Help with RAW file color

ndwgolf

ndwgolf

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Neil Williams
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Why are my Nikon Raw files different color?? When I shoot the same subject with my D4s and D810 the RAW files have a completely different color to them........why is that???
NDW_1180.jpg _NUK6341.jpg
 
What software are you opening them in? It could be that the software is reading the as shot settings and applying different picture styles? I know canon's dpp will do that. I wouldn't expect the colours to be identical but that difference is probably to much!
 
•
Neil,

first thing is the different sensors. The Dƒ and D4 have the same sensor so the
setup may be identical and get closer results. Your two bodies may have different
sensors so there may be a difference but not so big as shown above for sure.

If the bodies use the same metering system, have the same EV compensation and
the same everything else, the difference comes from the different scenes: one with
sky, the other without.

The best way to test that is to aim at the same scene compositionally, with the same
lens and possibly on a tripod.

I would like to read or go live with you on that test…
 
I may be wide of the mark here and talking out my ass so please take with a pinch of salt.
The two images are not the same composition and assuming both cameras were set to the same metering mode and also auto AWB then my presumption would be that the exposures are different and in doing so the camera has potentially applied a different WB K value.
Certainly your first image has light sky and grass with a darker mid ground so the camera will be trying to compensate for this. The second image has a more equal exposure across the scene so less for the camera to compensate for.
Not withstanding that there will also be slight variances between camera hardware.

Like I say though this might be pure rubbish on my behalf.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
a1ex2001 said:
What software are you opening them in? It could be that the software is reading the as shot settings and applying different picture styles? I know canon's dpp will do that. I wouldn't expect the colours to be identical but that difference is probably to much!
Click to expand...
I'm using Lightroom cc
 
I'd say the auto WB made some changes based on slight differences between the two shots. If auto WB wasn't used, no idea!
 
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ndwgolf said:
Why are my Nikon Raw files different color?? When I shoot the same subject with my D4s and D810 the RAW files have a completely different color to them........why is that???
Click to expand...


when you read the two files what are the respective colour temps? But probably what Jim said
 
Could possibly be the way the lightroom is reading the files. I don't know about Nikon, but with Canon, they don't supply the algorithms for their raw files to Adobe, so they have to reverse engineer the way the files are read and don't always get them right.
Here is an example of a single raw file opened in both Canon's own software and Adobe camera raw, which shows how much difference there is in the way the file was read.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/exBYCC]RAW or RAW ??? by Steve Bennett, on Flickr[/URL]

This is a bit extreme, shot through welding glass which has a very strong green tint. Adobe's engine recognised that a custom white balance was used, but couldn't render it correctly as it couldn't read all the info embedded in the file.
So looking at your shots reminded me of this problem, the different algorithms from the 2 cameras may be being deciphered in a different way???
 
Are your settings the same for each camera in Shooting Menu > Auto WB ?
 
If you regularly shoot with two different cameras then you may want to look into getting a Colorchecker Passport and doing some camera profiles for each camera. That should help with matching the colours the camera sensors record. And they should match pretty well if the exposure is measured the same, and the WB too.
 
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