Color Accuracy

Hello, I'm interested to know how much color fidelity may have improved in Nikon DSLRs over the last several years. I've been considering an upgrade for a long time and have my eye on the D5300. Currently using a D40. It has served me fairly well for a lot of things, but in my current main application for it, color accuracy is of utmost importance, and I'm just not getting it. Yellow seems to be especially troublesome, reds and greens only slightly less so. Images that have lots of different colors tend to be closer to accurate; compositions that are closer to monochromatic are another problem area. Custom white balance helps, but not that much. I'm having to spend way too much time in Photoshop adjusting color and still not getting results that I'm happy with. I've also tried a couple of different softwares to calibrate my monitor. There is also something not-quite-right about image quality that I can't put my finger on. So my question is, is the problem with the technology or the operator? If I were to upgrade, would it be easier to get accurate color with little or no adjustment in Photoshop? Is there something I should be doing that I'm not? Thanks, Will

Welcome to the forum!
Although I'm no expert, I understand that the colour accuracy of your shots has more to do with primarily the light you shoot in, and the lens rather than the camera's sensor... I also remember hearing some time ago that certain colours can be harder to focus on using auto-focus and one of these colours was yellow!

Maybe post a sample image so we can see an example? Are you shooting in raw, or jpeg?

Thanks so much for your response. I should have mentioned, I'm using two daylight CFL bulbs - one 19W, the other 15W (equivalent to 75W and 65W in incandescent). They are only a few feet from the object, as is the camera. I'm shooting on a seamless backdrop, taking pictures of yarn that is to be sold online. The lens I'm using is a Nikkor 50mm. It's actually older than my camera. I got it back when I was using an N90. You may know that some years back, Nikon moved the autofocus servo from the camera into the lens. I have a lens from before that transition, and a camera from after it, so neither of them has the autofocus servo. As such, I've never had autofocus capability, and that may well be part of my image quality problem. Since I'm focusing manually, there are times when I get close but not absolutely perfect focus. I'm shooting in .jpg; I've never really done anything with raw. This is one of the images. http://www.meadowcroft-dyeworks.com/images/yarns/010_padauk.png It has been edited for color, but I'm still not happy with the results. Something still is off, but I can't put my finger on what, much less figure how to fix it. Maybe I'm overworking it in Photoshop? And I realize that just because the colors look right on my screen doesn't mean they will appear the same way on someone else's. I'd just like to do the best I can at my end. If anybody can give me a lead on the right direction, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks again, Will

To get you colour right you need to achieve the following:

1. Get the White Balance right. It sounds like you know how to do that.
2. Get the exposure right. A handheld meter is the idel solution.
3. Shoot RAW and process in something like Lightroom.
4. Create a colour profile using the Xrite Colour Checker passport. Look this up on the web. I have one and it shifts the colours to correct them if used properly.
5. Calibrate your monitor with a Spyder or Color Monkey. This will typically make the monitor a lot darker but it is true to how a print will look.

As for the D40 I've never used one. A D7000 or D7100 would be a great stup up in technology, which can autofocus with any autofocus lens but may not be required to solve your problem. The steps suggested would still apply.

Thank you most kindly. I haven't gotten through the whole list yet, but I've been playing with these things over the weekend, and already getting much better results.

One thing that can make it very difficult to get accurate colors consistently is shooting under fluorescent light. Fluorescent is a non-continuous light source. You need to be shooting at a shutter speed, ideally 1/60, so that your exposure contains one full "cycle" of light.

Shutter speed is only an issue with older magnetic ballast. Compact CFL (and desk lamps, and many newer ceiling installations today) use electronic ballast, so that instead of the frequency being 60 HZ, today might be like 20,000 Hz (and will not cause any shutter speed issue).

You can test old fluorescents for flicker. I would suggest a shutter speed of 1/200 second (60% of one 1/120 cycle - a difficult case). Do NOT use Auto WB, and take maybe five pictures (of the lighted bulb itself is OK). Random color differences in some pictures is flicker, typically towards brown. But if all the color is the same, but is simply off, that is not flicker, it is instead just white balance.

But yes, the non-continuous spectrum of fluorescents (including CFL) is a problem, and is certainly doing color the hard way.

Fluorescent bulbs are rated with CRI (Color Rendering Index, how well they are able to reproduce a spectrum of colors). Incandescent bulbs are the standard (continuous spectrum), rated 100 CRI by definition. High CRI for fluorscents is at least 80 or more, and these are almost acceptable except for very critical work. Avoid those that do not mention CRI. Also avoid those your wife complains that she cannot use to judge the colors of her clothing.

Try the photography with incandescent lamps, or with flash. These simply do color better (i.e., proper White Balance works).