EOS R5 Problem in the Studio: Colors and contrast off compared to EOS 5D Mark III

[taner_169]

Hello, I wanted to get into the topic immediately. I am a studio photographer. I was using my old camera 5D Mark 3 EF24-70 2.8. The colors were beautiful and the contrast was just right. Now I bought R5 and use my old EF lenses. I have to work in jpeg because I do fast processing. I can't get the colors and vibrancy right. I made all the menu settings but I couldn't get what I wanted. And the r5 shoots very softly, I play with the lights, it doesn't work, I blow up the photo, it doesn't explode like the mark3, it's a different explosion, I say I made the perfect adjustment, but when I take another photo, everything is different. Color, contrast and saturation did not change at all on the Mark 3, and the colors looked beautiful no matter who I shot. The only solution in my mind is to buy an RF lens and try it with it, but I guess it doesn't seem to work. If you have a different idea, I would be very happy if you could help me.

I'm thinking of installing 5d mark3 software on R5 hahaha 🙂 I wonder if it can be installed? I've done a lot of text review and menu adjustments so far. If I can't find a solution I'll go back to Mark3 😞

[johnrmoyer]

I am not certain I understood the question, but hope some of this might be helpful.

If you were using "Standard" style on the 5D Mark 3, then I would expect "Standard" on the EOS R5 to be similar. https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0150.html

With the EOS R5, the higher resolution sensor will have less contrast at the same aperture and with the same lens as the 5D Mark 3 partially because of small aperture diffraction blur. Enabling "Digital Lens optimizer" in the camera will correct some small aperture diffraction blur, especially at low ISO. https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0190.html#Shooting-1_0190_3  DLO is only applied to the JPG and not the CR3. I would expect diffraction blur on the EOS R5 to start becoming noticeable at F Numbers larger than 8 and when looking at individual pixels possibly at F numbers larger than 5.6.

You can create a custom picture style https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0160.html with more saturation. I do not know whether saturation would get what you call vibrancy.

You might create a custom white balance for your studio lighting: https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0120.html#Shooting-1_0120_3 or if you know what white balance you used with the 5D Mark 3 then use the same Kelvin color temperature. I would not expect auto white balance to be the same for the 2 cameras. https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0120.html or manually adjust the white balance https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-03_Shooting-1_0130.html

[taner_169]

You explained a wonderful fine-tuning detail, thank you very much for your interest. But I did all of these. I even tried all the color features but there seems to be something soft in the camera's software. In my opinion, since I use a converter, my EF lenses take very good and clear shots, but they are not satisfactory in terms of color and contrast, so I guess there is nothing I haven't tried. Let me ask you this, do you think there is a difference between EF and RF lenses, or is there a difference in the converter? So can we say that it may be caused by this?

Let me put it this way: I shoot 100-150 different people a day and process them in Photoshop. I feel there is a lot of difference between the two, maybe this may not be felt by normal users or landscape shots. Let me try to convey what I feel. r5 seems to absorb the light falling on the person's face, but in mark3 there is a white hardness, which makes the photo vivid. I hope I could explain.

[johnrmoyer]

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@taner_169 wrote:

You explained a wonderful fine-tuning detail, thank you very much for your interest. But I did all of these. I even tried all the color features but there seems to be something soft in the camera's software. In my opinion, since I use a converter, my EF lenses take very good and clear shots, but they are not satisfactory in terms of color and contrast, so I guess there is nothing I haven't tried. Let me ask you this, do you think there is a difference between EF and RF lenses, or is there a difference in the converter? So can we say that it may be caused by this?

Let me put it this way: I shoot 100-150 different people a day and process them in Photoshop. I feel there is a lot of difference between the two, maybe this may not be felt by normal users or landscape shots. Let me try to convey what I feel. r5 seems to absorb the light falling on the person's face, but in mark3 there is a white hardness, which makes the photo vivid. I hope I could explain.

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The EF-RF converter with filter will change things. The EF-RF converter with control ring has electronics and might change things. The plain Canon converter will not change things. I have both the filter converter and the plain converter. With some lenses, I do not like the result with the filter converter.

I do not have a studio, but I do have some technical knowledge. I expect that the biggest difference between the older camera and the EOS R5 is the higher resolution of the EOS R5 which will result in less small detail contrast from the same lens. The small detail contrast difference might be fixed by DLO setting in the camera menu and by unsharp mask setting in the picture style. This is still assuming that "Standard" picture style was used for both old camera and for EOS R5. If not "Standard" style, then results likely cannot be easily matched. If not using "Standard", the saturation and colors will differ between the two cameras when using the same settings. I expect it would be possible to create a picture style file that matches the output of the old camera unless the problem is in Photoshop. https://cam.start.canon/en/S004/manual/html/index.html

I have not used any Adobe software for many years, so I might guess that Photoshop treats the two cameras differently. Does the out of camera JPEG look the same in Photoshop as in a web browser or as in Gimp? Does the histogram look different in Gimp than in Photoshop?

[Waddizzle]

Check the White Balance setting.  It’s different compared to the DSLR.  

[Waddizzle]

I always use WB White Priority.  I suspect that the default setting gives you a true 18% gray color reproduction.  It has less pop than the White Priority setting. 

[ebiggs1]

It sounds like you tried a lot so the solution might just be a preset in Lightroom.  Also I would use the plain adapter.

Make your best settings in camera a let the LR presets do the rest upon import.

[johnrmoyer]

One more guess that I hope might be helpful. The lens correction software in the camera is likely much better than that in Adobe software for a Canon lens. Applying the lens correction twice, once in camera and once in Adobe software is likely a bad idea. Newer cameras do much better at lens correction than older cameras.

For unsharp mask, there are many situations where it should be done twice. Once at capture and again before display. This is especially true if the image will be resized for display on a screen or for printing.

Some of the things that should not be done twice include distortion correction, auto lighting optimizer, peripheral illumination correction, and highlight or shadow protection. All of those likely differ between old camera and new camera.

[taner_169]

I literally tried everything, now I was able to keep the colors at least stable, I turned off all items in the lens error correction menu. Because when I took them, everyone's color was changing. When it comes to white balance I prefer the possibility of white and have a gray test cloth to achieve white. I'm not getting good results with it. I get better results from the gray wall. But I don't know how to get 18% gray. The only solution I can think of is RF lens, I will share the situation with you when I receive the lens.