For what it's worth, when building spectral models of Canon camera sensors, I've been struck by the at least superficial similarity between them. I haven't done any objective comparisons between models, but I'd bet a cup of coffee that there's about as much variation from one serial number of the same model to another as there is between different models -- and any such variation is going to be overwhelmed by the differences between successive firings of the same flash.
Photography perfectly exemplifies that old adage about measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk, and cutting with an axe. People get all excited about a new sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range which is so much better than the old-and-busted model that only had 11.5 stops...and are completely oblivious to the four stops of veiling glare and mirror box reflections from the Sun hitting the front element of the lens. (Indeed, is there _any_ modern real-world situation in which a camera's sensor is what limits a photographic capture's dynamic range?) They ooh and aah and gush over the magical color of this-or-that lens...and then put a "protective" filter over it that alters the spectral output more than the difference caused by the lens they don't like -- not to mention the color cast from that billboard looming behind them as they shoot.
Even in a studio setting...many studios are so poorly set up that a photographer's choice of clothing is going to have more of an impact on the final color rendition than any gear selection choices available to mere mortals.
On top of it all...within certain limits that basically nobody every comes close to approaching, _all_ color variations can be normalized with a sufficient ICC-based RAW workflow. I've made studio pictures using a compact fluorescent blacklight such that everything looks exactly as if shot under D50 save for things that actually fluoresce. (When I pressed the shutter, the scene I saw before me looked like a cheesy teenager's party.) As in, a ColorChecker Passport looks exactly as it should, save that the laser-cutout logo and similar text is much brighter and bluer than otherwise because those bits are heavily laced with fluorescent whiteners.
My color advice in general is that most photographers should focus on the painterly aesthetics of the image once it's in the camera. Only those doing art reproduction or certain types of product photography should worry about color accuracy, and they need to be prepared to chase the rabbit _very_ far down the hole. But, for most people, the very-much-NOT-colorimetric tools everybody uses are pretty well suited to artistic expression as typically practiced.
Cheers,
b&
Matches what I've seen
For what it's worth, when building spectral models of Canon camera sensors, I've been struck by the at least superficial similarity between them. I haven't done any objective comparisons between models, but I'd bet a cup of coffee that there's about as much variation from one serial number of the same model to another as there is between different models -- and any such variation is going to be overwhelmed by the differences between successive firings of the same flash.
Photography perfectly exemplifies that old adage about measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk, and cutting with an axe. People get all excited about a new sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range which is so much better than the old-and-busted model that only had 11.5 stops...and are completely oblivious to the four stops of veiling glare and mirror box reflections from the Sun hitting the front element of the lens. (Indeed, is there _any_ modern real-world situation in which a camera's sensor is what limits a photographic capture's dynamic range?) They ooh and aah and gush over the magical color of this-or-that lens...and then put a "protective" filter over it that alters the spectral output more than the difference caused by the lens they don't like -- not to mention the color cast from that billboard looming behind them as they shoot.
Even in a studio setting...many studios are so poorly set up that a photographer's choice of clothing is going to have more of an impact on the final color rendition than any gear selection choices available to mere mortals.
On top of it all...within certain limits that basically nobody every comes close to approaching, _all_ color variations can be normalized with a sufficient ICC-based RAW workflow. I've made studio pictures using a compact fluorescent blacklight such that everything looks exactly as if shot under D50 save for things that actually fluoresce. (When I pressed the shutter, the scene I saw before me looked like a cheesy teenager's party.) As in, a ColorChecker Passport looks exactly as it should, save that the laser-cutout logo and similar text is much brighter and bluer than otherwise because those bits are heavily laced with fluorescent whiteners.
My color advice in general is that most photographers should focus on the painterly aesthetics of the image once it's in the camera. Only those doing art reproduction or certain types of product photography should worry about color accuracy, and they need to be prepared to chase the rabbit _very_ far down the hole. But, for most people, the very-much-NOT-colorimetric tools everybody uses are pretty well suited to artistic expression as typically practiced.
Cheers,
b&