Color characteristic M240 vs Q and SL

[elmars]

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I think, here a some forum members, who have the M240 as well as the Q or the SL. I would like to know if there are striking differences between both cameras in color characteristic resp. color rendering? Especially: How do they render skin tones? My question is not about jpg but about DNG developed in Lightroom.

 

Thanks

 

Elmar

[cpclee]

I'd like to know this too.  From the images I've seen online the SL's colors seem to look more consistently natural and organic than the M240's.  

Edited November 28, 2015 by cpclee

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[freitz]

bump also interested.

[LocalHero1953]

I don't have the Q.

 

I find the SL has much better AutoWB than the M240, especially indoors where the latter struggled with unadjusted skin tones. I rarely have to correct the former.

 

I find the SL colours more punchy (stronger? more saturated? brighter?) SOOC, but I have a custom dual illuminant colour profile in Lightroom that tones down the reds, adjusts the yellow-blue balance in grass, and removes a bit of cyan from the sky, which I prefer. I don't find the Adobe Standard profile unacceptable, though, and I may move back to it. However, all of this appears to be the result of better/different firmware and in-camera corrections, rather than inherent in the SL's hardware.

 

I have never been one of those who liked the M9 colours or yearns for a CCD sensor again. I found the M9's colours unrealistically strong (and sometimes just plain wrong, especially some skin tones), and was relieved to have the M240's more naturalistic palette. The SL moves back a bit towards the M9, but not unmanageably so.

 

What I do find special to the SL is its ability to reproduce delicate pastel and pearlescent colours in a way I cannot achieve from LR DNG files. If I had to guess, I would say this was a consequence of the wider DR of the SL, but I'm not a technical expert on such things.

 

Edit. I would also add that the SL's much better high ISO performance produces better colour tone response than the M240. This is partly because unpleasant colour and structural artifacts appear much later in shadows as ISO increases (and look much less obviously wrong when they do appear), and partly because the SL seems to yield very little colour noise. Noise, when it arrives, is mainly luminance noise and has an even grainy look that is clearly visible at pixel level, but shows up less at normal viewing scales. It gives the impression of impacting less on colour, but this is a purely subjective and superficial impression.

Edited December 14, 2015 by LocalHero1953

[AlanJW]

I have a Q but not SL.  I find the Q out of camera files much harder to deal with than the files from the MP240.   The Q jpgs differ appreciably in color balance from the Q dngs by the way, which is not an issue i see with the MP 240.  Maybe I need to create a profile in CC15 for the Q.