Canon Camera profiles: a street photographer point of view

Enhancing the images is possible directly on camera through the camera profiles. Well known are the ones proposed by Fujifilm.

When I was a Fuji owner I appreciated the efforts of that brand to give high quality JPGs that make it easier for a JPG photographer like me. We can affirm that thanks to Fujifilm JPG began to have a different consideration, with many photographers only starting to work with JPGs. Let’s clear a thing: film simulations or camera profiles or any other way the camera manufacturers decide to choose are something that has a meaning for JPGs. I believe that it was an inevitable process, due to the technological advancement that made it possible to offer JPGs of ever higher quality, even more workable than before. But there is no doubt that many have switched to Fujifilm for jpgs.

In my experience I have seen that is fundamental the photographer and his/her skills. If you really know what to do, you don't need RAW, at least if we are talking about street photography and documentary, even if I have an extremist thought in this case because also for my clients, except in rare cases and upon express request, I work directly the fine JPG. *

*EDIT: I want to avoid misunderstanding (just happened) on this point: I am just talking about me, my experience as a photographer working also for clients and I don’t mean not shooting RAW is good for anyone. Usually in editorial and commercial photography RAW is super recommended to have greater workability of the files in post production. I just talk about my process that wants replicate also in digital my film approach. I consider the real end of the process (MY PROCESS NOT YOURS) when I recognize a photograph and I press the shutter button. This is the reason why my photos are never heavily processed. I worked also for clients like Burberry but most of the time my clients are models, actresses. Leica, for example, asked me RAW and I respected their request, and I would back to make this form them or any client that asks me that. I collaborate with 2 journalistic agencies and they always asked me only the JPGs. They can recommend to use RAW in their guide but they ask only the JPGs with a good resolution and dimension and good quality of the image. I don’t question anyone about their process. My position is quite simple: if it works for you fine, you are the only one to know what is better for you and your clients. I know there are photographers proposing to their clients work made with their smartphones and I am not goint to question how they make this because the RAW is impossible to have with a smartphone. Of course this blog is focused on my experience and most of the time I am talking what is my experience. If I use you and not I in my speech sometimes is just because in Italian language is a way to say ME, a subtlety of the language that perhaps it is not possible to reproduce in English and from that maybe the misunderstanding. On another speech: do you know is possible to create a DNG file from a fine JPG?

Anyways there is not just Fujifilm proposing good simulations: Pentax proposes cool simulations like cross processing that generated interesting results.

The positive film simulation and the grainy black and white of Ricoh GRD/GR is great. When I worked with Leica X2 I used that camera mostly in monochrome, working most of the time at 1600 ISO in order to get closer to Kodak TRI-X 400. I used it expecially for fashion and erotica work, but also for documentary and street photography and the results are fantastic with images that still I love a lot, despite several years are passed by.

If a simulation combined with a recipe can let you give and idea of a glorious film, we have to be conscious THAT WILL BE NEVER SIMILAR TO THE RESULT WITH A REAL FILM ROLL. But if we work in a certain way with our digital cameras we can achieve a more organic and therefore less ... digital result. Now just look this image:

This image was realized with my Canon EOS M200 using the camera profile PORTRAIT and just enhancing the result with a small correction with my editing software (Adobe Lightroom Classic). Until a few days ago I used the faithful profile for a while, but I realized that has a problem: it tends to turn off the image a bit and the blues are overly saturated. This is something that reminds me of Fujifilm's Classic Chrome and has never been a favorite of mine.

Let’s see now to discover the Canon profiles:

FAITHFUL

Little buit more saturated than standard. Blues are pretty saturated. The profile aims to give a faithful reproduction of reality so don’t consider it, if you want to give more character to your photos. The reason why I used it a lot is because I was combinating this with a lightroom preset that I made.

NEUTRAL

Just like the name say the result is flatter than faithful and to me results…boring. Neutral works for a country to preserve the peace, maybe. For photography, forget it.

LANDSCAPE

If you want a more saturared photograph this can be a option. But take in mind that green will leterally explode with this profile, getting more vibrant. At the same time the shadows will be flattened. Is working for Street Photography? Let's put it this way: would you use Velvia / Vivid with your Fujifilm camera for your street photography? Here, you answered. One way or the other.

STANDARD

It is a sort of neutral with 2 differences: more saturated and flat shadows than neutral.

MONOCHROME

I have decided to offer you one of the most recent photos taken with my Canon Rebel T7 because taking the profile settings to the extreme you get to a very Japanese black and white, to Daido Moriyama to be clear, and so dear to Ricoh GR photographers. You can activate the filter, in my case my favorite is and always will be the yellow filter when it comes to black and white. Even more than other profiles you can mark the difference of the results by changing the settings.

PORTRAIT

As the name says it is a profile to enhance the results in portraits, that means people, that means…for a street photographer focused on making photos to people is the right choice in my opinion. It was the same as a Fujifilm camera owner with the Astia Soft. The result will be mid tones more saturated and more pop colors. It combines well particularly with the WB settings to sunny. The result will come closest to the Kodak Portra which is the one we most refer to for photos with people. I am currently using a new preset that works great for this camera profile. More vibrant colors and warmer tones is the goal for my Street Photography.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite Fujifilm and Ricoh are more quoted for their camera profiles, I would say that Canon convinced me over precisely for its colors, a real surprise to be less fashionista and more concrete. If we are JPG shooters we need to be aware that by understanding the camera profiles of our cameras can be determinating.

I consider the camera profile only a part of the work to make with your settings in the camera. My focus with my digital cameras has been always to obtain a more organic (who said filmy?) result and I have seen that is possible to achieve by working turning off the most of the digital features proposed by the manufacturers.

This exposes me to a greater risk, for example the fact of working in manual focus, but the result is much more satisfying precisely because it is less plasticky and more natural.