Lagfest, on 28 December 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:
This is the real world, no photo effects or changes applied: Germany and Tucson
and this:

While these are not particularly good photos - they have some color and contrast to them.
The first has a wide shade of greens with some grays. It's very well saturated (the result of underexposure). Contrast is good though because of the underexposure the dark areas are a bit too dark. Off by about half of a stop is my guess.
The second shot is well exposed though it de-saturated a little and missing missing the finer details of the bushes. A low grade camera my guess? Regardless the colors are still there and varied. There are nice browns on the ground going to some greens in the leaves and a half decent sky. Contrast could be improved but it isn't terrible.
Now compare those to this:
It's white and gray. The only little bit of color there is a very desaturated green on the mech's camo. Contrast is ok but overall it's just bland and colorless. There seems to be some kind of white haze that is reducing contrast the further away from the camera.
This time we get brown. Again aside from the mech's camo (a very de-saturated blue-gray) everything is some shade of orange/brown. Because of the haze contrast is very low once you get a little further away from the camera.
Now we're in yellow/green land. Again the mech is the exception though the flat gray is not remarkable. Contrast is very low again.