M Color

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The disc reads light falling on the lens, but not the light that actually enters from the scene. Its success depends upon the light within the scene being the same. To me, it is amazing that it works in so many cases. Perhaps that speaks to our environment.

 

Shouldn't we measure the temperature of the light falling on the scene? In this sense, we're speaking about a procedure similar to incident light metering. Hence, we should place the camera with the disc in a place which receives the same light as does the scene, I think. Otherwise, you'd optimize your shots to show grey lawns.

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[AlanJW]

I wholeheartedly agree. Leica digital colour just sucks.

 

The best colour I ever saw right out of a digital camera was the Konica-Minolta Dynax 7D's—an APS-C-format 6 MP DSLR camera introduced in Fall 2004. Someone who I consider well-informed suggested that was due to Konica's expertise in colour reproduction. I really wish Leica Camera would engage one or two of those people.

 

You may be on to something. Sony took over the Konica-Minolta photo business and Sony sensors have performed very well. Of course on ergonomics Sony seems to have not accepted the camera company's approach, preferring the consumer electronics approach with menus buried in menus and submenus and buttons and wheels galore. I sometimes think Sony and Leica would be good team - but that is not going to happen as Leica has teamed with Panasonic.

[Karl G]

Perhaps someone will market 18% grey shirts so that we need only point the camera at a sleeve.

 

 

http://www.redbubble.com/people/naf4d/works/3336495-1-18-grey-test-tee

[Guest borge]

If I am not mistaking: Kodak designed and made the CCD sensor in the M9/M9-P/M-E.

That probably means that they also designed and made the specifications for the Bayer filter on the M9's sensor? Does anyone know?

 

In that case the M240 is actually the first camera that Leica has developed the specifications for entirely themself. Which means that it is in fact the first digital sensor they have ever designed.

 

Could the weird and bad colors be the result of a bayer filter that is not optimal?

 

I mean: Kodak knows color. They have made film for an eternity. The sensor on the M9/M9-P/M-E is known for it's excellent color reproduction.

 

What other cameras are known for excellent color reproduction? That's right: The latest generation Fujifilm cameras. They have also been making film for ages - they know color.

 

Leica has made film cameras and lenses. Hence the M240 is Leica's first venture into the digital world (that they designed themself). Leica does not know color in the same way that Kodak or Fujifilm does.

 

So... Coincidence? Discuss

[glenerrolrd]

Kurt, I can assure that the M colors are fine if you shoot a grey card. If, you are going to use color out of camera as you stated then of course the JPEG colors are way off. AWB is wrong. Way wrong. But, if corrected with a grey card the color is very good. It is not a shame, it is not happening again... please rest assured that the color is good from the M, but for now you will need to shoot RAW with a grey card if you want to make it easy on yourself.

 

And I can assure you they are not . Rick you seem to believe that you are the only one that understands anything about color response from the new M . Kurt has worked thru this issue on every Leica digital release since the DMR . I ve seen more than I wanted with examples of the new M color from the individuals that gave up on the new M . I ve taken 10 s of thousands of captures with the dmr,m8,m9and s2 ..plus I spent the last 6 months working with the D800e and the Leica R to achieve a M9 like aesthetic . Feel free to discard our points of view as you think necessary .

 

I had a new M unfortunately all too briefly (returned for RF calibration ) and shot it side by side with my M9 and the Nikon D800e/Leica R lenses . I started with daylight testing and used a passport color chart . AWB is easy ...the new M is similar to using an 81a warming filter . That aspect is straightforward to measure with a grey card and equally straightforward to correct in the raw conversion .

 

Its another thing to discard AWB when working in changing light ,mixed lighting etc . It is generally better to use that grey card but sometimes its nice to have a little help when working quickly (like on the street).

 

I took the captures of the color charts and just compared the as rendered with the various available adobe camera profiles to a custom DNG profile . The differences are quite easy to see. I can correct for them with a custom profile and presets ...the primary issue with skin tones for example is over saturation and of course the warm AWB .

 

But as has been pointed out ..its one thing to create a solution for a single lighting environment and another to have one that works thru a variety of lighting situations .

 

If you have a point of view thats different please feel free to support it and maybe lay off the comments that seem to undermine the credibility of opinions that might differ from yours .

[D&A]

I agree with Roger that from my limited experience in working with matched pairs of M9 and M240 files, it was both oversaturation as well as a AWB issue with the M240. I also very much agree that it isn't always convienient to keep taking a Gray card reading in changing light senario's and that ultimately this will need to be addressed by other means.

 

Lastly I can agree with Rick and also believe that reading/measuring the temperatire of the light falling on the scene as a accurate way of tacking this problem and that's why I suggested use of the Expo disc. As soon as I can get my hands on a M240 again, I'd like to compare use of the Gray card vs. The Expo disc. Camera WB presets are also something to look at but with if say one picked "Daylight", that within that setting, once has the ability to set a warmer or cooler temperture, ala most DSLR's. That would be another way for Leica to simply address this problem. Let the user have some varience of color temp within each of the WB presets. I believe this feature could be added throuigh firmware.

 

Dave (D&A)

[Rick]

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I agree with both Dave and Roger. The point I am making is that some believe that the AWB has to be solved and it sounds like this issue has caused some to return their camera. Agreed that AWB is off. But, some of us don't even use it and set it in camera and then develop all files from that starting point in PP/LR. I did this in the M9 and I know a lot of others that do this as well.

 

The point of this is that if you don't shoot a grey card when you get a new camera and get an idea of what is going on then, you won't get even close to the correct color. Do a few tests yourself in different lighting conditions and do your own home work and start there.

 

The color profile is an independent issue and is also off. I stated this from the beginning. I'll try and find time to give some examples and some profiles I've made.

 

But, it is my opinion so far that the color is pretty good with the right profile. My main issue is when someone who doesn't own the camera suggest that the color is bad enough that his friends have returned their cameras... which suggests that people shouldn't buy it. I can tell you this is wrong and that is my opinion. Also, I've said that I am still struggling with the color profiles and cant' seem to get it exactly right - but, I feel I am further along than I was with the M9 at this point in time and there is no comparison in tungsten lighting as the M is so much better than the M9 already.

 

And, Kurt probably knows more about photography than me and he is definitely funnier.

[glenerrolrd]

Actually I think its wrong that :

 

1. Leica gets a free pass on deficiencies that makes the early adopters "beta testers". They had samples in the field since last October ...its now almost May . Just own up an admit that they have this terribly wrong and should prioritize getting it fixed .

 

2. Virtually all the early test reports and proof of concepts swept these issues under that table . No comparisons to the M9 files , few if any portraits and no discussion of color differences . Seriously can you really shoot an M9 everyday and not notice that the M files are significantly warmer,way more saturated and with a much different tone curve . The color differences ...M is more yellow and green and the M9 is more blue and magenta . I wonder if the CCD verse CMOS differences might have something to do with it .

 

3. Any mention of these differences gets an immediate shout down from early adopters that have no business disputing the facts . I had one very nice fellow tell me he couldn t understand how anyone would not like the color of the new M . I asked how are you processing ..well he was shooting jpegs and downloading directly to his desktop and then up to Facebook . Obviously some photographs can benefit from a little warmth ..but its really posting them as a question ..looks good to me . Would you like to borrow my grey card ?

 

But heck that just one photographers POV.

[algrove]

This thread as others on the same subject have just worn me out. Time to go out shooting.

 

How do I shoot. Well, I never used AWB with my M9, only now with my 5D3 and RX-1. Why would I start now? You mean you guys didn't get the "Beta Tester Discount"?

 

With my M anything, I typically use the WhiBal card. Sure conditions change. If dramatically, then I reset WB with my WhiBal card. Inside I can most often get good results with 3200K or even in mixed outdoor/evening lighting.

 

So it turns out, this IS a discussion about AWB. I don't care as I don't use it. Why would I? I don't use anything Auto on my digital M's. And remember A does not mean Auto.

[sblitz]

Gray card for whit balance? No white card for that gray card for metering. M9 is still more than fine for me. No complaints. Life is good. Used trade up money to buy an 18mm sem.

[Guest malland]

Re; post #108:

 

Roger, thank you, you've expressed much more articulately what I have been struggling to get at.

 

While it's true that M9 users have struggled through several firmware upgrades and improvements in raw developer profiles, as of today it seems to me it's much easier for many people to get the color rendition that they want from M9 than from M240 DNG files. I have also wondered whether the differences between the color produced from the two cameras stems from CCD vs CMOS sensors — or it may be from a combination of the latter with the Bayer arrays and whatever else comes into play; not that I'm that interested in knowing the precise reasons for that, as all I care about is the color rendition.

 

My feeling is that the color rendition of the M240 has to be, and will be, improved because I, like many other people, don't consider it to be anywhere nearly as good as that of the M9; and that could eventually affect the sales of the cameras.

 

As I've stated previously, in February I made a bet that the color rendition of the M9 was more like color slide film while that of the M240 was more like color negative film and bought a new M9-P when I found it on sale at a few hundred dollars more than the cost of an M-E. Now that may be the wrong bet, but so far I'm glad not to be an early adaptor of the M240 because the colors it produces don't attract to me to get the camera now.

 

Somewhere, I've read that Kodak and Leica used the Kodachrome look for designing the M9 (and M8?) sensor. I don't know whether that is true, but I surely generally like what in terms of color rendition more from the M9 than that of the M240. I think one can get wonderful color from the M9 and hope that the M240 will get there. But there's no point in ignoring that there is an issue or a problem with the M240 color rendition. It's certainly not a question of "needing to process the files" a bit as some in this thread have suggested.

 

—Mitch Alland/Dulles Airport

Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems [download link for book project]

 

P.S.: This is not a discussion about AWB and how one shoots.

[D&A]

I firmly believe from all I've seen (including M240 files I've worked with)...that even after the color issues get worked out with the M240 (and I have little doubt they'll get better in time), that the overall look and color rendition of improved M240 images will still have a very different look to those of the M9. I say this based on images I've seen or worked on personally where I got the colors to be quite accurate and the overall look and color balance of the M240 images were easily recognizable from similar paired images from the M9.

 

Whether one will like the new look of the M240 files vs. Those from the M9, after all is corrected and imporved is going to be quite subjective. It may be premature but so far from what I've seen in even highly corrected M240 files, I have an early impression which I greatly prefer. I do hope in time this impression changes since no doubt the M240 has great potential.

 

I also believe the issues as others stated is a combination of factors, not simple a "one and done" type fix.

 

Dave (D&A)

[otto.f]

Well, the B&W from the M is probably better than from the M9 and it is cheaper than an MM. So that is a quite logical price policy.

[pop]

I think we might be making a very large stew from very few oysters. Wouldn't it be nice if someone did a frequency response analysis for both cameras with the same light source? I envision something along the line of my thread http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-forum/275013-jerry-built-spectrum-analysis.html which I did for the fun of it, only for the DNGs and not the JPGs, of course. Any difference in the color rendering ought to become visible, I hope.

[glenerrolrd]

This thread as others on the same subject have just worn me out. Time to go out shooting.

 

How do I shoot. Well, I never used AWB with my M9, only now with my 5D3 and RX-1. Why would I start now? You mean you guys didn't get the "Beta Tester Discount"?

 

With my M anything, I typically use the WhiBal card. Sure conditions change. If dramatically, then I reset WB with my WhiBal card. Inside I can most often get good results with 3200K or even in mixed outdoor/evening lighting.

 

So it turns out, this IS a discussion about AWB. I don't care as I don't use it. Why would I? I don't use anything Auto on my digital M's. And remember A does not mean Auto.

 

The whole point about using a grey card ,whibal or anything you choose to establish WB ...is to show that the color issue is more than WB . If you get the WB perfect and the skin tones suck ..like maybe they are over saturated ..then its in the camera calibration . Thats why you should care .

[glenerrolrd]

I firmly believe from all I've seen (including M240 files I've worked with)...that even after the color issues get worked out with the M240 (and I have little doubt they'll get better in time), that the overall look and color rendition of improved M240 images will still have a very different look to those of the M9. I say this based on images I've seen or worked on personally where I got the colors to be quite accurate and the overall look and color balance of the M240 images were easily recognizable from similar paired images from the M9.

 

Whether one will like the new look of the M240 files vs. Those from the M9, after all is corrected and imporved is going to be quite subjective. It may be premature but so far from what I've seen in even highly corrected M240 files, I have an early impression which I greatly prefer. I do hope in time this impression changes since no doubt the M240 has great potential.

 

I also believe the issues as others stated is a combination of factors, not simple a "one and done" type fix.

 

 

 

 

Dave (D&A)

 

 

Dave

 

This has been the essence of the CCD to CMOS debate since the beginning . My bet is that overtime the new M will improve greatly and be viewed as one of the best aesthetics available . Just like with the DMR ..the M9 was different but it seemed to get better overtime and was much appreciated . I expect that gradually the new M will be come the relevant standard for those shooting with Leica s . But until they sort out the M s color ..it will be Apples and Oranges .

[mjh]

Shouldn't we measure the temperature of the light falling on the scene? In this sense, we're speaking about a procedure similar to incident light metering. Hence, we should place the camera with the disc in a place which receives the same light as does the scene, I think. Otherwise, you'd optimize your shots to show grey lawns.

Exactly. The Expo Disc should be used for measuring incident light. If used this way (which isn’t always possible of course), the results are guaranteed to be correct, although the neutral rendering may not be the most pleasing.

[D&A]

Dave

 

This has been the essence of the CCD to CMOS debate since the beginning . My bet is that overtime the new M will improve greatly and be viewed as one of the best aesthetics available . Just like with the DMR ..the M9 was different but it seemed to get better overtime and was much appreciated . I expect that gradually the new M will be come the relevant standard for those shooting with Leica s . But until they sort out the M s color ..it will be Apples and Oranges .

 

I quite agree Roger and that is what I'm hoping for too. Everyone looks to successive generations of digital cameras to offer improved image quality besides whatever additional features a camera might offer. It's no different from the Nikon D4...it may excel at Video, but if it take a step backwards in terms of image quality or high ISo performance, its not going to be viewed as a success.

 

Discussing these and other issues is not to lambast the M240 but in the hopes that with suitable corrections, it becomes the camera most have hoped for.

 

Dave (D&A)

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[D&A]

Exactly. The Expo Disc should be used for measuring incident light. If used this way (which isn’t always possible of course), the results are guaranteed to be correct, although the neutral rendering may not be the most pleasing.

 

Quite agree! The neutral rendering with the Expo disc if often too "cool", temperature wise. That's why they came out with a portrait model of the Expo disc, which warms up things considerably.

 

Dave (D&A)

[mjh]

Any mention of these differences gets an immediate shout down from early adopters that have no business disputing the facts .

Really? There seems to be near universal agreement that AWB is way off.