Digital Patriot Photography Blog: Quick Comparison of Canon vs. Fuji Color Science

Comparing Canon vs. Fuji Colors

Fujifilm XT3

26MP, 4K/60, 11/30FPS (Mechanical/E-Shutter), BSI Sensor, Quad-Core Processor (3x faster), 160 base ISO!

My Fujifilm XT-3 with Fuji 23mm F2, red shutter button, and aftermarket lens hood.
(My own photos-please do not use)

I own and shoot both Canon and Fujifilm systems. I am an original Canon 5D shooter since the year 2005 and have been shooting Canon ever since. I got into Fuji five years ago with the gateway drug the X100. I've been hooked since. Fuji truly made photography fun while shooting Canon cameras felt like a plasticky consumer mainstream experience. Call me a hipster, if you want! There's no denying Fujifilm has gorgeous looks as shown in my XT3 shot above.

However, I did get rid of most of my Canon cameras and L glass, but kept my old and trusty Canon EOS M3--a little known mostly forgotten jewel of the photographic world.

My take on this dual system setup is simply this...

Fuji: people, artistic things, vintage look

Canon: landscapes, cars, color

I could never quite point my finger on why Canons were so great at landscape. Colors just so punchy.

Take a look at DPreview's image comparison tool:

Clearly, colors you'd typically see in a landscape like reds, blues, greens, perhaps magenta in a sunset, are punchier right off the bat with Canon. You can see two Fujis on the left and two Canons on the right at their base ISO.

Well couldn't you edit the colors on the Fuji by simply sliding the sliders around in Lightroom?

I tried just that.

My setups were:

Canon EOS M3 with 22mm F2 lens wide open at F2 and Fuji XT3 with 23mm F2 also wide open at F2. I shot the same scene within seconds of eachother in raw at base ISOs of 100 and 160 respectively.

Right off the bat, the Canon was much more pleasing to the eye and punchier. The blues and reds particularly looked more vibrant.

The Fuji was subdued. I moved the sliders around in lightroom for the Fuji raw file and it still did not look as punchy or as good as the Canon.

The Canon simply sets a better RAW baseline to work from, at least when it comes to landscapes. The reds, greens, and blues are exactly what you'd expect and want them to be for such a photo, at least for me anyway.

Here's some raw samples converted to JPEG straight from raw. No edits whatsoever other than crop and framing to match:

First is Canon...

And here's Fuji

And here are the same photos with identical increases in saturation, vibrancy, and clarity. 35/35/10 in Lightroom, respectively.

First up the Canon...

and the Fuji...

As you can see, the Fuji is reluctant to get vivid, vibrant, contrasty like the Canon. Even with equal adjustments. I tried sliding the saturation/vibrancy sliders aggressively on the Fuji and it just turned nasty. Fuji simply does not want to do landscapes while Canon is chomping at the bit right out of the gate.

However, with further massaging, and playing with individual selective colors, I was able to finesse a Canon-looking Fuji file with some work.

Take a look at a full edit of both to get as punchy as possible without going overboard--mostly to prove a point about landscape colors on both systems:

Canon...

and the Fuji...

I had to insert these files twice to double check the file names to make sure which is which.

My takeaway:

The Fuji will still have superior dynamic range and cleaner files at base ISO.
Canon has superior landscape colors right off the bat in raw
Canon colors easier to manipulate (push around)
Canon colors eager to get more vibrant faster
Fuji is capable at great landscape color, but has to be manipulated and pushed a lot more carefully than Canon or results get ugly fast. Not sure why.
Fuji is superior (less orange) for skin. I've taken a TON of Canon portraits in my day and it always takes work to get the skin looking great. The Fuji comes out of the box nearly perfect if not outright perfect every time for photos of people. Canon and Fuji seem to trade places on people and landscape, in my experience. This could simply be due to the fact that Canon is tuned to be punchy which tends to not be good for skin while Fuji tends to want to stay neutral, even when pushed in post.

Some examples:

Canon 6D