[Leica] Re:Skin tone - film vs. digital (not a debate)

[leicachris at worldnet.att.net (Christopher Williams)]

Welcome to digital colors. Yes, Nikon and Canon have different color looks.
To me personally Nikon has more of a "film" look. I've shot both kinds of
cameras and that's just my opinion, means nothing else. Fuji has come close
to great skin tones in their dSLR's but they have never achieved a great
dSLR camera to use(slow focus, poor VF, bad body build).

Most dSLR's have 3 color modes. You want to use sRGB or Abode RGB with skin
tones. Using RGB II or III is for landscape colors. Horrors if you have your
D70 or D200 on VIVID!! Shooting in NEF/RAW can keep you from constantly
trying to change color corrections. And do not use Auto WB(I don't care what
camera you have), try using a Custom WB whenever possible - yeah I know it's
bitch sometimes. I usually have a good 2 minutes to do this in a church or
reception hall. Some cameras allow you do store Custom WB modes so you can
save a WB in #1 for a certain church or #2 for a certain reception hall.
Kind of like having different kinds of film. I'd never shoot Fuji 800 Press
for bridal portraits - who wants red skin? But it works very well in low
light rooms where the skin tones may not matter as much as the overall
feeling of the mood.
There's even the ability to create a Custom Curve in your Nikon with Nikon
Capture. I have this in all my Nikons and believe me it helps later with
post processing.

Then there's the fun part of getting skin tones to look correct with home
printers but that's just like at a lab where they may print with Fuji, Agfa
or Kodak paper.

My crappy 1 cent anyway.

Chris





----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott McLoughlin"
Subject: [Leica] Skin tone - film vs. digital (not a debate)


> I've been shooting with a D70 and now a D200.
>
> I find that skin tones with film have a certain opaque
> quality, and a lean toward beige, that I like. I've never
> personally shot Kodachrome, but as a viewer, I see
> these qualities playing out in force.
>
> By comparison, my DSLRs seem to render skin tones
> with a kind of transparency and pinkness.
>
> So I find myself in color correction mode quite frequently,
> tweaking skin tones toward yellow on the color cube (I use
> PWP).
>
> Any clue as to the causes of this discrepancy? I don't mean
> to start a debate. The DSLR may well be more "true to life"
> for all I know.  But I don't like it.
>
> Might this be a quality unique to Nikon DSLRs?
>
> Even better, any ideas how I might do something in camera
> so that I'm not goofing with color correction all the time?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott