Natural landscape color

The emotional depth of a scene in Trichromatic perfection. We spoke to Peter Cox, award-winning landscape photographer, to find out what color in his photography means to him. Peter has been using the IQ3 100MP Trichromatic on his XF Camera. We hear Peter’s reaction to the new technology and how it’s affected his landscape work. Peter took the Trichromatic on a landscape photography shoot in the Chilean Atacama Desert, a place that drew Peter over by the promise of the landscape’s unique color palette.

Why landscape photography?

Beautiful landscapes were what made me want to make photographs in the first place. For me, photography is about sharing the emotion and experience of being in an amazing place at the ideal time with the viewer. This visit to the Atacama was the first venture to a warm climate, but I went in winter. I love remote areas. For me, the high altitude and clear skies are a real draw as I had planned to do some astrophotography while there. During the daytime, the simplicity of the landscape and the colour palette were the draw to make some striking and simple compositions.

The power of color in photography

Colour rendition has been gradually improving in digital photography, and having the flexibility to choose your own interpretation of the colours in a scene is a powerful tool for many photographers. For me, rendering a scene as closely as perceived by the human eye is the ultimate goal. So, a digital back that could render that colour better and more faithfully is something I was keen to try out. It would allow me to more faithfully represent the scenes as I saw them and help me to transmit the emotion I felt to the viewer of the photograph.

When I heard that Phase One had developed the Trichromatic Digital Back, I was quite excited. For me, it’s the colour in the scene that draws me in – otherwise I’d shoot in black and white! Cameras are fundamentally limited in their ability to render a scene the same way we perceive it. Anything that can bridge that gap and make the photograph more effective is hugely beneficial. True colour to me is colour that is consistent with what I saw in nature.”

Experiencing the IQ3 100MP Trichromatic

I think the Trichromatic is a unique back because it is the first camera that I’m aware of to place so much emphasis on colour fidelity. Travelling to the Atacama Desert with the new Phase One Trichromatic sensor was incredible. I got to put this thing through its paces, I got to see on the back of the camera and in the files on the computer colours that are much closer in fidelity to what I’ve been able to use before. As a colour landscape photographer, having a sensor that renders accurate and subtle colours is a huge improvement and I felt very satisfied using it.

Our philosophy behind the quest for perfect color

We developed the Trichromatic Technology in a 100MP system the same year we launched the world’s first 100MP Achromatic Camera System. What motivated us to develop these two ground-breaking technologies at opposite ends of the spectrum?

The answer is simple: We listened to our customers, and it became our mission to develop the technology that would allow these photographers to realize their visions. We did this through technological innovation. With the Trichromatic, the ability to control the capturing of an image as seen by the photographer’s eye and express that accurately in pixels is our obsession. And in the hands of an artist, it is a powerful tool. Photographers are the masters who can wield this ability; they are the artists whose skill and imagination can juxtapose artistic vision on reality. Phase One is the conduit for these craftspeople and artists.