Best camera for "native" capture of sky colors

Jock Elliott

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Location
Troy, NY
At first glance, this may seem a goofy or even stupid question.

Recently I was tempted to enter a photo contest with some of my sky photos. Then I noticed that "No digital adjustments or enhancements are allowed."

Most of my sky pix are adjusted for contrast and saturation to try to match the photo with what my eye perceived when I clicked the shutter.

Here is an example. Here's the original (Taken with LX100), taken yesterday:

LX100 Oakwood skies flowers 048.JPG


Here's the tweaked version:

LX100 Oakwood skies flowers 048 copy.jpg


Are there cameras that will get me closer to where I want to be without additional manipulation?

Feel free to post untweaked examples.

Cheers, Jock
 
Then I noticed that "No digital adjustments or enhancements are allowed."

Sorry, I won't be able to help, but I'm just wondering about this rule and how they can 'enforce' it these days...

You can do a LOT of digital adjustments with all the different in-camera-settings (vivid, portrait, neutral,...), in-camera-HDRs, and tweakable tone-curves and saturation-, sharpness-, contrast-settings, etc.
In short, simply using out-of-camera jpgs won't stop any digital enhancements...

Maybe they are referring to actual manipulations, like removing objects, or combining a different sky with a landscape, etc. ?
 
I agree with Tilman. If they mean for the letter of their rule to be followed (which frankly is ridiculous), then they should only accept raw files.

I would say that your second one should be allowable.... you haven't changed anything in the photo that couldn't have been changed in the camera (maybe). I mean, your Panasonics can be configured to output more saturated jpegs or to lift shadows or add contrast.

I'm not qualified to answer your question Jock, but my guess would be whatever camera has the widest dynamic range since a lot of your images that is the biggest challenge. And then it would just be down to experimentation to see what setting you need to adjust in the camera to get the output you like.

I'd just tell 'em they can go stuff their competition that ties your hands behind your back. I wonder if they would turn down submissions from Ansel Adams because he dodged and burned bits of Yosemite.
 
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Born of ignorance, I suspect. In the past, when I ran competitions, I restricted manipulations to those which could have been done in a darkroom. I think that's a fair compromise.
 
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