Can I get 5D colors on the A100?

Recently I acquired an A100 to replace the 5D, which was suffering from shutter jams because of a faulty Anti shake mechanism. All the newer features aside, I really miss what I consider to be the beautiful fresh colors from the 5D, which I consider to be better than Nikon, Canon or Pentax's. I mainly do jpegs and they came out with (what I consider) the "trademark" greenish and artificial colors that I find on Sony TV's and cameras.

I found that the Adobe color mode is closer to what I consider natural and gave up using AWB. The "Cloudy" WB setting was much better. Now I am experimenting with color temperatures, temporarily settling on 5,700K and +M2.

Has anyone tried to play with the settings to come close to the original KM colors? What have you found to be the right settings?

Thanks, cezarl! Looks like I'll have to do PP in Photoshop as suggested by Turerkan or get another 5D body. On the one side I am happy that we now have access to Zeiss lenses but it is not the same as Minolta colors, which to me, is second only to Leica in terms of "rightness" and life-like.

I came to the same conclusion regarding DRO. A little bit too much contrast (Canon-like) and I switched it off.

Hi Vidgamer, good point. I've only tried the regular DRO. Will give the + a try.

I am now trying out RAW files. Hopefully they are more neutral, if not more Minolta. What software would you suggest? Apple's Aperture or Photoshop Elements? I normally don't do any PP.

I use "UFRaw", a free program that is actually pretty good. Once you get used to the interface, it's simple to use, and produces great results.

On another web board, they complained a lot about one of the programs adding in NR when you don't request it... for high ISO shots. That seems like an odd way to process raw (where you should have complete control), but if you use high ISO, you probably want to use NR anyways. But still.

I'd be tempted to try one of the dedicated RAW commercial programs, but when I tried a couple on my previous camera's RAW files, nothing worked but the free programs -- go figure. So I stuck with what I have been using. (Now, I'd like to see it proven that I'd get better results with other software before I switch.)

I definitely like the added power of RAW, but if most of the time I can get good results without postprocessing, then it may be worth it to me to use JPEG most of the time. Anything that is particularly demanding or that I want to treat as special, it is probably worth switching to raw. But I can't imagine using it all the time, at least not yet.

[Edit: I think I mentioned DxO before. I'd be more curious to see this than other programs, I think, particularly if I wanted to remap the colors. Also, some people like RawTherapee, which is (mostly) free. In any event, if you're going to make certain adjustments, you're better off starting with the RAW file.... ]


Edited by Vidgamer - 13 October 2007 at 07:36