dzwig
>
>
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