M Color

[erl]

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Curiously, I got the b'ground as neutral grey to my eye immediately.

Confirmed by color picker.

[rirakuma]

My old C1 v4 works fine in neutral mode with M240 files.

I just have to reduce red saturation but less so than with early M9 files like the one above.

DNG file: http://img1.focus-numerique.com/focus/articles/1634/leica-m-exemple7.DNG

JPG file out of C1 v4: http://tinyurl.com/dy6gged

Good enough for me.

 

This looks very magenta-ish on my monitor with standard calibration from Spyder 4. This is my take on the WB with a quick fiddle in LR4 http://i.imgur.com/DKWCRkk.jpg. Does it look too warm / green?

[elmars]

"Honey, it's nothing. Now, what are you going to believe, what I tell you or what you see with your eyes?"

 

—Mitch/Paris

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

 

This is it. We need proof for our eyes and not opinion. If Stephen is not satisfied with the color of the M, I am sorry for him. But what is bad for him, must not be bad for others. We need proof by pictures or scientific tests. What I have seen so far, the M-colours are as good (or bad) as the M9-colours (a friend has a M). But this is of course another opinion (mine), no proof for others.

 

Elmar

[k-hawinkler]

This looks very magenta-ish on my monitor with standard calibration from Spyder 4. This is my take on the WB with a quick fiddle in LR4 http://i.imgur.com/DKWCRkk.jpg. Does it look too warm / green?

 

 

Thanks. On my screen much better, but still too warm / green.

[pico]

This looks very magenta-ish on my monitor with standard calibration from Spyder 4. This is my take on the WB with a quick fiddle in LR4 http://i.imgur.com/DKWCRkk.jpg. Does it look too warm / green?

 

Without any DNG adjustments, the whitest white of the eye is color #bf9c92.

[dwbell]

On the iPhone so scratch this post if it's been done.

 

Can someone (cough thighslapper! :-) post a DNG of their wife / husband / themselves in tungsten light and in daylight (or good studio flash) with a Mcbeth colour chart or Xrite passport in the frame?

 

Then we'll know where we are more.

[erl]

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He probably just had a late night!

[erl]

He probably just had a late night!

I know I did.

You should see the colour from my side.

[thighslapper]

Isn't it also necessary to tell, which RAW conversion and in the case of Adobe Camera Raw which calibration profile was used (embedded/camera standard or adobe standard)?

 

I've only a M8 and use the embedded camera profile in Lightroom which is satisfying for me. The Adobe Standard profile isn't working for me at all. I wrote about it in this thread. With the M9 and M240 you do have also two choices with ACR.

 

Everything I have posted uses the embedded profile for the M240......

 

.... because thats the only one that has been configured for it.

 

Comparing images using other RAW processors default profiles, such as Adobe in LR4 is a complete waste of time as they pay no attention whatsoever to any idiosyncracies in the basic bayer data coming from the M240.

 

Until Leica get their default embedded profile right ..... or a 3rd party produces a profile that is usable all this thread is speculative at best.

 

All you can currently do with any degree of accuracy is compare the M240 embedded output with the images from the M9 (processed however you like).

 

I will happily sell my camera if Leica or other RAW processors fail to produce a conversion that is not as good.... or worse than the M9.......

 

The next round of tests will involve grey card calibrated comparisons for the M9 and M240 ..... which hopefully will eliminate the flakey WB issue that makes a lot of this discussion educated guesswork......

[pico]

ACR shows this in DNG open.

 

However, it opens properly in photoshop.

 

Here is the first adjustment of curves, fixing on white of the eye. Corrected. But the flesh tones are a judgement call. I won't go there.

 

(Gosh, I just hate how sharp the image is. )

[luigi bertolotti]

As a simple amateur, with the serious intention to have a M, this thread is the first one which arised to me some serious thought... I have seen posts from people who I consider trustable and do express serious doubts on the abilty of the M to produce a good color rendition... but I must also add that had NOT such feeling looking at the first examples posted by early users (Jono & others) : to resume, my impression at the moment is this :

 

- Skintones... it's probably the MOST questionable matter in any digital camera : I have read (in other sites) of issues and discuassions about even with some "famous" MF backs strictly for pro usage. My personal feel is that one has always to struggle with them when the subject is important and you want a good print (and one can have some surprise on the print' side) : I won't discard my decision towards M for this reason : simply, I think that I will have to learn somw RAW dev / PP technique probably different from what I do now with M8/LR... I'll do...

- Global color balancing : can it be really an issue on the Bayer filter' side ? : this is the problem that really worries me a little... is a new sensor, a new packaging... something that CAN be difficult to adjust at firmware level... if there is something "bad" in the basic RGB bitmap, you can have some color info that is "lost or wrong" from the start and cannot be recovered by firmware.

 

The hipotesis of the problem on the Bayer filter has been made also by one of our (imo) better reviewers (Mark) : do you think that, if this is true, some official move could be done by Leica ? I think that new sensors, as any other microelectronics device, do have a "release/version" path during their lifecycle...

[lct]

...LCT, I found you adjustment too pink, but that may be personal preferences or variations between the calibration of our respective monitors.

Matter of tastes and monitor as usual. Looks too pink on my laptop as well. Suffice it to reduce red saturation a bit more if need be. Takes a couple of seconds. With the worst bad faith nobody would call this a skin tone rendition issue.

[jaapv]

Maybe they are. But using colour balance "beige medium" on the front of his hand in C1 produces a natural skin look.

[erl]

I agree, the pic is sharp!

 

as I said earlier, I had no trouble getting a balance that pleased me. Maybe that is a comment on my lack of 'criticalness' but I don't believe so.

 

I have spent a lifetime colour balancing in the darkroom which I think gives me a reasonably experienced eye, but even that is not foolproof. My aim has always been to "please" rather than be "accurate". It still is. Of course, sometimes they need to be the same.

[viramati]

I really fail to see the enormity of the problem. I have downloaded the file and have no problem as far as my eyes are concerned in getting an image that I am happy with. In any case back in the old days of film they all rendered colours in different ways, we had Provia,Velvia, ektachrome, kodachrome etc colours, we had positive, negative emulsion and on and on all behaving in different ways which in fact we used to our advantage to get different effects. I fail to see the difference. Personally I can't wait to get my M and to get on with taking photographs

[elmars]

To all Apple/Safari users: I have a hardware calibrated monitor and the pictures in LR look fine. But colors in Safari, especially red and magenta, look terrific to me - oversaturated. From some sites in the internet I learned, that safari changes the colors, they are more saturated. So a real test of the M-colours is for safari users only possible, when they download a picture and view it in LR or Photoshop etc.

 

Elmar

[Guest malland]

The M9 colors are pleasing, but they are not objectively accurate as this review illustrates: Leica M9 / M9-P Camera Exposure - Review...

Indeed, the Imaging Resource review states, "The Leica M9 oversaturates most colors by default, a little more so than the majority of cameras these days, perhaps in an attempt to mimic the rich saturation of many color reversal (slide) films." This is in line with what a very good color photographer who loves the M9 color rendition wrote in a LUF posting, namely that, generally, CCD sensor cameras produce color more like color slide film while CMOS cameras produce color more like color negative film. Keep in mind that most color films did not produce "objectively accurate" colors, but that one bought films whose color rendition one liked. Also, consider that Kodak and Leica in designing the M8/M9 sensors were working to achieve a Kodachrome-like color rendition.

 

Now, if, under the best of circumstances, the M240 would produce "CMOS-like color" like other CMOS-sensor cameras, the bulk of people who like the M9 color rendition are not likely to want to change to the M240. But the immediate problem is that we're not "under the best of circumstances" because there clearly are color issues (e.g. yellow and red) from so much of what is coming out of the M240 — lct's DNG file notwithstanding — that, as fotografz states, the problem isn't just the white balance but the relationship of colors to each other. This sort of problem could be a hardware issue related to the combination of sensor and filter that may not be fixable through profiles and firmware updates. I hope that this is not the case, but we'll see.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[k-hawinkler]

My old C1 v4 works fine in neutral mode with M240 files.

I just have to reduce red saturation but less so than with early M9 files like the one above.

DNG file: http://img1.focus-numerique.com/focus/articles/1634/leica-m-exemple7.DNG

JPG file out of C1 v4: http://tinyurl.com/dy6gged

Good enough for me.

 

 

So, for what it is worth, I took the above .DNG file, applied 01af's settings for the M9 from http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/2379888-post26.html, adjusted the Basic parameters in CS6 and got this result on a calibrated screen, WB set to 4300, -5:

 

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[jonoslack]

Well, I've avoided this post, because I find it difficult to make useful and constructive contributions.

 

But maybe it's time to say something, because I've probably shot more shots than many with the camera.

 

First a couple of observations (mostly glib, but that's me):

 

Familiarity

breeds content - We mostly love Kodachrome and Velvia (at least I do), but they have nothing much to do with colour accuracy - and that is certainly not why they're loved.

 

We get used to the look from a sensor/film stock, and as often as not we love it for it's idiosyncrasies as much as for it's technical attributes.

 

Reality

Correct colour - it's bandied about a lot, and of course, in even lighting with a colour card there is a correct result.

But most of us never take pictures in 'correct' lighting - there's almost always a mixture of light and shade, and the colour temperature between these can vary really radically.

A casual shot of some flowers just inside our kitchen window, with the sunlight outside, showed a difference between 4200K and 7500K. How is AWB supposed to get that one right?

 

Auto White Balance

On the basis of the 'reality' above, what IS the correct white balance in any given scene? There isn't one !- it's a matter of a decent compromise.

This is why I very rarely shoot AWB.

Basically my feeling is that if you shoot RAW you can always correct the white balance afterward. Shooting a fixed white balance is exactly like choosing a particular film stock EXCEPT that you can change it afterwards if you need to. For me it gives a consistency to the files which makes it much easier to asses them after the event.

 

The White balance on the M

I think there is a general consensus that the AWB often produces too warm results, and it's certainly the case that the other presets are warmer than their equivalents on the M9.

Although I agree with this - I would also say that most of the photographs I've taken need no changes to the white balance or colour.

 

Skin Tones on the M

Well, what I"m certain of is that in low light they are much much better than the M9, especially for elderly caucasians where the M9 produced an unmanagable magenta bias - so I always converted to black and white over 1250, and struggled above 800 ISO.

On the other hand, I think that it's an interesting fact that sales of spray tan in the Western World are booming, and those of skin whitener are booming in the East.

Rather like Nikon cameras, the M seems to me to give a slight brown/yellow colouring which is flattering in the West and the opposite in the East. Personally, I've found it very very easy to change to get what I want.

 

Other Cameras

I've had too many cameras - Kodak - Olympus - Sony - Nikon - Leica. For me, each manufacturer has it's own signature, and although the Olympus E1 might be different from the OMD, they have more in common than that which separates them. I think the same is true of the M9/M - but that's me.

I can't shoot Nikon - because I find that there is a yellow tint to evening shots which I simply can't get rid of - removing it also removes the Mojo. I really like Leica colour, but 'like' is the operative word.

As some others, I feel that the colour in the Sony A900/A850 was about as good as it gets - and that was from the same sensor as the Nikon D3x . . . .

 

Raw Converters

I use Aperture - because it seems to me that it's less interventionist than LR and especially C1. The noise supression isn't as good, but that's part of the same deal. They don't have a colour profile for the M - but I find the default profile does very well as a starting point.

 

Conclusion

I don't know how many photos I've taken with the M - but I delete the vast majority of my shots and I still have over 10,000 in my library taken with the camera with an array of lenses in all sorts of different circumstances, from midnight cafe to the top of a snowy mountain, to a chinese village, to Venice and back to our own kitchen.

I love it - I love the colour (without denying it's idiosyncrasies). I love the operation (without considering it perfect). Of course, I can hear you saying He would say that wouldn't he - but I don't love everything Leica - I just keep my mouth shut about the things I don't like.

 

This discussion is so much like that about the M9 and I wonder how the internet would have greeted the launch of Velvia all those years ago.

If you're considering the M, and wondering if you can get likeable colour out of it (and remembering that 'correct colour' is a chimera). Then I have 10,000 images to prove that I can get colour I like out of it.

 

Rant over (sorry)

All the best

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Guest malland]

Jono, what can I say? Maybe I should repeat the joke at the end of post #197.

 

—Mitch/Paris

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