I belong to a group of people who can easily tell the difference between a picture taken with a Canon camera against a picture taken with a Nikon camera. Yesterday I was perusing Pbase website (image hosting website), and make a simple test. I browse through different images and for every image I try to decide, whether it was taken with the Canon SLR or with the Nikon SLR.
The results were just astonishing to me, 95% of the time I could tell the differences and point out that specific image was taken by either and Nikon DSLR camera or a Canon camera. So what is the difference between those two? -- I will try to make myself clearer and explain what exactly I see in every image, that because of that I can come to a conclusion that the specific picture was taken with a Nikon or Canon camera.
First you should now that the difference in color rendering depends on the color palette and algorithm that each camera uses. On some forums, blogs and discussions, I've read that people think that the Nikon colors are more saturated than the Canon's. And if you tweak the saturation inside the Canon camera, you will get the same results, and I think it is not true.
What I see when I look at those images? - first of all, Canon images tend to be more bluish, or some may call it colder. I think that the blue color makes the image more flat, and you can really feel it when you shoot colorful scenes, nature and wide life scenes. On the other hand, Nikon colors I can to be more yellowish and some may call it warm. Therefore, the pictures look less flat and more enjoyable to our eyes, but of course you can have a different taste and like the Canon colors' production more than the Nikon's.
Greens
And I do think it is about the green color. On the Canon, the green color looks more natural and less pronounced than that Nikon's. I think that because Nikon pictures are warmer than the Canon's with a yellowish tint, the Nikon green color looks like a stronger and more pronounced green than the flat natural green that comes from the Canon. If you want the most natural green color, I think (at least on JPEG), Canon has more natural greens. Just to let you know that we are not talking about RAW images right now, but we will talk about it later. The green color on the Nikon's could make every nature picture look much more alive or "3D" like image.
It is important to know that when I tell you that the Nikon DSLR produces a warmer picture, it doesn't mean that it doesn't look natural, it just means that the overall feel of the picture (if you compare it against the Canon) looks warmer. Okay, now let's talk about the Reds.
Reds
Let's start by saying that I don't like the Canon's Red colors. Canon's red is so pronounced sometimes, but many times when I shoot with a Canon camera, I must use a photo editing software like Photoshop to fix this problem. I saw it many times on many photographs (not just mine). Nikon's Reds look more natural and less pronounced than the camera's red. So if, for example, I wanted to shoot a beautiful rose in my garden, I would get the beautiful and colorful image of that rose, using a Nikon DSLR camera (JPEG output).
So for nature, outdoors and wide life photography I would have preferred a Nikon DSLR. However, not only for nature photography, even for portrait photography. People tend to like photographs of people faces when there are warmer. It seems more natural and complements the overall feel of the person you're taking a photo of.
Can you tell the Difference?
From it was very simple to tell the differences between a Nikon or a Canon picture. I know that you can edit your picture later in Adobe Photoshop photo editing software. I actually love to edit photographs. However, they don't want to edit every photograph that I take with my camera, for me to just a waste of time. Anyways, I want to hear your opinion and see if there are other people like me can tell the difference in colors between Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras.
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