Sony Nex 5n image quality

[Xuereb]

A final reflection on 5N colour. I photograph landscape and green rendition is important. The yellow cast takes hours (I exaggerate a bit) to adjust in LR. Perhaps it is the summer light in Australia. Manipulation is a fine balancing act of using the camera calibration yellow/green slider and then going to the yellow colour to reduce this. Each picture requires a different amount of reduction. Sometimes white balance has to be shifted as well. At that point I get something like a neutral picture to then start playing with. I improve it as much as I can but the olive greens and khaki colours are still 'off', reminiscent of old Canon jpgs with a sickly pallor . I take about 8-10 times longer processing Nex 5N images compared to the GF1. I can't go on. It has driven me nuts. It is a pity because with monastic discipline I learnt the Nex menu system and settings until they became instinctive.

To resolve the annoyance, I began to take a series of scenes with this camera and the GF1. The latter has natural balanced colour. The Nex remains jaundiced does queer things to particular colours: yellow (too much everywhere), green (at once, depending on the shade, faded or too rich) and brown (too much), autumn leaves are too orange. Comparisons of identical scenes in identical light favour the GF1, and won't permit me to continue with the Nex. Colour and tone matter more to me than the reduction in shadow noise and dynamic range.

Unless someone tells me that there is some pixie dust for this malady, my Nex 5N will soon be at the knacker's yard or the Bay of Ease. The proceeds will get me a m4/3 lens, possibly the Leica 25.

 

[HeatherTheVet]

Well if you are thinking of selling, let me know as I might consider getting the 5N (for the viewfinder as I've moaned about elsewhere) and selling the 5. Maybe. Although even writing that feels like I'm betraying her.

 

[jlist]

Echo what Xuereb said about yellow - it's on NEX-5 as well, especially low light. I usually try to adjust it in LR but it's hard to get rid of it (you'll bring in some other undesirable colors in the adjustment.)

I don't particularly like GF1's color of the blue sky or skin thone, though. I think Olympus did a much better job in the color department.

 

[Xuereb]

NEX 5N Colour rendition inaccurate in hot temperatures

I took the Nex 5N for a spin this afternoon. The weather here is dramatically different now than it was in the Australian summer. When I went for a walk today it would have been about 18C as distinct from 33C or more in summer which was when my camera arrived.

The yellow cast isn't there now and the colours are quite natural. While the brilliant green is slightly excessive it is easily reduced in LR. Because we now have green grass for the first time this year, the GF1 needs sometimes needs this too.

It does seem to me that the Nex 5N colour rendition is variable in hot temperatures and produces a strong yellow cast which, when adjusted, renders other colours go haywire. This occurs at anything over 32C, especially in images taken in bright sun.

I now face the choice of keeping the camera for all the qualities a larger sensor brings to an image but using it for only 8 and a bit months of the year; in which case I will need better optics than the present kit.

jlist I agree entirely that adjusting yellow on images with the yellow cast means other colours become unbalanced to a point where one often can't redeem the image.