This video deserves atleast half a million views. This kind of content (color science comparison) is first of it's kind in UA-cam. Appreciate the effort behind the video. Keep clicking 📸
I think my biggest surprise was how little of a "real" difference I saw. I'm sure if you could compare the output to the actual objects in the image you could see which was the most faithful reproduction but given that I don't know exactly what shade that couch was for example, I had a hard time consistently picking one over the others consistently. Maybe I'm just getting old or something. Honestly, it is quite refreshing knowing how little it seems to matter for me.
Today no matter what camera you shoot with, you can make any color with post-processing... Moreover, even inside the brand, each model has personal picture color...
I would echo this comment. They were all very usable files. Surprisingly I only disliked Leica somewhat. It was hard to pick a clear favorite but I leaned toward Fuji and then Canon but again all were usable.
Yet another proof, that most cameras are good enough these days, especially if you shoot raw. It's glass that matters and all systems have good glass these days. I think it is getting more and more to the point where it's just a matter of taste, things like weight and UI/design preference.
@@BenjaminSandness Most likely. But then again all of them are on the same compression. Maybe downloading the raw files might be good for some folks to judge.
That was a MASSIVE amount of work! Thank you so much for you gift of time. Like others have said, surprised at how small the differences were. You were somewhat bummed about the weather but at the end of the day I think the light from the weather challenged the cameras so the results showed their capabilities. Thanks again.
The thing that stood out to me was that, for the most part, the shots were so similar that I didn't feel strongly for or against any of them. I noted that the shots of the cafe in the snow, A, B, and C seemed to have punchier reds, and I feel like Fuji had brighter greens in the next series(trees in foreground, mountains and fog in background).
Honestly, in some shots you see a difference.. But for the most part, it's so small. And factor that you'd very rarely be comparing photos when you see them, you just see what's in front of you. This just made it even more clear to me to just use what you have and make it work.
Thank you for this 😊 As a Nikon shooter for over 20 years I wasn't surprised to see Nikon in my top two... I picked the Fuji skin tones too, but as a predominantly landscape shooter, I was really surprised Sony was my second choice 🎉
I was surprised to find that I preferred the Panasonic color rendering overall, followed perhaps by Leica though the differences between Leica and the others were less noticeable. Panasonic seemed to employ a lower contrast which rendered more detail in the highlights and shadows and the colors were true and saturated, at least to my eye. I shoot with Sony and tend to prefer vintage lenses, and the lenses would contribute strongly to the color in my photos. I also prefer a slightly warmish tone, such as one normally gets with Takumar lenses. An interesting comparison. Thanks.
Same! I really liked Panasonic's rendering, and was surprised that I consistently preferred Fuji the least (except for people shots), even though I've been a Fuji shooter for a while now.
I shot almost exclusively Nikon from 1971 until 2010, starting with an F and ending with a D300. I've been shooting Fuji since 2018. So while I also found my biases similar to yours, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could live with any of them.
Seems like a lot of people's favourites ended up being brands they currently own or used to own. I wonder if working with pictures from a particular manufacturer over a long period of time influences what people see as desirable colours in an image.
Hi Andrew, great test, I felt the same way as you. Nikon was my favorite, followed closely by Fuji. Have been shooting with Nikon all my life and switched to Fuji 2 years ago because of size, weight and cost. So I'm glad I wasn't completely wrong with my choice so far. Thanks for the effort. I wish you continued success! Really enjoy watching your videos. You have taught me a lot about Fuji. Thanks for that! Best regards from Germany.
3:50 Keep in mind the cameras/raw files have embedded profiles, so which ones did you use? this can change the image massively to just a bit. like Sony: PT is slightly brighter than St, SH is used where there image is too dark all over, it recovers the shadows. if the image lacks color and contrast VV for vivid is might be suitable. But keep in mind these don't always work with every image, so see what fits. sometimes St is the best option.
Predominantly I went with F on most of them apart from landscapes where I was a bit split. So when you revealed Fuji being F it made sense as I have shot with it for years and clearly that colour is embedded in my brain.
I liked the punchier images from Nikon and Sony, sometimes I also liked the Fuji images. As long as you shoot RAW, color is not the deciding factor I think. I shoot Fuji, but with noticeable RAW editing, so it really doesn't matter. The look and feel is way more important for me. Nice test!
I did not have a favorite but there was one candidate I really did not like and that was the Sony output. On the other hand what we see here is Adobes interpretation of the colour. Things might look slightly different with Capture One or DXO or another raw converter.
I’ve been shooting Fuji since the XE1 was new, and I was able to pick it out as F pretty quickly. But later in the video with some profiles I never use, I started to have some doubts. Anyway, I strongly prefer Fuji Provia, and your video confirms my choice for me. I hope others find that they’ve invested in what they like, too. Thanks for the video.
This is great! I'm really glad you put this together. But it's hard to compare the images with the slow pans and there's not really enough time with each photo to fully analyze. I think just a static shot showing all 6 options held for maybe 20-30 seconds would allow easier comparison between the images. I liked the Leica images. I was expecting to pick Nikon or Fujifilm. 🤷♂The Leica is just *a little* out of my price range.
Absolutely! Color is so subjective, and these are so close I doubt anyone could look at any one of these images in isolation, and tell which camera/lens took the image. Maybe it's just me, but have any of you ever noticed that if you look at a scene first with one eye and then the other, there are subtle differences in color? My left eye has more magenta and my right more green. Subtle, but there.
*SPOILER ALERT* . . . . . . B was almost consistently my preference. When I saw that B is Nikon, I wasn't surprised. I've been shooting Nikon for many years and I think its color rendition has grown on me. I've gotten accustomed to expecting a certain RAW result when I go shoot and so far Nikon's color has not disappointed me every time I need it to represent a scene accurately. The way Nikon handles colors makes color grading so much easier.
Next time please use SPOILER ALERT in your comment and leave some space between that and your opinion, not to ruin the “game” for the others. Your comment was the first showing up when I opened the video.
Nikon was definitely better in my opinion. I wasn't surprised by that, after shooting with almost every brand I've been always most satisfied with Nikon files.
I pretty consistently like Fuji and Panasonic in the first blind test, and also liked Canon in some cases, really didn't vibe with Nikon and Leica was hit or miss. With Adobe profiles I consistently liked Leica, which seemed to render very neutral compared to its brand profile that feels a bit too pushed sometimes. Still like Panasonic a lot and Fuji didn't looks as good. I use Leica SL system myself and use adobe standard profile so I guess my pick for Leica/Panasonic is consistent with my own likings, although it is insteresting how the two despite their collaborations have visibly different colour science (and are both good to me).
Fantastic wee vid where we make our own minds up on colour: I tested myself with the first 10 and wow B (Nikon smoked it), then A and C tied 2nd, then D 3rd. E and F tied last with E consistantly sub par and F most inconsistant. Didn't realise Nikon colours were that good they were fantastic
I think you really stepped up this test over your previous color tests so bravo on the implementation. I think using RAW-to-adobe color profile was genius considering there is so much chatter about easy raw conversion to get great colors with minimal work (CCD cameras in particular). The test images were great too. The little girls (good variety of skin tones BTW) and restaurant in the blizzard (white and color rendition) informed most of my opinions. So yeah, very useful. My take-away was surprisingly validating to how I see brand colors. Except Nikon which really stood out to me. With all the added yellow/warmth I assumed it was Leica. Sony was my least favorite so maybe their reputation for poorer skin tones is warranted, but I would buy one in a minute if it handled the best. Oh yeah, biggest take-away is that operation and handling are my top reasons to buy a camera because all of these were so close that even the worst image looked easily fixable and never terrible to begin with. So, yeah, Fuji all day long for me.
I also want to add that my lenses have huge impact on color rendition. My Sony system produced nice and real life like greens with the 20mm 1.8, far more brilliand and saturated reds and blues on my 100-400. On my Nikon Z system, there is not much difference between the lenses, let's see what the future brings
True, when I use my little 55mm 1.8 from Sony everything changes, so it's not just the camera but also the lenses you use and this test doesn't take that into account. But you're right, you can get them to look exactly the same with 30 seconds in your favourite raw editing software so it really doesn't matter. I picked Sony because I'm not rich and it's the best value for money full frame system plus a good selection of third party lenses. Everyone have different needs so that's why we have different cameras, they are all so good nowadays that you jou can blindly pick the one that fits your needs best without worrying about image quality.
Would it better for you to test which camera has the best accurrate AWB that it produce the most accurate color? Will every piece of them fail for the test?
I’m a little bit surprised to find that at a quick glance (not really pausing it to look in great detail) I most often picked the two camera brands I own (Canon and Fuji). I halfway expected to be surprised by liking the Leica colors better but nope. In spite of the tremendous work it must have been to make I would have liked to see some in camera JPEG’s especially something like Fuji’s Astia or Classic Chrome or Pro Neg Hi vs something like Canon’s Fine Detail picture style. But major points to you for even having the energy to undertake something like this !
I’m sure they all have great things but for me, learning on the Fuji XT3 was so easy. The tactile experience and the quick access to all major “knobs” just let me focus on photography, not just trying to find my way around all settings. It’s a professional camera so one to learn on and grow into.
Superior camera stands out in harsher light environment. For example street under strong noon sunlight, or later afternoon backlite sunlight. Under good lighting, i feel you can adjust color around to make it flattering easily.
As a 37 year Nikon shooter, I too was surprised. The last 4 Nikon digital cameras I have owned have all had that color punch. That is consistent with the comments I get back from people who view my work. "I can't believe the color.", "Wow your pictures are so bright and rich.", "The details are so distinct and colorful." are comments I have received on Nikon shot photos. Sure I am a proud fan boy, so save your flame. 🤣🤣🤣
Friend great test! It's really hard to make a choice by view since you did not show a separate photo in full screen! It's good that you can download them from your site, just explain how you can buy all your rav files from this video? there is a column number of copies what does it mean? could you explain? What should I choose to buy all the files?
Once you calibrate your camera using a color checker chart… you no longer see any difference. I did it last year with a Panasonic S1R (which is more a flag ship camera than the S5) and the Leica SL2. I was upset by people saying the Leica Colors are better… so I bought a SL2 along my S1R and made the test… exactly the same colors once calibrated … I sold back the SL2 the same price I bought and was happy to solve this.
Similar to how Fujifilm glass, and how it renders photos, is fantastic… Nikon glass, specifically the S Line glass, is such high quality and amazing. The internet will make it seem like Nikon cameras don’t have auto focus, and I’m sure Canon and Sony’s AF is better. But I’ll photograph an entire wedding with no shots out of focus. I’ve been photographing my kids hockey the last 2 months (indoor, fast action) and don’t have any shots out of focus. Nikon bodies are good enough, and I feel like the glass is better than competitors.
C and F were consistently my favourites, but wasn’t surprised that it was Canon and Fuji. I still own my Fuji system but switched from Canon to Sony. The images were still pretty close and when using the Adobe colours I honestly had no real preference. I use Adobe anyway and can still make my files look fantastic with the Sony. I love that this test just shows that colours are very subjective, but can also be edited to what you need in post. Great job!
Andrew Compares is one of my favourite formats on your channel, because I respect your eye for colour nuance. I feel like you are one of the most trustworthy sources for that colour difference when I can't get a rental copy. I actually went with fujicron lenses over viltrox's faster versions because you showed that subtle yellow cast in the skin hues from the XF glass on the 50f2 which I own. And one of my biggest frustrations with fujifilm colour is Red and Magenta hues in the skin. You've saved me hundreds of dollars so far. 😂
Thanks for taking the time to create this comparison. I placed E and A last in most comparisons. The worst image of all was A on the Snowy service station. Second worse was E on the first landscape picture. But apparently I should buy a Leica because it ended up in the top most often while only using one colour profile. Why did some of the images have such pixelisation? When you lose resolution there must be a loss in colour gradient is my belief. I watched on a 55 inch 4k colour calibrated oled.
Very nice. I was debating A vs C and thought they would be the lumix and lieca.. I was surprised to see the lieca is the D...bottom line A,B, C were absolutely great
It was hard to choose at times, but an interesting test. My votes were Canon and Nikon both on 6 points each, Panasonic and Sony 3 points each, AND Fuji and Leica 1 vote each. I thought I would like the Panasonic the most AND I thought I would like Fuji more. As an XT4 user, I was pretty disappointed that I only gave Fuji 1 vote (and it didn't come right until the end). I suspect I was picking up on Fuji's magenta cast (Which I hate), so that is why I think I didn't vote much for those images. Having said that I wouldn't switch to Canon or Nikon as they don't make any cameras I'd consider owning... As for Panasonic, I think I prefer their older color science - G85 and G9... Anyway, as I said the images were pretty hard to tell apart at points, so they are all pretty similar.
Great test!! Nikon ended up as the overall winner for me after ranking every photo from 1 to 6. Not super surprised as I have used Nikon a lot and always liked the color. Was however surprised to see Leica dead last on the first test, followed by Panasonic (which I also use). Was lastly very surprised that C was Canon, as I really did not like it for the skin tones in this test. With less being better, these were my scores: first test: 31 Fuji 33 Nikon 34 Canon/Sony 35 Panasonic 44 Leica Raw: (considered many as a draw, therefore lower scores) 12 Nikon 14 Sony 16 Leica 18 Fuji 19 Panasonic 20 Canon
Thanks for your work. The differences were minimal. I guess the companies' engineers make similar tests and try not to be "extravagant". Surprisingly I rated Panasonic as first and Fuji as last, but that was very close and is a matter of taste.
That was fun!! Sony, Fuji, Canon for me. Did not choose Leica once - thank you for saving me some $$!! 🤣 I switched from Fuji to Sony this past summer and this reinforces that I made the right the decision. Thanks for taking the time to pull this blind test together. I sometimes do videos like this on my channel and I know how time consuming they can be.
Fabulous testing, Andrew! Maybe because I'm a Nikon shooter - I also blindly selected "B" as my favorite in most of the scenarios, though I also selected C and D in a couple of them.
As a Nikon shooter, to me it is not surprising that "we" were able to recognize our camera brand ;) A lot of great work went into this test, that is clear. There is one caveat in that Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which visibly operates as plug-in in Photoshop (Ps) and invisibly operates as plug-in in Lightroom Classic (LrC), in my opinion, does not do a great job at what it is supposed to do: raw processing. Raw processing has a couple responsibilities: (a) guessing what the missing colours would have been, (b) dealing with jagged edges and banding. As to (a), a raw file is 100% colour noise and arguably 100% luminance noise. It has no RGB data elements, but rather monochrome that are either R, or G, or B only. This is where we have "14 bits depth" and these 14 monochrome bits need to be converted into RGB by raw processing. The result, at best is, say DxOMark, 27 bits colour space and so we get 9 bits R, 9 bits G and 9 bits B if all have identical chances, from a 14 bits monochrome. The process needed to do the conversion is "deBayerization" and "demosaicking" and what we see in e.g. LrC is the result of ACR doing that. Adobe have one or two algorithms for that and this is tweaked in run time with camera-specific parameters. "Adobe Standard" is the raw-processing-parameter-set profile that LrC chooses depending on the camera specified in the raw image's meta data. On a Windows PC it's found in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic\Resources\CameraProfiles\Adobe Standard". For, say, a Nikon Z 9, you would find the "camera brand and model specific" raw-processing-parameter-set profiles in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic\Resources\CameraProfiles\Camera\Nikon Z 9": Flat, Landscape, Monochrome (variants)Neutral, Portrait, Standard, Vivid. These "camera" profiles are Adobe's attempt at getting their raw processing to convert a raw file into what would happen in camera when you selected one of these profiles and shot SOOC JPEG. This is to say that comparing these cameras by means of ACR, we have an unknown layer of Adobe between our judgment and the underlying raw files. When I transitioned from Nikon D with F mount glass to Z with Z mount "S: class glass, it struck me that I might see some artefacts, in the Z images, almost at the pixel level, that looked like annoying noise and that could only be explained as failed raw processing, especially the demosaicking. I also noticed that my images were not as sharp or detailed as I naively had expected (naive with degrees in photography and computer science with AI and image processing, 50 years experience, professionally shot real medium and large format, etc., so naive because no prior consideration, just gut feeling expectation). Testing Topaz's Gigapixel AI, upsampling an image to 32,000 on the long side, uncovered detail that actually illustrated what was possible. It struck me that the darker "zones" (as in the "zone system") in my Z images can be bit grainy and to me, again, this is failed raw processing. Is that relevant here, in this comparison? Well, I would say yes, because I made the observation between two generations of Nikon cameras already. A proverbial sign on the wall is that Nikon after having stopped their raw processing product, relaunched it as NX Studio again. While Nikon collaborate with Adobe, they must have felt to be able to do a better job and their SOOC JPEG files are almost immaculate (now compare how long the camera needs to generate these, versus LrC/ACR on beast (98th percentile SPEC mark) workstation with 64GB RAM, 11GB video RAM, I/O type RAID 0 (write often) and RAID 1 (read often) arrays, 16 cores over 5 Ghz.) The moral of this is that ACR makes our raw files "Adobe" and this may not necessarily be the best we can get. We see 3rd party apps specialized in noise or sharpening or upsampling jump into a void in the market left by Adobe. We thought we paid Adobe to get the best raw processing, but we need to buy 3rd party apps for the really critical work. What such apps are doing is convert our raw files into a state that ACR can handle better. So along these lines, I read a rumour that Canon in some of its ML cameras actually does some noise preprocessing in the raw file. So the raw file it writes to card would be slightly modified. This looks better in ACR but takes away a bit of dynamic range, etc. One more thing in these comparisons: the ISO institute does not define "correct exposure". In the film past this was de facto defined by Kodak as almighty market leader. Testing exposure between, say, Sony, Nikon and Canon, ought to be preceded by benchmarking each camera with, say, a Sekonic meter and Sekonic reference card, that establishes usable dynamic range and correct exposure relative to Sekonic (that still works according to the old Eastman Kodak standard). Without creating this ceteris paribus baseline, any statement about how well a camera (system) deals with over-exposure is meaningless. Having migrated from the Nikon D to the Z system, I can add that my recurring rant with Nikon in the past more than 40 years with F and D cameras has been chromatic aberration and tint differences between lenses. That got silenced by the S class lenses and first Z 7, then Z 7ii. Totally. Now my rant has become ACR. (I have to add that IMO a Z 6(ii) is too warm and needs a slight WB shift towards cooler - but as I generally shoot a ColorChecker Passport in each shoot, that is easily compensated precisely. Note that the eye-dropper WB selector in LrC only makes ballpark WB/tint changes. If you want to have a correction profile across the colour space then you need to use the app with the reference card to create an ICC profile. (And don't forget that such a profile is specific to lens, ISO, light sources and levels, environment/location, etc.) So I would not worry about tint differences between my lenses any longer, but when I were to shoot a 3rd party brand, I would have to go there again. Do I prefer a perfectly "neutral" colour palette in my images? Let's say that I need a perfectly level baseline from which to apply my personalisations.
This pretty much shows that color is very subjective and can be manipulated. Unsurprisingly most I picked were Fuji and Panasonic. I have always really liked Fuji straight out of cam as they have this way of doing a warm natural presence. Like the dog on the couch the blue looks punchy and cooler but the hair on the pup is a nice vibrant warm color. Non of the others really nailed that combo as well to my eye. I shoot Panasonic so it makes sense it would be higher up there. The s5 really started to warm up their usually cool profiles they had pre gh5
Hi Andrew. Thanks for this video. A good way would be to shoot a color checker in each situation with autoexposure, auto white balance. this way you can see for example in davinci resolve with vectorscopes how far you have to drag the colors and contrast to match the exact values they need to have. This would mean that they are closer or further away to the colors they need to be (criteria of color quality) firstly you would check/correct the white balance offset, than the contrast levels (which i believe would give you some idea of dynamic range or compression). after this you would know color divergence for different areas (highlight midtones shadows) of the image. Then you could see in the vectorscopes how wrong the main colors (blue, green, red, yellow, magenta, cyan) are in hue and saturation, as well as luminance in comparison to one another. The best color in my opinion is the most accurate color to reality when the camera decides the white balance and exposure (realistic scenario)
I am writing all this because the color profiles provided from adobe would give unfair advantage to some over the others and is not entirely representative of the actual camera performance
I think it is only fair to admit that each camera showed their best at different scenes and different Adobe profiles. It was really illustrative to see those samples side by side. Somehow, having seen them all I would say A is my first preference !
Thank you for your effort! This type of video needs to get more views as it genuinely helps people to compare by themselves. The complete opposite of all these paid reviewers!
I was watching this on a Sony OLED TV. In the blind test I liked C, A, and E more than any others, which are Canon, Panasonic, and Sony. After watching, I realized this is a comparison of ~$2000 priced lenses. During the Adobe Neutral profiles, none of them really stood out much more than others. So any would be good, if you're up for editing. For what it's worth, I remember seeing a photographer win 2nd place in a national photo contest, using a disposable underwater camera (in a much different era). It's all about having fun, with whatever gear one can get their hands on. Snap away folks, snap away. Although it's still fun to watch the competition among brands.
I've just realised why I picked the Leica in every case. I've been a professional industrial photographer for 45 years. I did not choose the images based on the colour I preferred in the Raw file. I chose the Raw file which would allow me to produce the best image in post process. I suspect most people were only choosing the images based on the colours they preferred. The most neutral and the Raw files with the most useful information were those of the Leica.
The shot of the café at 8:08 is the most revealing of this test for me. Yes, all these pictures are close and the difference is not that big (but is UA-cam the best place to compare?): someone who was not there will just pick the colors he likes most. But for someone who was there, I think I couldn’t be satisfied in either case, if and only if, colors straight out of camera is something I value, and I do. I owned a Pentax K5, then a Leica Q and now the Hasselblad X1D II. I can tell you that I can’t come back, even if I appreciated the Leica pop. And the X1D II has a lot of failures…
A lot of great comments in here, but I have to be a bit skeptical how some claim to be able to ‘spot’ their particular Camera Brand. There are so many variables, and whilst Andrew did an admirable job here, all of those images thrown together makes it harder to discern, VS just an ‘A-B’ Comparison. I have and still shoot with Canon/ Nikon/ Fuji/ and LUMIX. At the end of the Day, all modern cameras are capable of producing great photos, as many have pointed out here. They are all very close. My preferences were all ‘over the map’ with some. I’m dealing with a PVD in my dominant eye right now, so my Vision is challenged some. I will say, and agree, with a few in here, that I liked the Panny colors. Do keep in mind the highly vaulted Nikon D700 camera used a sensor produced by Matsushita! My own takeaway is this: Fuji has some great profiles, but their images can suffer from the ‘wormy’ effect in some landscape photos. Watch out for that dreaded Cyan sky! Skin textures, and tint, can be a challenge at times, but I still love my Fuji’s. Canon is beloved by many Wedding/Portrait photographers. I think this comes down to the warming of colors, and the JPEG engine emphasizing the Red tones, in faces. Watch out for that Magenta cast, i.e. 5D3! 5D4 seemed to solve that, albeit a little cool. I’ve only had experience with the EOS ‘R’ on their new RF series. That sensor is NOT as good as the one in my 5D4. Nikon, which I’ve shot for many years, has a great following of fans. Nikon is known for their really good dynamic range, and I think they have some of the best metering out there. Although lately I have had a hard time with White balance on my Z7. There IS a ‘green cast’s on some images. Be careful when doing a portrait shoot. Landscapes, hard to beat Nikon. I love my G9, and enjoy picking it up to shoot. Yeah, yeah, M4/3, I get it. But the IBIS is exceptional, and when combined with a LUMIX lens with IS, it’s incredible. Most of the time, I really like the output I get from that camera. I have shots of our cats, and Dog, at ISO’s up to 6400, and you can easily count their whiskers! The 20.2 megapixel sensor more than holds its own. End of the Day, go with what You like and most importantly, go with the brand that has a great selection of Lenses. Most importantly, GO, go, and take some PHOTOS !!! 😊👍🙏
i shoot on canon because the colors are natural looking but very saturated as well. I find it works well shooting with Nikon F glass because it brings in the cool nikon tones and that classic "look" while keeping the high saturation from the canon body
Fantastic comparison, thank you🙏. Bit of a shocking result for me, I mostly picked Panasonic images, not something I would have considered and only picked one Fuji image out of the lot!😄 That said, I've never used Astia or Provia simulations on my camera, and I know it's a bit cliched and much over used, but I still shoot mainly in Classic Chrome (though with a little change the to the receipe) and love my Fujifilm camera.👍
Yup. Nikon/Canon were what I liked the best - consistent with my preference. I also correctly guessed the Velvia profile on Fuji since that's my favorite slide film! :)
I'm new to this and for jpegs I preferred Fuji and Canon, Fuji slightly ahead; For raws it seems I love Fuji, dislike Leica, and the other 4 were negligible ties. My method was averaging, then preference. If 4 photos agreed on a level of green luminance, or some other color detail, I isolated those as more "correct", and the other two would be on the backburner. I tried to average as much as I could, then picked the one I liked best. My inherent bias would be using Apple products so their cameras and whatever colors they choose.
Appreciate the effort put into this video. Nikon was my favourite, followed by Sony. Surprisingly, Canon came in last. I only blind-ranked the first test. I personally found panning across the photos very distracting and would have preferred flipping between them.
FBDAEC Every camera had some good looking shots but I found myself consistently choosing F & B over the others. I was actually expecting "B" to be Fuji because I didn't think there was any way that you were going to make "F" be Fuji and "C" be Canon lol. It seemed like Sony and Canon had a tendency to lean more into green hues while the two that I chose lean more into the reds. I wonder where Olympus would fit into my list.
Curious, I generally found Sony and Leica the most compelling in landscape sometimes Fuji mostly in the portrait test, and Canon only for the Low Light Motel one
This comparison is about color, but one detail has caught my attention: the sensation of three-dimensionality and color gradients in general, but especially in skin tones. For me Nikon has been the best in those aspects. And Fuji's results have seemed the flattest to me.
I set up a Point system for 1st 2nd & 3rd pic of each set. Canon came in 1st Place with 34pts, Sony Came in 2nd with 16pts, and Nikon/Panasonic tied for 3rd with 8pts ea. Not surprised, I have always loved Canon's color science. P.S. I did not cheat, I truly wanted to know if my preferences had changed because I sold my Nikon equipment a couple years ago and am looking into getting back into photography!
Thank you for the video and effort, the motion blur during the stills motion makes it very difficult to judge the differences beyond color saturation and color depth. I did however enjoy the video. Not sure if you uploaded to the "youtuber" 24fps thing but UA-cam actually processes video at 29.97 which might help with those artificial motion artifacts. Again, thank you I really did enjoy this video very much!
Oh and on similar topic the new Panasonic s5ii has a very interesting new feature called real time lut... I do have a video on my channel that talks a about it a bit if you are interested
A is constantly best for me for colour and sharpness, followed by B and D. C and F clearly suffer from contrast issues and lower dynamic range. Not liking the colours on E
Many thanks for showing me this i put a lot more confidence back in the camera i have. seeing these together was a great insight as i was wondering if i had bought the wrong camera. I got the fugiflim xt 4 but when i take landscapes very look like i was looking a bit through a green filter. But maybe thats just me not setting up right ..God knows so many setting in these cameras now it boggles the mind i need a check list before taking a shot ....whats when out comes my phone comes out Click and its done. Oh the joys of cameras ...gulp
My choice changed with every photo, so that just tells me that there isn't a bad camera and it really boils down to how ergonomic it feels to you. I shoot with canon and panasonic currently, but started with nikon and have also owned fuji. All fantastic cameras. There is so much choice out there, we really are spoilt.
Yeah I agree Nikon nearly every time. And yes I’m a Panasonic FF shooter, absolutely loving the new April 2024 firmware for the S5iix. The Nikon tones which were so vibrant are easily set up in the Panasonic which is so customisable. I rarely use photoshop, Lightroom Classic is my go to software mostly if I’m going to use anything after shooting RAW.
I would suggest not doing moving images next time since our eyes have bad visual acuity with sample and hold displays, thats why they shoot video with double the frame rate as shutter speed for the motion blur to make it look correct. Still images switched between also makes it very easy to compare, or even just all at once.
With the Adobe profile there was less difference between the shots, but for me the order was B/C (equal) A D E, and I wouldn't touch F if you paid me to use them. Now going to watch the reveal and see if my Canon was a mistake to purchase... Ok, I didn't expect Fuji would be the one I liked least, Mikon/Canon equal, so I guess I didn't waste my money.
I just switched from Nikon to Sony, and Sony turned out to be my overwhelming favorite in this blind test. Funny this validated my choice a bit. I was surprised that Nikon, Cannon and Fuji tied for second place. I do really enjoy the color and definition in Sony shots, but I am not surprised since this is what prompted me to switch to an A7iii. I wonder if I will consider Nikon mirrorless systems in the future, once they feels more established with better selection of native lenses. For now, I feel like I made the right choice. At the end, it feels like personal sensibilities play as much a role as quality in choice. Cool test, thank you!
Gheez as a Sony shooter I was for sure surprised, I didn't like the look of E as a blind test. The tones of Nikon and Fuji looked the most natural to me. Things get even more complicated because every display the video is watched on is different
I was drawn to A the most, and I’m currently using lumix! D was second, color science mostly didn’t matter for photos. Consistent auto white balance is what’s important because that is what ruins colors imo.
Wow I kept picking F and C but when it came to adobe color profiles I was all over the place. I was starting to expect them in the same order but good work on randomizing the order of the pics.
I wonder how much of the slight differences in color once the photos all used the same color profiles were caused by the lens difference and not the camera difference. I know a lot of the lenses I use render color very differently from one another.
Awesome co parisin and I love that you used adobe as well to show that without the house color processing theyre scarily close to each other. I liked canon here because I have a thing for magenta, especially in the wood on the indoor shot. Nikon also looked great, even nikon. Somehow leica was my least favorite, but I sure wouldn't complain if someone dropped one in my hands to use. A tiny white balance miss or tweak makes up a bigger difference than the cameras themselves. Now just for chaos, how about a comparison of legendary cameras for color and ones legendary for rather poorer color? Throw a canon 5D or 5Dmk2, nikon D700, and for funk an a7 original in the mix.. anyways.
I preferred Sony on the very first picture and I think that biased my choice for the rest of the video. Although I did find myself liking the Panny Boy. Apparently, I wasn't blown away by the company I own and shoot with every day... Fuji.
Good surprise for me. Shot Sony video for years and always struggles with the color. It was definitely bottom of my list here. Shifted to…. Nikon… hybrid shooter wildlife and video and made the leap hoping long term Nikon comes through in mirror less. I assumed my top pick was Fuji or Panasonic. But it went 1. Nikon 2. Panasonic 3. Fuji / canon didn’t see that coming! Thanks this was a great test.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This video deserves atleast half a million views. This kind of content (color science comparison) is first of it's kind in UA-cam. Appreciate the effort behind the video. Keep clicking 📸
I think my biggest surprise was how little of a "real" difference I saw. I'm sure if you could compare the output to the actual objects in the image you could see which was the most faithful reproduction but given that I don't know exactly what shade that couch was for example, I had a hard time consistently picking one over the others consistently. Maybe I'm just getting old or something.
Honestly, it is quite refreshing knowing how little it seems to matter for me.
Today no matter what camera you shoot with, you can make any color with post-processing... Moreover, even inside the brand, each model has personal picture color...
Good comment and I think You're right on track. 😊
I would echo this comment. They were all very usable files. Surprisingly I only disliked Leica somewhat. It was hard to pick a clear favorite but I leaned toward Fuji and then Canon but again all were usable.
They all seemed to be great generally speaking. Not one was overwhelmingly better than the other IMO.
Yet another proof, that most cameras are good enough these days, especially if you shoot raw. It's glass that matters and all systems have good glass these days. I think it is getting more and more to the point where it's just a matter of taste, things like weight and UI/design preference.
I wonder if differences are more apparent before the images were squished into video and further squashed by UA-cam. 🤔
@@BenjaminSandness Most likely. But then again all of them are on the same compression. Maybe downloading the raw files might be good for some folks to judge.
For me F > C > A > E > B > D
I noticed more differences when zoomed in. That said all produce acceptable images. I attribute that more to the photographer than the
That was a MASSIVE amount of work! Thank you so much for you gift of time.
Like others have said, surprised at how small the differences were. You were somewhat bummed about the weather but at the end of the day I think the light from the weather challenged the cameras so the results showed their capabilities.
Thanks again.
The thing that stood out to me was that, for the most part, the shots were so similar that I didn't feel strongly for or against any of them. I noted that the shots of the cafe in the snow, A, B, and C seemed to have punchier reds, and I feel like Fuji had brighter greens in the next series(trees in foreground, mountains and fog in background).
Honestly, in some shots you see a difference.. But for the most part, it's so small.
And factor that you'd very rarely be comparing photos when you see them, you just see what's in front of you.
This just made it even more clear to me to just use what you have and make it work.
No one should buy a camera for color science unless it's for videography where color grading is more of a pain, but still doable.
@@anonymousl5150 very good point.. And even then, if you have grading skills, you can make it work.
@@anonymousl5150 I disagree. It will help your workflow tremendously
Thank you for this 😊 As a Nikon shooter for over 20 years I wasn't surprised to see Nikon in my top two... I picked the Fuji skin tones too, but as a predominantly landscape shooter, I was really surprised Sony was my second choice 🎉
I was surprised to find that I preferred the Panasonic color rendering overall, followed perhaps by Leica though the differences between Leica and the others were less noticeable. Panasonic seemed to employ a lower contrast which rendered more detail in the highlights and shadows and the colors were true and saturated, at least to my eye. I shoot with Sony and tend to prefer vintage lenses, and the lenses would contribute strongly to the color in my photos. I also prefer a slightly warmish tone, such as one normally gets with Takumar lenses. An interesting comparison. Thanks.
Same! I really liked Panasonic's rendering, and was surprised that I consistently preferred Fuji the least (except for people shots), even though I've been a Fuji shooter for a while now.
Smart Man! 😊 Yes, I am a bit biased to Panny colors. To each their own as they say.
I shot almost exclusively Nikon from 1971 until 2010, starting with an F and ending with a D300. I've been shooting Fuji since 2018. So while I also found my biases similar to yours, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could live with any of them.
Seems like a lot of people's favourites ended up being brands they currently own or used to own. I wonder if working with pictures from a particular manufacturer over a long period of time influences what people see as desirable colours in an image.
did for me liked E then A i shoot E
I have a Fuji and a GRiii and i found i liked Nikon best, i'm shook
@@coryirvin6651 same here I have Fuji, but Nikon came 1st here
Not true I shoot Nikon and Sony. And I liked most Lecia Nikon and Canon. Taking that some cameras shoot 8bit color and some 10 bit on this list
Hi Andrew, great test, I felt the same way as you. Nikon was my favorite, followed closely by Fuji. Have been shooting with Nikon all my life and switched to Fuji 2 years ago because of size, weight and cost. So I'm glad I wasn't completely wrong with my choice so far. Thanks for the effort. I wish you continued success! Really enjoy watching your videos. You have taught me a lot about Fuji. Thanks for that! Best regards from Germany.
I keep coming back to this video. Thank you so much for the large amount of hard work you put into this. I really appreciate it.
...did you use "auto white balance"? and generally the f
3:50 Keep in mind the cameras/raw files have embedded profiles, so which ones did you use? this can change the image massively to just a bit.
like Sony:
PT is slightly brighter than St, SH is used where there image is too dark all over, it recovers the shadows. if the image lacks color and contrast VV for vivid is might be suitable.
But keep in mind these don't always work with every image, so see what fits. sometimes St is the best option.
Thanks for making this comparison Andrew! Conclusion: Any camera made in the last five years is probably good enough!
First place: nikon, fuji, sony, lica, panasonic, and lastly canon. I feel I was looking more at white balance, but they are interconnected.
Predominantly I went with F on most of them apart from landscapes where I was a bit split. So when you revealed Fuji being F it made sense as I have shot with it for years and clearly that colour is embedded in my brain.
It was similar for me. Fuji for portraits and some others. Landscapes where going to Sony in my case and I did give the win to Canon in the low light
I liked the punchier images from Nikon and Sony, sometimes I also liked the Fuji images. As long as you shoot RAW, color is not the deciding factor I think. I shoot Fuji, but with noticeable RAW editing, so it really doesn't matter. The look and feel is way more important for me. Nice test!
I did not have a favorite but there was one candidate I really did not like and that was the Sony output. On the other hand what we see here is Adobes interpretation of the colour. Things might look slightly different with Capture One or DXO or another raw converter.
I’ve been shooting Fuji since the XE1 was new, and I was able to pick it out as F pretty quickly. But later in the video with some profiles I never use, I started to have some doubts. Anyway, I strongly prefer Fuji Provia, and your video confirms my choice for me. I hope others find that they’ve invested in what they like, too. Thanks for the video.
This is great! I'm really glad you put this together. But it's hard to compare the images with the slow pans and there's not really enough time with each photo to fully analyze. I think just a static shot showing all 6 options held for maybe 20-30 seconds would allow easier comparison between the images.
I liked the Leica images. I was expecting to pick Nikon or Fujifilm. 🤷♂The Leica is just *a little* out of my price range.
What it told me was that brand doesn't matter that much. I would be happy with any of these shots.
Absolutely! Color is so subjective, and these are so close I doubt anyone could look at any one of these images in isolation, and tell which camera/lens took the image. Maybe it's just me, but have any of you ever noticed that if you look at a scene first with one eye and then the other, there are subtle differences in color? My left eye has more magenta and my right more green. Subtle, but there.
*SPOILER ALERT*
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B was almost consistently my preference. When I saw that B is Nikon, I wasn't surprised. I've been shooting Nikon for many years and I think its color rendition has grown on me. I've gotten accustomed to expecting a certain RAW result when I go shoot and so far Nikon's color has not disappointed me every time I need it to represent a scene accurately. The way Nikon handles colors makes color grading so much easier.
Next time please use SPOILER ALERT in your comment and leave some space between that and your opinion, not to ruin the “game” for the others. Your comment was the first showing up when I opened the video.
Thanks for the spoiler.
Nikon was definitely better in my opinion. I wasn't surprised by that, after shooting with almost every brand I've been always most satisfied with Nikon files.
I pretty consistently like Fuji and Panasonic in the first blind test, and also liked Canon in some cases, really didn't vibe with Nikon and Leica was hit or miss. With Adobe profiles I consistently liked Leica, which seemed to render very neutral compared to its brand profile that feels a bit too pushed sometimes. Still like Panasonic a lot and Fuji didn't looks as good. I use Leica SL system myself and use adobe standard profile so I guess my pick for Leica/Panasonic is consistent with my own likings, although it is insteresting how the two despite their collaborations have visibly different colour science (and are both good to me).
Fantastic wee vid where we make our own minds up on colour: I tested myself with the first 10 and wow B (Nikon smoked it), then A and C tied 2nd, then D 3rd. E and F tied last with E consistantly sub par and F most inconsistant. Didn't realise Nikon colours were that good they were fantastic
I think you really stepped up this test over your previous color tests so bravo on the implementation. I think using RAW-to-adobe color profile was genius considering there is so much chatter about easy raw conversion to get great colors with minimal work (CCD cameras in particular). The test images were great too. The little girls (good variety of skin tones BTW) and restaurant in the blizzard (white and color rendition) informed most of my opinions. So yeah, very useful.
My take-away was surprisingly validating to how I see brand colors. Except Nikon which really stood out to me. With all the added yellow/warmth I assumed it was Leica.
Sony was my least favorite so maybe their reputation for poorer skin tones is warranted, but I would buy one in a minute if it handled the best. Oh yeah, biggest take-away is that operation and handling are my top reasons to buy a camera because all of these were so close that even the worst image looked easily fixable and never terrible to begin with. So, yeah, Fuji all day long for me.
I also want to add that my lenses have huge impact on color rendition. My Sony system produced nice and real life like greens with the 20mm 1.8, far more brilliand and saturated reds and blues on my 100-400. On my Nikon Z system, there is not much difference between the lenses, let's see what the future brings
True, when I use my little 55mm 1.8 from Sony everything changes, so it's not just the camera but also the lenses you use and this test doesn't take that into account. But you're right, you can get them to look exactly the same with 30 seconds in your favourite raw editing software so it really doesn't matter. I picked Sony because I'm not rich and it's the best value for money full frame system plus a good selection of third party lenses. Everyone have different needs so that's why we have different cameras, they are all so good nowadays that you jou can blindly pick the one that fits your needs best without worrying about image quality.
Wonderful to see another new video Andrew, excellent effort went into this!
Thanks!
Would it better for you to test which camera has the best accurrate AWB that it produce the most accurate color? Will every piece of them fail for the test?
I’m a little bit surprised to find that at a quick glance (not really pausing it to look in great detail) I most often picked the two camera brands I own (Canon and Fuji). I halfway expected to be surprised by liking the Leica colors better but nope. In spite of the tremendous work it must have been to make I would have liked to see some in camera JPEG’s especially something like Fuji’s Astia or Classic Chrome or Pro Neg Hi vs something like Canon’s Fine Detail picture style. But major points to you for even having the energy to undertake something like this !
I’m sure they all have great things but for me, learning on the Fuji XT3 was so easy. The tactile experience and the quick access to all major “knobs” just let me focus on photography, not just trying to find my way around all settings. It’s a professional camera so one to learn on and grow into.
Superior camera stands out in harsher light environment. For example street under strong noon sunlight, or later afternoon backlite sunlight. Under good lighting, i feel you can adjust color around to make it flattering easily.
I rarely liked B and C and was picking E F and A most of the time in that order.
As a 37 year Nikon shooter, I too was surprised. The last 4 Nikon digital cameras I have owned have all had that color punch. That is consistent with the comments I get back from people who view my work. "I can't believe the color.", "Wow your pictures are so bright and rich.", "The details are so distinct and colorful." are comments I have received on Nikon shot photos. Sure I am a proud fan boy, so save your flame. 🤣🤣🤣
Friend great test! It's really hard to make a choice by view since you did not show a separate photo in full screen! It's good that you can download them from your site, just explain how you can buy all your rav files from this video? there is a column number of copies what does it mean? could you explain? What should I choose to buy all the files?
Once you calibrate your camera using a color checker chart… you no longer see any difference. I did it last year with a Panasonic S1R (which is more a flag ship camera than the S5) and the Leica SL2. I was upset by people saying the Leica Colors are better… so I bought a SL2 along my S1R and made the test… exactly the same colors once calibrated …
I sold back the SL2 the same price I bought and was happy to solve this.
Similar to how Fujifilm glass, and how it renders photos, is fantastic… Nikon glass, specifically the S Line glass, is such high quality and amazing. The internet will make it seem like Nikon cameras don’t have auto focus, and I’m sure Canon and Sony’s AF is better. But I’ll photograph an entire wedding with no shots out of focus. I’ve been photographing my kids hockey the last 2 months (indoor, fast action) and don’t have any shots out of focus. Nikon bodies are good enough, and I feel like the glass is better than competitors.
C and F were consistently my favourites, but wasn’t surprised that it was Canon and Fuji. I still own my Fuji system but switched from Canon to Sony. The images were still pretty close and when using the Adobe colours I honestly had no real preference. I use Adobe anyway and can still make my files look fantastic with the Sony. I love that this test just shows that colours are very subjective, but can also be edited to what you need in post. Great job!
Andrew Compares is one of my favourite formats on your channel, because I respect your eye for colour nuance. I feel like you are one of the most trustworthy sources for that colour difference when I can't get a rental copy.
I actually went with fujicron lenses over viltrox's faster versions because you showed that subtle yellow cast in the skin hues from the XF glass on the 50f2 which I own. And one of my biggest frustrations with fujifilm colour is Red and Magenta hues in the skin.
You've saved me hundreds of dollars so far. 😂
That's great to hear! Thanks for your comment
You truly made it Andrew. Even as a colorblind person I could not wait to watch your video about colors and brands :D Thank you for your video (y)
Thanks for taking the time to create this comparison. I placed E and A last in most comparisons. The worst image of all was A on the Snowy service station. Second worse was E on the first landscape picture.
But apparently I should buy a Leica because it ended up in the top most often while only using one colour profile.
Why did some of the images have such pixelisation? When you lose resolution there must be a loss in colour gradient is my belief. I watched on a 55 inch 4k colour calibrated oled.
Very nice. I was debating A vs C and thought they would be the lumix and lieca.. I was surprised to see the lieca is the D...bottom line A,B, C were absolutely great
It was hard to choose at times, but an interesting test. My votes were Canon and Nikon both on 6 points each, Panasonic and Sony 3 points each, AND Fuji and Leica 1 vote each. I thought I would like the Panasonic the most AND I thought I would like Fuji more. As an XT4 user, I was pretty disappointed that I only gave Fuji 1 vote (and it didn't come right until the end). I suspect I was picking up on Fuji's magenta cast (Which I hate), so that is why I think I didn't vote much for those images. Having said that I wouldn't switch to Canon or Nikon as they don't make any cameras I'd consider owning... As for Panasonic, I think I prefer their older color science - G85 and G9... Anyway, as I said the images were pretty hard to tell apart at points, so they are all pretty similar.
Great test!! Nikon ended up as the overall winner for me after ranking every photo from 1 to 6. Not super surprised as I have used Nikon a lot and always liked the color. Was however surprised to see Leica dead last on the first test, followed by Panasonic (which I also use). Was lastly very surprised that C was Canon, as I really did not like it for the skin tones in this test.
With less being better, these were my scores:
first test:
31 Fuji
33 Nikon
34 Canon/Sony
35 Panasonic
44 Leica
Raw: (considered many as a draw, therefore lower scores)
12 Nikon
14 Sony
16 Leica
18 Fuji
19 Panasonic
20 Canon
Thanks for your work. The differences were minimal. I guess the companies' engineers make similar tests and try not to be "extravagant". Surprisingly I rated Panasonic as first and Fuji as last, but that was very close and is a matter of taste.
That was fun!! Sony, Fuji, Canon for me. Did not choose Leica once - thank you for saving me some $$!! 🤣 I switched from Fuji to Sony this past summer and this reinforces that I made the right the decision. Thanks for taking the time to pull this blind test together. I sometimes do videos like this on my channel and I know how time consuming they can be.
Very happy to see more comparisons from you and I hope to have you back in my feed regularly
Thanks Eric
The Fuji skin tones at 5:32 ❤
Fabulous testing, Andrew! Maybe because I'm a Nikon shooter - I also blindly selected "B" as my favorite in most of the scenarios, though I also selected C and D in a couple of them.
Good to see you back ! Keep up the good work and thank you for the video.
As a Nikon shooter, to me it is not surprising that "we" were able to recognize our camera brand ;) A lot of great work went into this test, that is clear.
There is one caveat in that Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which visibly operates as plug-in in Photoshop (Ps) and invisibly operates as plug-in in Lightroom Classic (LrC), in my opinion, does not do a great job at what it is supposed to do: raw processing. Raw processing has a couple responsibilities: (a) guessing what the missing colours would have been, (b) dealing with jagged edges and banding. As to (a), a raw file is 100% colour noise and arguably 100% luminance noise. It has no RGB data elements, but rather monochrome that are either R, or G, or B only. This is where we have "14 bits depth" and these 14 monochrome bits need to be converted into RGB by raw processing. The result, at best is, say DxOMark, 27 bits colour space and so we get 9 bits R, 9 bits G and 9 bits B if all have identical chances, from a 14 bits monochrome. The process needed to do the conversion is "deBayerization" and "demosaicking" and what we see in e.g. LrC is the result of ACR doing that. Adobe have one or two algorithms for that and this is tweaked in run time with camera-specific parameters. "Adobe Standard" is the raw-processing-parameter-set profile that LrC chooses depending on the camera specified in the raw image's meta data. On a Windows PC it's found in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic\Resources\CameraProfiles\Adobe Standard". For, say, a Nikon Z 9, you would find the "camera brand and model specific" raw-processing-parameter-set profiles in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic\Resources\CameraProfiles\Camera\Nikon Z 9": Flat, Landscape, Monochrome (variants)Neutral, Portrait, Standard, Vivid.
These "camera" profiles are Adobe's attempt at getting their raw processing to convert a raw file into what would happen in camera when you selected one of these profiles and shot SOOC JPEG.
This is to say that comparing these cameras by means of ACR, we have an unknown layer of Adobe between our judgment and the underlying raw files.
When I transitioned from Nikon D with F mount glass to Z with Z mount "S: class glass, it struck me that I might see some artefacts, in the Z images, almost at the pixel level, that looked like annoying noise and that could only be explained as failed raw processing, especially the demosaicking.
I also noticed that my images were not as sharp or detailed as I naively had expected (naive with degrees in photography and computer science with AI and image processing, 50 years experience, professionally shot real medium and large format, etc., so naive because no prior consideration, just gut feeling expectation).
Testing Topaz's Gigapixel AI, upsampling an image to 32,000 on the long side, uncovered detail that actually illustrated what was possible.
It struck me that the darker "zones" (as in the "zone system") in my Z images can be bit grainy and to me, again, this is failed raw processing.
Is that relevant here, in this comparison? Well, I would say yes, because I made the observation between two generations of Nikon cameras already. A proverbial sign on the wall is that Nikon after having stopped their raw processing product, relaunched it as NX Studio again.
While Nikon collaborate with Adobe, they must have felt to be able to do a better job and their SOOC JPEG files are almost immaculate (now compare how long the camera needs to generate these, versus LrC/ACR on beast (98th percentile SPEC mark) workstation with 64GB RAM, 11GB video RAM, I/O type RAID 0 (write often) and RAID 1 (read often) arrays, 16 cores over 5 Ghz.)
The moral of this is that ACR makes our raw files "Adobe" and this may not necessarily be the best we can get.
We see 3rd party apps specialized in noise or sharpening or upsampling jump into a void in the market left by Adobe. We thought we paid Adobe to get the best raw processing, but we need to buy 3rd party apps for the really critical work.
What such apps are doing is convert our raw files into a state that ACR can handle better.
So along these lines, I read a rumour that Canon in some of its ML cameras actually does some noise preprocessing in the raw file. So the raw file it writes to card would be slightly modified. This looks better in ACR but takes away a bit of dynamic range, etc.
One more thing in these comparisons: the ISO institute does not define "correct exposure". In the film past this was de facto defined by Kodak as almighty market leader. Testing exposure between, say, Sony, Nikon and Canon, ought to be preceded by benchmarking each camera with, say, a Sekonic meter and Sekonic reference card, that establishes usable dynamic range and correct exposure relative to Sekonic (that still works according to the old Eastman Kodak standard). Without creating this ceteris paribus baseline, any statement about how well a camera (system) deals with over-exposure is meaningless.
Having migrated from the Nikon D to the Z system, I can add that my recurring rant with Nikon in the past more than 40 years with F and D cameras has been chromatic aberration and tint differences between lenses. That got silenced by the S class lenses and first Z 7, then Z 7ii. Totally. Now my rant has become ACR. (I have to add that IMO a Z 6(ii) is too warm and needs a slight WB shift towards cooler - but as I generally shoot a ColorChecker Passport in each shoot, that is easily compensated precisely. Note that the eye-dropper WB selector in LrC only makes ballpark WB/tint changes. If you want to have a correction profile across the colour space then you need to use the app with the reference card to create an ICC profile. (And don't forget that such a profile is specific to lens, ISO, light sources and levels, environment/location, etc.) So I would not worry about tint differences between my lenses any longer, but when I were to shoot a 3rd party brand, I would have to go there again.
Do I prefer a perfectly "neutral" colour palette in my images? Let's say that I need a perfectly level baseline from which to apply my personalisations.
Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge, experiences and the insightful write-up about post processing which is something new to me.
Thanks for the great video! Its great to see you back out here!
They were quite similar but I often seemed to prefer A, C and D. I was surprised that neither of those were Fuji though.
the panning of the photos looks jittery, I'd prefer if it were static pictures
Thanks for the feedback
This pretty much shows that color is very subjective and can be manipulated. Unsurprisingly most I picked were Fuji and Panasonic. I have always really liked Fuji straight out of cam as they have this way of doing a warm natural presence. Like the dog on the couch the blue looks punchy and cooler but the hair on the pup is a nice vibrant warm color. Non of the others really nailed that combo as well to my eye.
I shoot Panasonic so it makes sense it would be higher up there. The s5 really started to warm up their usually cool profiles they had pre gh5
Hi Andrew. Thanks for this video. A good way would be to shoot a color checker in each situation with autoexposure, auto white balance. this way you can see for example in davinci resolve with vectorscopes how far you have to drag the colors and contrast to match the exact values they need to have. This would mean that they are closer or further away to the colors they need to be (criteria of color quality) firstly you would check/correct the white balance offset, than the contrast levels (which i believe would give you some idea of dynamic range or compression). after this you would know color divergence for different areas (highlight midtones shadows) of the image. Then you could see in the vectorscopes how wrong the main colors (blue, green, red, yellow, magenta, cyan) are in hue and saturation, as well as luminance in comparison to one another. The best color in my opinion is the most accurate color to reality when the camera decides the white balance and exposure (realistic scenario)
I am writing all this because the color profiles provided from adobe would give unfair advantage to some over the others and is not entirely representative of the actual camera performance
I think it is only fair to admit that each camera showed their best at different scenes and different Adobe profiles. It was really illustrative to see those samples side by side. Somehow, having seen them all I would say A is my first preference !
Right on!
Awesome effort here, Andrew!
Thank you for your effort! This type of video needs to get more views as it genuinely helps people to compare by themselves. The complete opposite of all these paid reviewers!
I was watching this on a Sony OLED TV. In the blind test I liked C, A, and E more than any others, which are Canon, Panasonic, and Sony. After watching, I realized this is a comparison of ~$2000 priced lenses. During the Adobe Neutral profiles, none of them really stood out much more than others. So any would be good, if you're up for editing. For what it's worth, I remember seeing a photographer win 2nd place in a national photo contest, using a disposable underwater camera (in a much different era). It's all about having fun, with whatever gear one can get their hands on. Snap away folks, snap away. Although it's still fun to watch the competition among brands.
For me F > C > A > E > B > D
Very interesting. Thanks for all the hard work on this one. Brilliant.
I'm going to buy soon the first mirrorless camera - Nikon Z5 or Z6ii. I watched your blind test and I chose B - Nikon. Thanks.
I have shot with Fujifilm , Canon , Nikon , Sony , Olympus.
So my preferred colour is Nikon , Olympus , Fujifilm , Canon & lastly Sony.
I've just realised why I picked the Leica in every case. I've been a professional industrial photographer for 45 years. I did not choose the images based on the colour I preferred in the Raw file. I chose the Raw file which would allow me to produce the best image in post process. I suspect most people were only choosing the images based on the colours they preferred. The most neutral and the Raw files with the most useful information were those of the Leica.
I’m a Leica SL2S shooter and thought the same thing
The shot of the café at 8:08 is the most revealing of this test for me. Yes, all these pictures are close and the difference is not that big (but is UA-cam the best place to compare?): someone who was not there will just pick the colors he likes most. But for someone who was there, I think I couldn’t be satisfied in either case, if and only if, colors straight out of camera is something I value, and I do. I owned a Pentax K5, then a Leica Q and now the Hasselblad X1D II. I can tell you that I can’t come back, even if I appreciated the Leica pop. And the X1D II has a lot of failures…
A lot of great comments in here, but I have to be a bit skeptical how some claim to be able to ‘spot’ their particular Camera Brand. There are so many variables, and whilst Andrew did an admirable job here, all of those images thrown together makes it harder to discern, VS just an ‘A-B’ Comparison.
I have and still shoot with Canon/ Nikon/ Fuji/ and LUMIX. At the end of the Day, all modern cameras are capable of producing great photos, as many have pointed out here. They are all very close.
My preferences were all ‘over the map’ with some. I’m dealing with a PVD in my dominant eye right now, so my Vision is challenged some. I will say, and agree, with a few in here, that I liked the Panny colors. Do keep in mind the highly vaulted Nikon D700 camera used a sensor produced by Matsushita!
My own takeaway is this: Fuji has some great profiles, but their images can suffer from the ‘wormy’ effect in some landscape photos. Watch out for that dreaded Cyan sky! Skin textures, and tint, can be
a challenge at times, but I still love my Fuji’s.
Canon is beloved by many Wedding/Portrait photographers. I think this comes down to the warming of colors, and the JPEG engine emphasizing the Red tones, in faces. Watch out for that Magenta cast, i.e. 5D3! 5D4 seemed to solve that, albeit a little cool. I’ve only had experience with the EOS ‘R’ on their new RF series. That sensor is NOT as good as the one in my 5D4.
Nikon, which I’ve shot for many years, has a great following of fans. Nikon is known for their really good dynamic range, and I think they have some of the best metering out there. Although lately I have had a hard time with White balance on my Z7. There IS a ‘green cast’s on some images. Be careful when doing a portrait shoot. Landscapes, hard to beat Nikon.
I love my G9, and enjoy picking it up to shoot. Yeah, yeah, M4/3, I get it. But the IBIS is exceptional, and when combined with a LUMIX lens with IS, it’s incredible. Most of the time, I really like the output I get from that camera. I have shots of our cats, and Dog, at ISO’s up to 6400, and you can easily count their whiskers! The 20.2 megapixel sensor more than holds its own.
End of the Day, go with what You like and most importantly, go with the brand that has a great selection of Lenses. Most importantly, GO, go, and take some PHOTOS !!! 😊👍🙏
i shoot on canon because the colors are natural looking but very saturated as well. I find it works well shooting with Nikon F glass because it brings in the cool nikon tones and that classic "look" while keeping the high saturation from the canon body
Great stuff Andrew!! Amazing how close they all were.
They really are. A decade ago the differences were MUCH more stark.
Fantastic comparison, thank you🙏. Bit of a shocking result for me, I mostly picked Panasonic images, not something I would have considered and only picked one Fuji image out of the lot!😄 That said, I've never used Astia or Provia simulations on my camera, and I know it's a bit cliched and much over used, but I still shoot mainly in Classic Chrome (though with a little change the to the receipe) and love my Fujifilm camera.👍
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Yup. Nikon/Canon were what I liked the best - consistent with my preference.
I also correctly guessed the Velvia profile on Fuji since that's my favorite slide film! :)
I'm new to this and for jpegs I preferred Fuji and Canon, Fuji slightly ahead; For raws it seems I love Fuji, dislike Leica, and the other 4 were negligible ties. My method was averaging, then preference. If 4 photos agreed on a level of green luminance, or some other color detail, I isolated those as more "correct", and the other two would be on the backburner. I tried to average as much as I could, then picked the one I liked best. My inherent bias would be using Apple products so their cameras and whatever colors they choose.
Appreciate the effort put into this video. Nikon was my favourite, followed by Sony. Surprisingly, Canon came in last. I only blind-ranked the first test.
I personally found panning across the photos very distracting and would have preferred flipping between them.
FBDAEC
Every camera had some good looking shots but I found myself consistently choosing F & B over the others. I was actually expecting "B" to be Fuji because I didn't think there was any way that you were going to make "F" be Fuji and "C" be Canon lol.
It seemed like Sony and Canon had a tendency to lean more into green hues while the two that I chose lean more into the reds.
I wonder where Olympus would fit into my list.
Great video. Thanks and happy New Year!
Curious, I generally found Sony and Leica the most compelling in landscape sometimes Fuji mostly in the portrait test, and Canon only for the Low Light Motel one
This comparison is about color, but one detail has caught my attention: the sensation of three-dimensionality and color gradients in general, but especially in skin tones. For me Nikon has been the best in those aspects. And Fuji's results have seemed the flattest to me.
Having now owned canon, Nikon, and Sony mirrorless systems - I can say without a doubt that this is the case
Great video. I would also have loved to hear your thoughts on which photo you preferred live as you were going through them.
I set up a Point system for 1st 2nd & 3rd pic of each set.
Canon came in 1st Place with 34pts, Sony Came in 2nd with 16pts, and Nikon/Panasonic tied for 3rd with 8pts ea. Not surprised, I have always loved Canon's color science.
P.S. I did not cheat, I truly wanted to know if my preferences had changed because I sold my Nikon equipment a couple years ago and am looking into getting back into photography!
Thank you for the video and effort, the motion blur during the stills motion makes it very difficult to judge the differences beyond color saturation and color depth. I did however enjoy the video. Not sure if you uploaded to the "youtuber" 24fps thing but UA-cam actually processes video at 29.97 which might help with those artificial motion artifacts. Again, thank you I really did enjoy this video very much!
Really enjoyed this comparison. I do love Fuji colors but also liked Nikon - which I have never used. 😮
Interesting test! The difference is much smaller than I thought. happy new year Andrew!
Oh and on similar topic the new Panasonic s5ii has a very interesting new feature called real time lut... I do have a video on my channel that talks a about it a bit if you are interested
Very cool! I'm not up on my Panasonic tech developments.
A is constantly best for me for colour and sharpness, followed by B and D. C and F clearly suffer from contrast issues and lower dynamic range. Not liking the colours on E
Many thanks for showing me this i put a lot more confidence back in the camera i have. seeing these together was a great insight as i was wondering if i had bought the wrong camera.
I got the fugiflim xt 4 but when i take landscapes very look like i was looking a bit through a green filter. But maybe thats just me not setting up right ..God knows so many setting in these cameras now it boggles the mind i need a check list before taking a shot ....whats when out comes my phone comes out Click and its done. Oh the joys of cameras ...gulp
My choice changed with every photo, so that just tells me that there isn't a bad camera and it really boils down to how ergonomic it feels to you. I shoot with canon and panasonic currently, but started with nikon and have also owned fuji. All fantastic cameras. There is so much choice out there, we really are spoilt.
Yeah I agree Nikon nearly every time. And yes I’m a Panasonic FF shooter, absolutely loving the new April 2024 firmware for the S5iix. The Nikon tones which were so vibrant are easily set up in the Panasonic which is so customisable. I rarely use photoshop, Lightroom Classic is my go to software mostly if I’m going to use anything after shooting RAW.
I would suggest not doing moving images next time since our eyes have bad visual acuity with sample and hold displays, thats why they shoot video with double the frame rate as shutter speed for the motion blur to make it look correct.
Still images switched between also makes it very easy to compare, or even just all at once.
With the Adobe profile there was less difference between the shots, but for me the order was B/C (equal) A D E, and I wouldn't touch F if you paid me to use them. Now going to watch the reveal and see if my Canon was a mistake to purchase... Ok, I didn't expect Fuji would be the one I liked least, Mikon/Canon equal, so I guess I didn't waste my money.
I just switched from Nikon to Sony, and Sony turned out to be my overwhelming favorite in this blind test. Funny this validated my choice a bit. I was surprised that Nikon, Cannon and Fuji tied for second place. I do really enjoy the color and definition in Sony shots, but I am not surprised since this is what prompted me to switch to an A7iii. I wonder if I will consider Nikon mirrorless systems in the future, once they feels more established with better selection of native lenses. For now, I feel like I made the right choice. At the end, it feels like personal sensibilities play as much a role as quality in choice. Cool test, thank you!
Gheez as a Sony shooter I was for sure surprised, I didn't like the look of E as a blind test. The tones of Nikon and Fuji looked the most natural to me. Things get even more complicated because every display the video is watched on is different
This video just confirmed my choice in using canon. My eyes was consistently drawn to its color and contrast profile in each picture.
They all looked great! I kept going between E and F.
I was drawn to A the most, and I’m currently using lumix! D was second, color science mostly didn’t matter for photos. Consistent auto white balance is what’s important because that is what ruins colors imo.
Wow I kept picking F and C but when it came to adobe color profiles I was all over the place. I was starting to expect them in the same order but good work on randomizing the order of the pics.
I wonder how much of the slight differences in color once the photos all used the same color profiles were caused by the lens difference and not the camera difference. I know a lot of the lenses I use render color very differently from one another.
Thank you for this comparison, this is great content. Super well done.
Awesome co parisin and I love that you used adobe as well to show that without the house color processing theyre scarily close to each other. I liked canon here because I have a thing for magenta, especially in the wood on the indoor shot. Nikon also looked great, even nikon. Somehow leica was my least favorite, but I sure wouldn't complain if someone dropped one in my hands to use. A tiny white balance miss or tweak makes up a bigger difference than the cameras themselves.
Now just for chaos, how about a comparison of legendary cameras for color and ones legendary for rather poorer color? Throw a canon 5D or 5Dmk2, nikon D700, and for funk an a7 original in the mix.. anyways.
I really liked the Sony images and I’m a Fuji shooter! These images featured a lot of orange and I think that’s why Sony stood out to me
I preferred Sony on the very first picture and I think that biased my choice for the rest of the video. Although I did find myself liking the Panny Boy. Apparently, I wasn't blown away by the company I own and shoot with every day... Fuji.
I liked C A and F. Choosing F the most. Not surprising as I am a Fuji shooter. Great video!
Good surprise for me. Shot Sony video for years and always struggles with the color. It was definitely bottom of my list here. Shifted to…. Nikon… hybrid shooter wildlife and video and made the leap hoping long term Nikon comes through in mirror less. I assumed my top pick was Fuji or Panasonic. But it went 1. Nikon 2. Panasonic 3. Fuji / canon didn’t see that coming! Thanks this was a great test.