Do you like Pentax colour?

I've just got a k-x which I'm using with a Sigma 50mm lens. The camera and lens are lovely to use, but I'm tweaking and tweaking the white balance and custom image to try to get the colours looking more natural and true.

When I first turned it on I didn't realise it was in default 'bright' mode - results were horribly faked and 'digital' looking. Discovered 'natural' mode, but it still doesn't look right: as if the camera was fine with muted tones, skin, shadows, but as soon as something pure coloured comes into the frame it boosts it up. So like I said, I'm tweaking.

Any tips? Am I just an obsessive? Any other colour obsessives out there?

One more thing: I hate to start one of those Pentax v canon/nikon/whoever threads, but does anyone think different makers perform very differently in registering colours?

All tips and opinions from you highly experienced photographers very welcome!

Colour is, IMHO, one of the strenghts of Pentax. My recommendation is don't over-think it and you'll be fine.

sRGB (both camera and Photoshop)
Daylight setting (to preserve the variation in natural light)
Switch off the variable setting for WB and change to fixed value
Natural
+1 sharpness, everything else neutral.
JPEG best possible quality.

That's where I am and it's working for me.

Are you shooting jpg or RAW?

That's very important because only with JPG the camera has control over the colours with RAW the RAW software is doing the colour making.

John Riley - thanks v much for that - I'll try it tomorrow. Glad you think Pentax colour is good - reassuring after laying out all my savings on a camera...

Anvh - I've been shooting jpgs - assume you mean the camera having control is better?

Regards
Rob

No not really only that if you shoot with RAW that the problems are in the RAW program on your PC rather than the camera.

RAW is what the word say RAW data and it needs to be put together by specialize programs to create an image.
All the adaptation in the camera like sharpness, saturation, contrast, white-balance, colour profiles, ect. doesn't affect the data in the RAW files and therefore doesn't effect how the image looks on your screen on your PC.

btw the colour variation might well be your monitor, have you calibrated it?

I suspect JR may have been referring to the colour produced by Pentax lenses, as much as to the effect of the sensor.

G

You are quite right George and I did not make that clear.

One of the main selling points (to me) of the Pentax system over and above the competition was "The Pentax Look", which is based very much on the way Pentax equipment renders natural looking colours and tones.

Since boarding the good ship Pentax I have found that I only get those colours when I use Pentax lenses; Sigmas and Tamrons et al simply haven't cut the mustard and have left me with colours that are pretty much indistinguishable from those I'd have got from Canikony cameras. I don't want to say that there's anything wrong with your lens (I'm sure it's very fine) but the coatings that each manufacturer uses in-house have quite a large bearing on how images are rendered, so you probably aren't getting a truly Pentax experience.

I would say that the Carl Zeiss T* coating probably comes closest to the Pentax SMC coating in terms of colour rendition, both being very pleasant on the eye IMHO.

It's no coincidence that Asahi and Zeiss collaborated in producing the first really good multi-coating system for lenses.

G

I doubt the glass is having any real impact for the OP. My advice is to take a shot in RAW and then use the convert to jpeg function. You can then see the effect of each colour mode, and any custom made adjustments, on the image. Make a note of the best settings.

The AWB usually delivers more natural colours than the preset white balance settings. After all there are more than half a dozen or so types of light.

It's also worth seeing how the shots come out in a RAW converter like the one in photoshop. Usually more subtle and of course infinitely adjustable.

I'm a fan of the Pentax colour...I swapped my Sigma 17-70 for the Pentax DA 17-70 purely for this reason

Simon

The glass makes a huge difference in my view. You can often tell a Canon pic - they usually have a brownish tinge.

G

I think the glass makes an important but subtle contribution, compared to switching between the on-camera colour modes or adjusting white balance. I doubt the glass accounts for:

Surely changing between WB settings will make more of a difference than lenses, but I recall my Sigma 28-105mm gave a distinctely different colour to pentax 50mm for example. The sigma gave a slight blue colouration, which gave a strange, sometimes appealing effect to skies.

I do all of the above except that I use AdobeRGB.
John, is there any reason that I should use sRGB over AdobeRGB?

Thanks.