Oversaturated and blurred reds

[Guest]

I took a few shots today with my EM1 and 12-40 ( at 40mm, f7 ish and various ISO settings from about 400 tp 1000) of some red geraniums. They looked ok on the lcd screen but when I downloaded them to my macbook and looked at them in Lightroom, they were awful. Very saturated and lacking in any detail.
They were LSF Jpegs. I was unable to recover any detail, they just looked blurry and out of focus.
I took the same shots using my Fuji XT1 and the flowers were well detailed and a delicate red.
Generally, images from both cameras are very good with little to choose between them.
Does the EM1 have issues with strong red colours. I used AWB with the warm tone turned off. I didn't change the WB, I generally leave it at auto.
Is there anything I can do to tone down the Reds a bit and get more detail or is it a "feature"?
Allan

[Zuiko]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

It would help us greatly to comment if you could post some examples with Exif intact.

[Guest]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

Ah, I deleted them. I'll take some more tomorrow and post them here.
Allan

[benvendetta]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

You probably need to check the jpeg settings in the camera.

[Greytop]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

To be honest I've always found the Olympus out of camera Jpeg reds tend to be a bit oversaturated for my taste.
A good RAW converter like Capture One does the trick for me, obviously I mostly shot RAW.

[Ross the fiddler]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

To be honest I've always found the Olympus out of camera Jpeg reds tend to be a bit oversaturated for my taste.
A good RAW converter like Capture One does the trick for me, obviously I mostly shot RAW.

I'll second the Capture One for its output too.

[kbouk]

Oversaturated and blurred reds

for better reds on EM1 try ISO 100, imagine resource tests show a different render with improved detail on red silk on ISO 100 vs ISO > 200.

[pvasc]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

Same problem. After a while I tried around a -1 to -2 EV and had much better results,although darker backgrounds. Using a light meter I found that the minus EV was the right way to go, the meter displaying 1 to 2 stops less than the camera.

[Rawcoll]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

In my experience photos of subjects with a lot of intense red are very likely to saturate the red channel, whatever the camera. Unfortunately, in my Fuji the only live histogram is a luminance one and doesn't show the red component, and because luminance is not a good indicator if there is a strong preponderance of one colour, getting the exposure right is not easy. Maybe your better success with the Fuji was more down to luck than the camera.

Would I be right in saying that the E-M1's live histogram shows RGB as well as luminance? If so, then I would suggest that you dial back the exposure until the red channel isn't clipped. Of course, the live histogram is taken from the jpeg, so your jpeg settings will affect what you judge to be the correct exposure. What does the red channel look like in the raw file?

[Guest]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

I spent a while last night resetting the camera and setting it up again.
I am using Natural picture mode and played around with sharpness and contrast settings. I tried +1 in both and using iso 100 and 200. 100 definitely renders the reds differently and I got very close to what I wanted by backing off contrast in LR.
So, I reset all the Natural settings to 0 and tried again, getting better, then took pvasc's advice and backed off the EV. Now, we're getting somewhere. Images were getting very close to the output of my Fuji, which I like. I still don't have the delicate look of the Fuji, but it is very close, with perhaps a little more detail in the petals.
I also tried using Raw ( haven't really used raw for a few years. Its a bit like golf. (for me)I spend a lot of time messing around before I find myself back at the start!. Not for me I'm afraid, except in exceptional circumstances) I didn't get any better results to be honest.
Thanks all, I appreciate your help on this.
Starting to think this camera could be a keeper!

Allan

Forgot to mention, I changed from Auto WB too

[Chevvyf1]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

Allan, I lurve Red Flowers and you can lots of them in my Gallery here on the 4M and Flickr. I play a lot with settings, dependent on the "natural light" but set RGB; Sharp to +2 ; and back of to -n or -3 ; contract +2 ; spot focus and Art filter to Vivid - the jpegs are well saturated, but these settings help the camera focus and capture a great raw/orf image with max detail ... of course these are not dialled in setting for every red, but always depend on light and the RED

Hope this helps you

[tomphotofx]

Re: Oversaturated and blurred reds

Don't forget the invaluable HSL slider in the Develop module in Lightroom choose the S (Saturation) and reduce to taste save out as a preset then apply to all future images that look as if they are suffering this problem.

Tom