Second opinion wanted: Looking at "SOOC" JPEG samples

If anyone cares to participate, I'd like to post a link or two to JPEG samples and ask for a second opinion. There are some talented people on Photrio and I believe some will notice things I don't see right away.

This isn't really about pixel peeping or sharpness. Colors and the overall liveliness of a picture stand out to me.

I stumbled across Sony's older E-mount model, the ILCE-7RM3, while looking generally at black and white photography on YouTube. For fun I searched for color JPEG samples from that camera. What I saw from Ken Rockwell surprised me in a positive way. (His review links to about a dozen "camera-original" files.) My inexperienced eyes find the color saturation in particular quite pleasing. So much am I amazed, If I'm honest, that I'm having trouble believing Rockwell's JPEG images are truly straight-out-of-camera.

For balance, Mathieu Gasquet's gallery is not as impressive. I think it has to do with the conditions (and testing purpose) of the images.

Sony had never come to my attention for JPEG shooting. There's even a thread at DPReview which generally suggests, if I'm reading it right, that Sony's JPEG files became great only recently. Presumably the 7RM3 would not count as "recent".

Am I simply ignorant or naïve about how well digital cameras generally render JPEG pictures?

multivoiced said:

about a dozen "camera-original" files.

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Could you link to one or two, please? All I see on Rockwell's site are the images he ran through Perfectly Clear.

multivoiced said:

I think it has to do with the conditions (and testing purpose) of the images.

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Choice of subject matter, light and processing (and camera joeg settings) play a big role, I think. You can say what you want about Rockwell, but he has an eye for candy-cane colors and knows how to make them POP (!!!) out of your screen.

multivoiced said:

Am I simply ignorant or naïve about how well digital cameras generally render JPEG pictures?

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IDK; all I do know is that I have shot mostly jpeg for years on my digital Canons and those files never really left me wanting. They required very little if any processing for the most part. Again, personal taste and all that.

koraks said:

Could you link to one or two, please? All I see on Rockwell's site are the images he ran through Perfectly Clear.

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There are daytime and nighttime shots, for instance. The skin tone example involves skin that might be hard for any camera to make look bad.

koraks said:

Choice of subject matter, light and processing (and camera joeg settings) play a big role, I think. You can say what you want about Rockwell, but he has an eye for candy-cane colors and knows how to make them POP (!!!) out of your screen.

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I know what you mean. His site is crammed with color.

koraks said:

IDK; all I do know is that I have shot mostly jpeg for years on my digital Canons and those files never really left me wanting. They required very little if any processing for the most part. Again, personal taste and all that.

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I have noticed Canon bodies getting mentioned for JPEG skin tones.

The Sony was compared to a Fujifilm with not-so-great results.

multivoiced said:

Am I simply ignorant or naïve about how well digital cameras generally render JPEG pictures?

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Sony A7-series cameras offer a bunch of JPEG-related user settings, and it appears that Ken Rockwell opted for particularly bright and punchy colors.

After reading DPReview more closely and seeing the Fujifilm comparison, I'm leaning toward the newest Sony bodies. The Nikon Z-mount options look solid too.

4season said:

Sony A7-series cameras offer a bunch of JPEG-related user settings, and it appears that Ken Rockwell opted for particularly bright and punchy colors.

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I appreciate anyone who took time to look through this. My newbie questions feel silly sometimes.

multivoiced said:

If anyone cares to participate, I'd like to post a link or two to JPEG samples and ask for a second opinion. There are some talented people on Photrio and I believe some will notice things I don't see right away.

This isn't really about pixel peeping or sharpness. Colors and the overall liveliness of a picture stand out to me.

I stumbled across Sony's older E-mount model, the ILCE-7RM3, while looking generally at black and white photography on YouTube. For fun I searched for color JPEG samples from that camera. What I saw from Ken Rockwell surprised me in a positive way. (His review links to about a dozen "camera-original" files.) My inexperienced eyes find the color saturation in particular quite pleasing. So much am I amazed, If I'm honest, that I'm having trouble believing Rockwell's JPEG images are truly straight-out-of-camera.

For balance, Mathieu Gasquet's gallery is not as impressive. I think it has to do with the conditions (and testing purpose) of the images.

Sony had never come to my attention for JPEG shooting. There's even a thread at DPReview which generally suggests, if I'm reading it right, that Sony's JPEG files became great only recently. Presumably the 7RM3 would not count as "recent".

Am I simply ignorant or naïve about how well digital cameras generally render JPEG pictures?

Click to expand...

I believe some jpg images are quite stunning right out of the camera because some in-camera-processing is very good and Ken Rockwell openly admits to being an avid user of autility called 'Perfectly Clear' that does some stunning one-click beautification process. Unfortunately, it is no longer supported.

multivoiced said:

There are daytime and nighttime shots, for instance. The skin tone example involves skin that might be hard for any camera to make look bad.

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Yeah, much/most/all of what you're looking at is really fortuitous light. Which really isn't 'fortuitous' if you realize that Ken has had an eye for good light for a long time, and it trickles down into his test shots much of the time. Mind you, it's still a particular kind of preference that he has. It's the preference that made him gravitate towards Fuji Velvia in the film days for his shots of French lavender fields in the warm light of a summer evening and that still makes him shoot neon signs whenever he can, or crank saturation up to 11 on a sunset-lit El Capitan. It's all there in those 3 shots you posted. We're not so much looking at what a camera can do, but at Ken Rockwell's preference and vision. Btw, I find the skin tone on the model kind of problematic, but it's a matter of taste. She's a pretty woman, that's for sure, but that's a different matter altogether.

multivoiced said:

The Sony was compared to a Fujifilm with not-so-great results.

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The comparison is methodologically very, very problematic indeed. It seems to be based on a pre-existing preference for the way the Fuji camera in-camera processes JPEGS and then proceeds to conclude the Sony sucks because it does things differently. Throughout the process, choices have been made that sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly affect the outcome without these choices being acknowledged as being significant. This 'test' says absolutely nothing about what either camera is capable of; it only shows that this particular person liked this particular Fuji better at full-auto under these particular light conditions for this particular subject - and maybe even on his particular computer monitor...

Those are really great observations.

koraks said:

Btw, I find the skin tone on the model kind of problematic, but it's a matter of taste.

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If you find time to comment further on the skin tones, I'd love to know what you're observing.

multivoiced said:

Those are really great observations.


If you find time to comment further on the skin tones, I'd love to know what you're observing.

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To my taste - too red, too yellow, and the transition towards the bluish highlight on the forehead and cheek is coarse; the highlight itself is flat, oversaturated and garish. The way the shadow on her neck goes bright orange to me feels oppressive.
They're nice colors for a sunset sky - not for a human face.

Good points. Thanks for enumerating. It could be that I am too inclined to accept questionable digital colors after shooting Portra 800 of all things. The "sunset face" looks nice compared to my botched Kodak shots. I recently managed to make Portra do everything from desaturating an orange shirt to turning a fair skinned man into a red lobster.

koraks said:

They're nice colors for a sunset sky - not for a human face.

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