Camera Labs

Hello,

I'm using a canon EOS 50E since more than a decade, mostly for lanscapes (mountains, desert). Since it starts to be incredibly difficult to find some of the film I like (and get them processed), it's time for me to enter the digital era. I think I want to go for a canon (probably 400D, not yet sure) since I already have some canon lenses. Thanks to Gordon Laing for the very good and helpfull reviews.

But here is my dilemna. I'm shooting almost exclusively Kodachrome 64 slides because I really love the color they deliver. I know some peoples prefere Fuji's color, but to me they are to blueish. Just personal feeling. So I would not like to loose these colors while going digital. Please pardon my ingnorance, but is there a way to preset canon DSLRs camera to match the color of kodachrome slides? Please educate me as I'm new to digital photography.

Many thanks,

JM

Hi Vihem, thats a great question. I myself was also fond of Kodachrome 64 - (and 25!), although my personal film favourite was Fuji Velvia 100F.

But I digress! Luckily, it's possible to tweak the contrast and colour of digital images, along with many other parameters to your heart's content amd I expect you'll be able to find a good match to many of the K64 characteristics you prefer, although you may find the most flexibility in shooting raw and tweaking in software later rather than trying to match it using the camera's own settings.

It'd be great to hear from anyone else who's digitally attempting to match favourite film stock... any tips?

Gordon

Hi, JM!

I shot Kodachrome and others, also working with negative film. I had lots of troubles to get the color I like, but today I'm totally relaxed.
I'm shooting RAW with a Nikon D80 and leave all the in-camera adjustments at factory settings (even white balance), playing only with exposure (and a polarizing filter). Because this is the only thing that really changes the light hitting the sensor.
The rest can be accounted for in the software. If you use Photoshop, you're done. For me, Photoshop is to complicated, so I bought Nikons CaptureNX (also works on jpegs).
Once you have seen the effect of fine tuning contrast, white balance, saturation, hue, etc. you never bother any more about hitting the "right" color. And it's all in your hands, not in the hands of the lab or the temperature you carried your valuable Kodachrome.
So, if you have a computer, all is well. If not, read about the quality of the in-camera adjustments in Gordons reviews. I found that the D80 does a pretty good job at "postprocessing" the RAWs to jpegs with some decent amount of fine tuning to your personal taste.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses