# Canon 60D vs Nikon D7100 - 2 Problems I Noticed with the Nikon D7100



## AndyG (Apr 17, 2013)

Yesterday I did a quick comparison (video mode/indoors) between a Canon 60D and a Nikon D7100.

I put Sigma 17-50mm F/2.8 O.S. lenses on each camera. I also shot for a few minutes with the same Zeiss 50mm F/2 Makro-Planar ZF Lens on both cameras.

The Nikon D7100 has a lot of advantages - dual card slots, headphone jack etc, but I was primarily interested in seeing how it handled the most frequent scenario I encounter for DSLR filming:
Handheld - Stabilized Lens - Zacuto Z-Finder - Moderately Low Light.

I barely got started before I discovered 2 problems regarding the Nikon D7100.

*Problem #1 - Zooming In To Focus on the Nikon D7100:*
On the Nikon D7100 when you zoom in to focus - the image on the LCD screen is very blurry. The Nikon D7100 has more incremental steps than Canon’s 3x or 10x, but whether I zoom in (a little less or a little more than) the equivalent of 10x on the Canon 60D the results are the same - an image too blurry to focus accurately on the Nikon D7100. The Canon 60D is much sharper when focusing this way.

*Problem #2 - Poor White Balancing - Green Shift on the Nikon D7100*
I focused on a Nikon Lens Box with both cameras set identically. First using Auto White Balance and next setting them identically to 3700K. The Canon 60D looked perfect - representative of what I was seeing - whereas the Nikon D7100 had a very prominent green tint. Yikes.


----------



## Marsu42 (Apr 18, 2013)

AndyG said:


> Yesterday I did a quick comparison (video mode/indoors) between a Canon 60D and a Nikon D7100.



Converning lv focusing and zooming: This is where Canon blows away Nikon simply due to having Magic Lantern with all it's features, the main reason I got a 60d and not a Nikon d7000. If you don't know ml and go for video you should really have a look at ml (www.magiclantern.fm - it has more lv zooming options & even sharpens/constrasts the zoomed image for better manual focus).

As for awb, yes, I think it works good on Canon and I seldom see any magenta/green tint, can't tell about Nikon.


----------



## AndyG (Apr 21, 2013)

"well , then you need to WB against a qp-card etc to know what you are doing and to se what you get, it tells nothing that you select a Kelvin number."

Ah No, I don't need to White Balance against a card to "know what I am doing". 
I know exactly what I'm doing - I'm selecting identical Kelvin numbers for White Balance for each camera.

"It tells nothing"

Again No, it definitely tells me something. It tells me that Nikon's Auto White Balance or White Balancing by Kelvin number is terrible under the lighting I had set up. Canon is much more accurate.

"Was it RAW or JPG?"
If you had read my post you would realize I was filming (VIDEO!) no RAW or JPG.


----------



## Albi86 (Apr 21, 2013)

AndyG said:


> "well , then you need to WB against a qp-card etc to know what you are doing and to se what you get, it tells nothing that you select a Kelvin number."
> 
> Ah No, I don't need to White Balance against a card to "know what I am doing".
> I know exactly what I'm doing - I'm selecting identical Kelvin numbers for White Balance for each camera.
> ...



Ankorwatt's point probably was: you can see that they are different, but without a reference how do you know which one is correct?


----------



## Rienzphotoz (Apr 21, 2013)

AndyG, Interesting review ... what's your view on still photos on D7100 compared to 60D? coz I will be selling my D7000 & buy the D7100 sometime this year (it could happen as early as next month). Cheers


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 21, 2013)

Albi86 said:


> Ankorwatt's point probably was: you can see that they are different, but without a reference how do you know which one is correct?



Well, I don't know about you - but when I'm looking at two images with obviously different WB, and I have the *original physical object/scene which was imaged as a reference*, which the OP clearly does, I have no trouble telling which WB is correct and which is wrong. 

I think ankorwatt's real (not explicitly stated) point was that Nikon sensors are superior to Canon sensors, and if anyone is suggesting the opposite, it must be user error.


----------



## 3kramd5 (Apr 21, 2013)

neuroanatomist said:


> Albi86 said:
> 
> 
> > Ankorwatt's point probably was: you can see that they are different, but without a reference how do you know which one is correct?
> ...


This


----------



## Rienzphotoz (Apr 21, 2013)

3kramd5 said:


> This


 ???


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 21, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> not rely
> the AWB in Canon and Nikon provides for the most similar estimations, some motive handle Canon better and vice versa, that not the same as look at the LCD back and state one are better than the other



So the rear LCD on a D7100 doesn't give an accurate color representation of the scene nor of the resulting image/video output. Well...that's useful. :


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 22, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> I missed that it was video
> make a real WB against a qp-card



Does it make sense that setting an identical Kelvin color temperature on different bodies would give different results?


----------



## 3kramd5 (Apr 22, 2013)

Rienzphotoz said:


> 3kramd5 said:
> 
> 
> > This
> ...



Sorry, I was curtly agreeing with neuroanatomist's post. I was incredulous at that notion that someone standing in lit a room with something can't see what it looks like (i.e. that he wouldn't know which camera is right).



neuroanatomist said:


> ankorwatt said:
> 
> 
> > I missed that it was video
> ...



I think it would be reasonable to expect slightly different color handling between camera makes, if not even models within the same make. If these snaps of the rear LCD are representative of the actual output video, however, I'd have to assume something is wrong with this D7100.


----------



## RLPhoto (Apr 22, 2013)

Green tinge with this gen of nikon cameras. Makes my 5Dc's green screen look up to date on nikon bodies.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 22, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > ankorwatt said:
> ...



Makes sense, thanks. 



3kramd5 said:


> If these snaps of the rear LCD are representative of the actual output video, however, I'd have to assume something is wrong with this D7100.



Even if they're not representative of the actual output, I'd still say it's a problem, although not as bad.


----------



## RGF (Apr 22, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > ankorwatt said:
> ...



Can you explain why Kelvin color temps are not the same (as far as the final image is concerned)? Let's work in an ideal world for the moment, Kelvin color refers to spectra distribution of light. IN the process of setting the color temp, the electronics behind the sensor adjusts color response of the RGB channels. Again in the ideal world both cameras would have internal color calibrations to cancel out any color bias introduced by the camera.

What am I missing - this is not an ideal world and Canon and Nikon have not done a good job adjusting their internal color calibration? A (very) small difference would not surprise me, anything large is simply sloppy


----------



## TrumpetPower! (Apr 22, 2013)

So, it seems, yet again, a bit of clarification is in order with respect to our latest Canon / Nikon flame fest.

First, all that white balance does is set linear multipliers for the individual channels. In order for a physical object in the real world to appear to have a neutral color under all light conditions, it must equally reflect all wavelengths of light equally. Most objects don't, which is why they have color. But a few objects, including some common and inexpensive ones, do. PTFE / Teflon does; get a roll of thread tape, and anything that appears to be a different color from it isn't white. (If it looks brighter, it's got fluorescent whitening agents added to it -- very common with papers and fabrics.) Tyvek (a common material for un-tearable envelopes) also shares this property. Polystyrene / styrofoam does, as well, but it's not quite as bright as the other two.

The spectral distribution of the light itself varies, and almost always even varies within the scene itself. There's much more blue in outdoor shadows than in direct sunlight; to understand why that's the case, look at the sky. As a result, a white object (such as a piece of PTFE) will result in an image recorded on your camera with a much higher ratio of blue to red and green when photographed in the shade than when photographed in direct sunlight.

Your eyes and brain, however, are wired to automatically re-interpret those color shifts on the fly, and the general perception is that the objects are the same color regardless of the actual light you're viewing them in. But, with a bit of practice, you can learn to see the differences in color from different light sources. And, for artistic effect, there's a lot to be said for slightly skewing your white balance in the direction of the actual light of the scene -- but that's another matter.

Most light sources are black-body radiators, and the color of the light emitted by a black-body radiator is very predictable and associated with a temperature. Heat something to 8,500°F (well past the boiling point of everything that comes to mind as I type) and it'll produce a glow very similar to sunlight. Heat it to a mere 4,000°F, which is what happens to the tungsten filament in an incandescent bulb, and you get the much redder color we know so well from indoor lighting.

When you set your camera's white balance to a color temperature, it uses a built-in lookup table (or whatever) to know that an object heated to that temperature will radiate light of such-and-such a distribution of colors and that, if the camera multiplies the three channels by these factors, they'll render neutral objects with equal RGB values. The catch, though, is that there aren't any perfect black-body radiators; though many objects are very close, all will have various bumps and dips in their spectral distributions.

But not all light sources are actually black-body radiators. Sodium vapor street lamps, for example, work by a completely different mechanism and only produce a single frequency of yellow light. Fluorescent lights work on a very similar principle, except they produce more frequencies of light -- but, again, generally in a pretty spiky distribution.

Your camera again has some pre-set values for some common light sources that again tells the camera to set a particular combination of linear multipliers that will result in a neutral object being rendered with equal RGB values. The catch here is that there's even more variation with non-black-body light sources.

That's where the manual white balance comes in. The idea is to take a picture of something that actually does have a flat reflective spectral response, and the camera calculates from that picture what multipliers are necessary to render it with equal RGB values. This gets you the closest of common methods, but it again has a catch: most objects that people use for white balance aren't very good candidates. That QP card that Mikael so loves to flog is a great example. For one, it's _way_ too dark, meaning that the sample that the camera measures is going to have to average out the noise in the signal. That's especially a problem at higher ISO settings. But, worse, I'll bet you lunch that it doesn't have anywhere near as flat a spectral response as a $0.01 styrofoam coffee cup. Those things actually make far superior white balance targets to anything you can buy for less than a thousand bucks. And I mean that in absolute terms, too -- not just price / performance.

In the real world, though a coffee cup can get you very, very close to a perfect white balance, the only way to actually get it truly perfect is through ICC profiling in a process much too involved for me to discuss here. But the idea is to shoot not just a single target with a single color that's hopefully white, but rather to shoot a chart with a great many colors and to let special software calculate the various distributions of everything to figure out the actual value. Think of the difference between LensAlign and FoCal for an analogous comparison.

So, it's very reasonable to expect minor differences between white balancing algorithms from different cameras, especially considering the differences between sensor designs and what-not. But it's not reasonable to expect those algorithms to differ by more than a minor amount, and Nikon cameras are notorious for royally screwing up white balance in exactly the way the original poster has discovered. I'd go so far as to suggest that the cameras are unacceptable as shipped, though the problems should vanish in an ICC managed workflow.

Cheers,

b&


----------



## 3kramd5 (Apr 22, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> please explain what do you mean with this:
> 
> But it's not reasonable to expect those algorithms to differ by more than a minor amount, and Nikon cameras are notorious for royally screwing up white balance in exactly the way the original poster has discovered. I'd go so far as to suggest that the cameras are unacceptable as shipped, though the problems should vanish in an ICC managed workflow.



It's a pretty straightforward statement. Even though they use different algorithms, they should come up with relatively close results. In this case, the camera may be defective, but using the process he suggested at but didn't explain in detail, it wouldn't matter.


----------



## TrumpetPower! (Apr 22, 2013)

3kramd5 said:


> ankorwatt said:
> 
> 
> > please explain what do you mean with this:
> ...



Egg sack lily.

The cameras should produce onboard JPEGs close enough that you're not going to tell the one from the other just by the white balance, even if they're not exactly the same (and you wouldn't expect them to be exactly the same). But if you're doing color critical work and using an ICC-managed workflow, all that matters is the actual raw data and the camera's wild-assed guesses about proper white balance don't even enter into the equation.

Still, there's no excuse for a white balance system as screwed up as Nikon's. Few people even know that it's something that can be worked around, let alone have the patience to work around it. And you shouldn't have to work around it. It's hardly rocket surgery; it should just work.

Cheers,

b&


----------



## TrumpetPower! (Apr 22, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> show me example of the Nikons inferior AWB
> the AWB is easy to correct/change in-house if the results not are as you like.



See that little red &ldquo;1&rdquo; at the bottom of the page? Click on it.

Or google "Nikon green cast."

Cheers,

b&


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 23, 2013)

Mikael, you always seem eager to post DR scenarios which favor Nikon. We know you have a D800, 5DII, and QPcard. Do you happen to have a light source with a constant, known color temperature? Actually, the packaging if a new bulb should indicate the temp in Kelvin units, and if you take shots one after another, it's constant enough. Perhaps you'd be willing to shoot that QPcard with both cameras, and show us a straight-out-of-camera JPG with the WB set to the color temp stated on the bulb packaging? Just a thought...


----------



## Aglet (Apr 23, 2013)

I'm actually curious about those WB differences too.
I haven't specifically compared Can vs Nik WB but I have noticed a difference between Nik's, Can's or Pentax on the same scenes. Even between a D800 and a d5100 on the same outdoor scene, both in AWB, with similar lenses, they rendered quite different results when the light started to change in the evening. While the sun was higher the WB rendering was very satisfactory and nearly identical.

Would also be interested in seeing if the latest d800 firmware actually addressed any of that WB issue compared to the previous firmware.

Canon's WB seemed to make a good improvement when they started using that 63(?) zone color-sensitive metering sensor. 7D and 60D's auto WB renderings were almost always pleasing in a variety of different kinds of lighting and eval metering was far more accurate than previous bodies which tended to under/over-expose fairly often unless manually corrected for the subject matter's color. Nikon supposedly had this technology first but I think Canon implemented it much better.


----------



## BrettS (Apr 24, 2013)

neuroanatomist said:


> Mikael, you always seem eager to post DR scenarios which favor Nikon. We know you have a D800, 5DII, and QPcard. Do you happen to have a light source with a constant, known color temperature? Actually, the packaging if a new bulb should indicate the temp in Kelvin units, and if you take shots one after another, it's constant enough. Perhaps you'd be willing to shoot that QPcard with both cameras, and show us a straight-out-of-camera JPG with the WB set to the color temp stated on the bulb packaging? Just a thought...


Seriously, Mikael, this would be very interesting to see. Any possibility you could tack this onto your To-Do list?


----------



## AndyG (Apr 24, 2013)

Here is a frame grab of the actual video - Canon 60D on the left, Nikon D7100 on the right. The Nikon image has an unattractive cast to it - not sure if you classify it as yellow or green. The Canon image is more accurate color wise and produces a slightly sharper picture, but there is moire present on the box in the Canon 60D video that's not present on the D7100 video.

Going back to my original photos of the LCD Screens - realize that the soft image you see on the Nikon D7100 LCD Screen is as good as it gets - I was focusing using a Zacuto Z-Finder and the focus was accurate - the Nikon in zoom mode produces an unacceptably soft image on the LCD that is pathetic for focusing.


----------



## AndyG (Apr 24, 2013)

No more experiments for me - I sold the Nikon D7100 the next day and decided to stick with Canon.

The Nikon D7100 had all of the default settings and I believe it was on Standard Profile. If there's a way to get the Live View Zoom mode to work better for focusing, I'd like to know about it.


----------



## TheSuede (Apr 24, 2013)

No doubt the Nikon has some problems, but then so does the Canon. Both of them are incorrect in their color rendering, but the Nikon camera usually tend in one direction (pulling yellow, orange and red towards the "clockwise" if you think of colors as in a color circle) and Canon in the other. Canon usually pulls orange, red, purple and blue in towards the red center, making yellow>orange and form the other direction; blue>purple.

Neither camera is usable for "good" color straight out of the box in full automatic settings, but it could be argued the Canon errs in a more pleasant way (on which I agree).

Absolute color temperatures, in the way that camera manufacturers indicate them by "Kelvin" simply does not exist. At least they're very rare, the one true example you can find out in reality nowadays are high-efficiency halogen bulbs. Anything other than this has a +/- green/magenta tint away from the CCT line of "Kelvin color temperature".

Shooting in the most common light indoors today, fluorescents, you have a very distinct tint towards green if you don't compensate for the errors induced by the light. This is exactly what SHOULD happen.

My guess is that Canon partly compensates for this out-of-the box, which can be seen if you shoot something in true 3000K light - here the Canon cameras turn very much to red.

That said, Canon is vastly better in the way it allows you to download color-compensation into the camera (it's the jpg-engine that handles raw-color conversion for movies and LV) via the Canon Profile Editor. If you want production quality color straight out of the camera, this is the only way to go. Nikon has no such possibility, you need to correct colors in post-production to get accurate results. This in-camera adjustments only allow for WB finetuning, not for real color correction.

WB is not the same as color correction. It is the first part of color correction, but the main part of heavy lifting happens later, in the color conversion of the raw file. WB balances the average strengths of three unknown raw channels, the rest of the profile translates the result into human-vision based color.


----------

