Sony A7C Green tint

[fatmarley]

Hi,

Sorry if this has been asked in the past. I would like to buy a new camera and the Sony A7C looks almost perfect for my needs (family holidays, days out etc). I used to have a Canon 70D with 17-55mm F2.8 and that was great but far too heavy/bulky, so I recently sold it.

The problem is the Sony colours. Here's one example of many - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBXNtZzuGI . I wouldn't be happy with skin tones that look like that.

I don't want to pay monthly or yearly for lightroom, just to fix the colours, but I don't mind a one-off payment.

I was going to buy a Canon M6 Mark ii (and may still do), but before I pull the trigger, I thought it best to ask on the Sony camera forum to see if anyone knows how to fix the problem?

[thebeardedgroundsman]

Looks to me as though the person making the video has the colour temperature in the camera set wrong. I don't have an A7c but Having used a number of Sony cameras, I have not come across this problem.

There is a perception that Sony colour science is not good, but in a "blind taste test" Sony came out on top - by a long way!

See video: https://www.diyphotography.net/from-canon-to-sony-what-i-learned-four-years-after-switching-systems/

If you want a one off payment editing app, some of the recent ones are under £100 and do a very good basic job and are easy to use eg: Skylum's Luminar Ai.

[fatmarley]

I will have a look at Skylum's Luminar Ai - Thanks

 

Look here from 3:28 - It's filmed on what looks like an iPhone, but the photos are taken with the A7C. 

 

[fatmarley]

Just found a great tutorial, and it seems to work well -

 

[Pieter]

In-camera white balance settings makes all the difference. In such a specific case I tend to use 'daylight' or a custom profile.

Don't compare the footage from the A7C to that from a smartphone: Smartphones generally tend to apply lots of saturation and contrast to footage to make it look appealing and vivid rather than realistic.

In Julia's specific case I'm sure she's experienced enough to know what she's doing with white balance. Perhaps she even willingly made the out-of-camera JPEGs look dull to make her Amalfi Lightroom presets (which she's selling on her website and advertising in the video) look great. Hardly an unbiased review in that sense, though she doesn't say anything about in-camera white balance.

About you considering the M6ii: I don't have anything against Canon but I'd advise against investing in a camera system which is on a dead track. Just as I'd advise against investing in (new) Sony A-mount gear. Canon only invests in the R-mount at the moment and as soon as they release their first APS-C R-mount camera, M-mount is dropped entirely.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Pieter

[fatmarley]

13 minutes ago, Pieter said:

In-camera white balance settings matter a lot. Not sure what Julia Trotti used. Maybe she had it on 'automatic'. In such a specific case I tend to use 'daylight' or a custom profile.

I don't know, but there are examples of the green tint in Sony portraits all over the internet, and yet It doesn't seem to happen with other manufacturers.

I don't want to mess with camera settings too much. For family photos I just want to grab the camera and use it like a point and shoot. If I shoot in RAW I don't mind spending a bit of time editing at a later date. The most important thing is having photos in focus.

Now I've seen how easy it is to use Luminar I'm more confident in fixing the problem. I will probably achieve some nice improvements with my old photos too

 

[fatmarley]

1 hour ago, Pieter said:

In-camera white balance settings makes all the difference. In such a specific case I tend to use 'daylight' or a custom profile.

Don't compare the footage from the A7C to that from a smartphone: Smartphones generally tend to apply lots of saturation and contrast to footage to make it look appealing and vivid rather than realistic.

In Julia's specific case I'm sure she's experienced enough to know what she's doing with white balance. Perhaps she even willingly made the out-of-camera JPEGs look dull to make her Amalfi Lightroom presets (which she's selling on her website and advertising in the video) look great. Hardly an unbiased review in that sense, though she doesn't say anything about in-camera white balance.

About you considering the M6ii: I don't have anything against Canon but I'd advise against investing in a camera system which is on a dead track. Just as I'd advise against investing in (new) Sony A-mount gear. Canon only invests in the R-mount at the moment and as soon as they release their first APS-C R-mount camera, M-mount is dropped entirely.

There are far, far too many examples online of the green tint for it to be anything other than the way Sony 'sometimes' does colour.

I think you're right about the Canon M62. Also, the lenses are the slow focusing STM type.

I'm pretty much decided on the Sony A7C now. It's unlikely I'll change my mind.

[Pieter]

I'm not gonna argue with you over color science as it's very subjective. There has been a sentiment about Sony having worse color science in the past, but I believe that is no longer a real thing. Spend some time watching these videos and take from it what you want:

https://youtu.be/EMfCDujQywY

https://youtu.be/sEuViGtujy0 at 5:40

Bear in mind that even between different camera models of the same brand, there's significant variations in white balance.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Pieter

[fatmarley]

34 minutes ago, Pieter said:

I'm not gonna argue with you over color science as it's very subjective. There has been a sentiment about Sony having worse color science in the past, but I believe that is no longer a real thing. Spend some time watching these videos and take from it what you want:

https://youtu.be/EMfCDujQywY

https://youtu.be/sEuViGtujy0 at 5:40

Bear in mind that even between different camera models of the same brand, there's significant variations in white balance.

With the first video, at the beginning, I couldn't really decide what photo I preferred in the test because there wasn't one with green tint. They all looked slightly different, but none stood out as much better or worse to me. So I didn't really learn anything from it. The green tint in a lot of Sony pictures is very real, and not imagined due to brand loyalty. This test is for expectation bias, I know a lot about it because it's a problem with hifi.

I've read plenty of reports from people who changed to Sony from Canon and regretted it because of the colours. There was a long thread where someone posted examples and people kept on about the wrong white balance, but the guy said it didn't happen with his other cameras. Auto white balance seems to work better with other manufactures. Some people just want a nice, simple camera for family photos (like the A7C), and don't want all the hassle of messing around with the white balance when out on a family day trip. Now I know about Luminar Ai, I'm not so worried about the possibility of green tint. I'll shoot in Raw, just in case.

My Google Pixel 3a takes surprisingly good photos, but by the time I get it out of my pocket and put it in camera mode, I've missed that special moment. Also, It's not very good in low light when your subject is moving (young children). It's great for low-light static objects though.

I'm going to buy the A7C, give it some time, and report back...

[Pieter]

The point of the first video was indeed expectation bias, and how it may influence your perceived appreciation of an image. The point of the second video was to show a direct side-by-side comparison of Canon, Nikon and Sony in a real world portrait shoot. Do you see a significant green tint in the Sony?

Each brand does have slightly different base color settings. Migrating from one brand to another after years of brand loyalty may therefore emphasize the differences between brands. One migrating from Sony to Canon may likewise perceive the Canon images as overly red-shifted. This does not make one brand better than the other, it's just ever so slightly different. Sony is known for very realistic color reproduction (source: sdp.io/color2), but most people don't like accurate colors. For portraiture they tend to like warmer colors than what was actually there during the shoot, and thus perceive Sony as cold / greenish.

Please do update us on your findings. Curious to hear how you perceive Sony images.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Pieter

[fatmarley]

Well, the proof in the pudding is in the eating. I'll report back with an honest opinion...

[XKAES]

5 hours ago, fatmarley said:

Some people just want a nice, simple camera for family photos (like the A7C), and don't want all the hassle of messing around with the white balance when out on a family day trip.

Nice and simple?  Seems like you left that station a long time ago.

[fatmarley]

Had a little while to play with the camera, and it's a relief to say that I've only had a couple of shots that had strange skin tones, but that's out of hundreds of photos...  The odd thing is, It wasn't green though, my girlfriend had an odd pinky red colour to her skin when she was overexposed.

The only problem I had was the metering in a forest area, I'm only using a 35mm f1.8 prime lens, so my main subject (4 year old) is often only small in the frame, so I guess the camera is trying to find the correct exposure of the whole area, rather than my sons face. It was a cloudy day yesterday, and the light was very even, but a bit dull due to the trees covering the sky, so it wasn't a problem with dappled light. The camera was exposing for the background and was blowing out skin tones badly. It was set on Multi, I changed it to Center, but that didn't help. I then changed to Highlight and that fixed the problem. It did mean I got a few underexposed shots in different areas, but at least that's easier to fix. I don't know how my old Canon 70d would have coped in the same situation, and for all I know it could have been the same.

The IBIS is not very good for video work, but that's not my main priority. I will probably buy a gimble because I like to film opening presents on Christmas day, and other family stuff. The film quality even at 1080p is excellent with the 35mm f1.8 lens, and really nails focus, and tracks very well. I did try recording in 4k, but my PC didn't like playing it, and it was stuttery (I guess it's a graphics card issue?), although it plays fine on my TV.

 

Out of well over 400 shots I took yesterday, only a handful were out of focus. I had the shutter speed set to a minimum of 1/250 and mostly had the aperture set to f1.8, with auto ISO, so well impressed. Also, well impressed with Luminar Ai.

I also tried the camera indoors at night with just the lights on. It looks like I'm going to have to get a flash to catch my fast moving 4 year old. When he's reasonably still I can get some very nice shots of him in low light, but although I have the shutter speed set to 1/250, Auto mode chooses f/4 and high ISO produces grainy images. If I shoot at f1.8 1/250 it looks like the pictures are often slightly out of focus, but that's being picky and pixel peeping at eyelashes.

The lighter weight and smaller size than my 70d is great, but I still don't like it round my neck, so I've ordered a rope, hand strap.

[Alejandro]

White balance correctly set is crucial, but sometimes a subject in an image might get some colour cast determined by the dominant colour that surrounds it. Outside in the open nature, with a subject surrounded by plants and trees and grass, the photographic subject will probably get some green tint added to its colour. When this happens, if it would be the case, I believe the camera is not to be blamed, and the “problem” ought to be corrected in post-production.

On 8/4/2021 at 7:02 PM, fatmarley said:

I don't want to pay monthly or yearly for lightroom, just to fix the colours, but I don't mind a one-off payment.

I don’t know about Luminar (which was suggested) but programs as DxO PhotoLab (my favourite to develop Raw) or Capture One allow you to choose from different Colour Renderings or ICC Profiles that can be applied to develop a raw file. They show different camera’s profiles from where to choose. I don’t know how faithful to the whichever camera might the rendering be, but colours do change when changing renderings. Capture One has a free version of its program for Sony cameras (Capture One Exrpess for Sony) that, although having less features than the pro version, still allows choosing from different colour profiles.

5 hours ago, fatmarley said:

If I shoot at f1.8 1/250 it looks like the pictures are often slightly out of focus, but that's being picky and pixel peeping at eyelashes.

I don’t know about the 35mm f/1.8 lens, but most lenses (excluding a few exceptions) are not at their best at their maximum aperture (nor beyond F/16 or f/22) and usually the aperture needs to be closed half or one step at least (sometimes more with some lenses) to get a sharper image. But I assume you don’t mind and prefer an even narrower depth of field than if closing the aperture a bit or maybe you needed the 1/250 shutter speed.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Alejandro

[fatmarley]

1 hour ago, Alejandro said:

sometimes a subject in an image might get some colour cast determined by the dominant colour that surrounds it.

 

I don’t know about the 35mm f/1.8 lens, but most lenses (excluding a few exceptions) are not at their best at their maximum aperture (nor beyond F/16 or f/22) and usually the aperture needs to be closed half or one step at least (sometimes more with some lenses) to get a sharper image. But I assume you don’t mind and prefer an even narrower depth of field than if closing the aperture a bit or maybe you needed the 1/250 shutter speed.

Luminar has a slider that removes colour cast, and it works very well.

 

When it's in focus and the shutter speed is high enough, the Sony 35mm lens is very sharp at f1.8. Here's one I took at f1.8

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Edited August 18, 2021 by fatmarley