[goran h]

With WB and tint settings, can we adjust all lenses to the same color? If it is true, people cannot claim a lens has better color than others as long as it can be adjusted in pp.

There are some lenses (mainly primes), which does a better job here, with bright, crisp and clear colours. Others as cheap standard zooms make more dull and less clean (accurate) colours. Lens contrast is a very important factor here, but also the

colour reproduction. All colours in the spectra are reproduced in different ways by a specific lens. With WB and tint you can make the colour reproduction better but never perfect. Differences  in colour reproduction will remain.  



Göran




 

[PuxaVida]

With WB and tint settings, can we adjust all lenses to the same color? If it is true, people cannot claim a lens has better color than others as long as it can be adjusted in pp.

 

"better" color reproduction is quite subjective of course... A studio photographer for instance, shooting in controlled light with a fixed WB setting could prefer a specific lens and tell that it renders "better" skin tones. For me it would be hard to say that there's a universal "better" in terms of color reproduction. Neutral/balanced colors are wellcome of course, but in the end the lens color reproduction is something that you can't controll (but can be corrected in pp). And before coming to such uncontrolled factors, there's a lot to consider to take good pictures (proper WB setting based on the scene, proper metering, careful composition etc...)

[Brightcolours]

Do you mean microcontrast (sharpness perception) or general contrast? 

I mean the contrast a lens allows. Less contrasty lenses will have more dull colours. Lenses with better coatings and/or less air to glass/glass to air surfaces have better contrast due to less internal reflections.

[vodanh1982]

I have not seen Photozone mentioned color/contrast in the lens test so I assume it can be adjusted in RAW converters.

[Brightcolours]

I have not seen Photozone mentioned color/contrast in the lens test so I assume it can be adjusted in RAW converters.

Those two are totally unrelated. Photozone does not test for contrast, coma, astigmatism, colour cast, focussing accuracy, focus speed, performance at different focus distances to name but a few. To test for all that would cost a lot of money and a lot of time.

 

Your question was, do lenses have differences in colour? Yes, they have, and in contrast. People who say that certain lenses have better colour than others have a good point.

 

That one can change things in post processing (colour, contrast, sharpness, field of view, vignetting, CA artifacts, distortion to name a few) has nothing to do with how the lenses perform.

[vodanh1982]

I agree lenses have different colors but as long as they can be adjusted in PP, there is no better color. 

[PuxaVida]

I agree lenses have different colors but as long as they can be adjusted in PP, there is no better color. 

 

... only if you'd like to draw conclusions too quickly ... One has to consider not only the overall color cast, but also color related other optical factors. I guess these can be counted under "color reproduction" too... For example, apochromatic lenses make difference in terms of color reproduction, sharpness/contrast and LoCA. Especially the LoCA is a color reproduction issue. Furthermore, the color transitions in OOF areas are usually very pleasing when it comes to APO lenses.

 

Check the image below... I can say that, even if you set a proper WB (which can be adjusted later), the definition of colors and the sharpness feel on the in-focus areas + pleasing color transitions in background are clearly "better" than most of my other lenses.

 

[Guest]

Some folks talk about micro-contrast and colour transition. They state that certain lenses do a better job of showing subtle changes in colours while other lenses tend to render similar images as a block of uniformity. If their argument is accurate then there is limited amount of improvement to be made here with simple PP as you cannot easily add in the lost information though some it can be restored via the interpolation of nearby pixels.

 

While i believe that (for example) zeiss lenses do a better job than older sigma lenses (can't judge new sigma lenses) it is a difficult thing because you mostly see the images based off of the equipment you use and there is very little side by side comparison (and many side by side comparison are flawed due to change in lighting or TR value of the lenses not being considered).