M Color

[lct]

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Agree. This is the typical red over saturation of the M...

Lightroom pic? If so i would say typical red oversaturation of Adobe instead. Noticed it with LR4 and ACR already and i suspect it is the same with LR5. No problem with C1 so far.

[elmars]

It doesn't look oversaturated on my screen... Just a theatre dress in theatre light.

 

Perhaps it depends on the browser one uses. Safari is known to oversaturate red and to shift it in the magenta direction.

 

Elmar

[MirekE]

I have been using my own profiles created with QPCard and Adobe DNG Profile Editor and do not have any issues with the colors. I have pretty good color sensitivity, but may have different taste than other people. Here is a composite image showing a shot of CC target processed with different profiles - Embedded (Leica), Adobe Standard, QPCard generated and PE generated. Last one is a synthetic chart. The images were developed in LR 5.3 with default settings of everything except dng profile. WB was made after application of the profile on the second gray patch. The image is in ProPhotoRGB to prevent gamut clipping.

 

[AlanJW]

I have been using my own profiles created with QPCard and Adobe DNG Profile Editor and do not have any issues with the colors.

 

I have been trying to say the same thing (repeatedly): making your own profile is easy and can solve almost all color rendition "problems" you think the M(240) has, including skin tones and including the way reds are rendered. I put "problems" in quotes because to a large extent color rendition is a matter of taste. I use the Xrite Color checker and even a single illuminant profile works but after I learned how to do a dual illuminant that's what I use.

 

I do the same with my other cameras. Color rendition from a digital camera is a function of the sensor, the way the camera handles the files (firmware), and the developer that is being used. I happen to prefer ACR but that is also a matter of taste (and familiarity with what the developer can do).

 

My personal bottom line is that the way the M(240) renders colors is simply a nonissue. There's nothing wrong in the camera. Will some people prefer the way some other camera renders? Yes. That doesn't make the M(240) "wrong" or "incorrect". Nor does it make the other cameras "right" or "wrong" either. Fact is with today's technologies, they're all pretty good and the differences IMHO are usually subtle.

[lct]

...My personal bottom line is that the way the M(240) renders colors is simply a nonissue...

+1

[pieterpronk]

Ah yes. It's a nonissue that keeps popping up and talked about. Some might say that that is exactly what turns a nonissue into an issue. And if you have to keep calling an issue a nonissue, it just seems to show that this nonissue is really an issue.

 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[Rick]

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Rick - probably fruitless to go much further with this, as I think it's become a question of aesthetic judgement rather than objective fact. If you find the RX1 output more pleasing, then that's great. All I will say (again) is that I'm not finding any major problems with M output for my work. I give below OOC images from the Canon 5D2 and Leica M from the Die Fledermaus shoot. Lighting conditions were variable, though the dress remained the same. The COLOUR of the dress of course changed as the lighting changed, and I can go back through the archive and find all sorts of changes in hue in response to variations in the lighting design. Oversaturation - I think not...

 

The last picture seems garish to me. I understand that it is probably the theater lighting.

 

For those that don't think that reds are over saturated in the LR developer, then it isn't a problem. Anyone else, try and desaturate red on files and see how it works for you.

 

And, again, once more because, apparently not everyone reads everything. I like the M color and stated so. I don't have a problem with it. It is easy to make a profile and fix any issues with its color. Again, the color is fine.

 

But, there can also exist other cameras that also produce good color and for some images they can also produce, under some circumstances, better color. The RX1 is one of those cameras, for me... IMHO.

[MirekE]

Ah yes. It's a nonissue that keeps popping up and talked about. Some might say that that is exactly what turns a nonissue into an issue. And if you have to keep calling an issue a nonissue, it just seems to show that this nonissue is really an issue.

 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

I don't follow these threads very closely but it seems to me that it is an issue only for people who use LR and use either the embedded or the Adobe Standard profiles, which are reddish, in one way or another. Does not seem to be an issue for folks who created their own profile or modified the red primary in the calibration section of LR/ACR.

[mirekti]

I don't follow these threads very closely but it seems to me that it is an issue only for people who use LR and use either the embedded or the Adobe Standard profiles, which are reddish, in one way or another. Does not seem to be an issue for folks who created their own profile or modified the red primary in the calibration section of LR/ACR.

 

What I don't understand is why Leica than included Lightroom with their cameras. I guess they had tested the colors with the software they officially ship with the camera, and if so they should have had noticed what many observed here. Anyhow, very funny.

[PeterP]

Here is a side by side color test, although somewhat limited in range. I shoot a lot of pro boxing. Since I have been following the various threads on color etc. I thought I would do a simple test. Leica M240 (which just arrived yesterday) w/ Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 and Canon 5D3 w/ Zeiss 50mm 1.4. Both cameras were set up identically, all manual ISO 3200, 1/250 at f/4. A bit of a challenge to track action with manual focus, but is a limited area. The images were imported into Lightroom (which I use exclusively, and have since first released), not adjusted and merely exported as jpegs. We have 2 heavyweights sparring, two images the first lis Leica, the second is Canon.

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[jdlaing]

+1

 

+2

[Rick]

Never mind. I give up.

[lct]

What I don't understand is why Leica than included Lightroom with their cameras. I guess they had tested the colors with the software they officially ship with the camera, and if so they should have had noticed what many observed here....

They did not notice the M8's IR sensitivity either, don't ask me why. With the earlier M240 firmware, we had both Leica and LR additioning their reddish tints then, hence the famous skin tone issue. Pity that Leica did not choose C1 as they did for the M8 but it seems that many photogs prefer Lightroom actually so a good profile is the way to go for them.

[AlanJW]

Never mind. I give up.

 

Unconditional surrender is always an option.

[MirekE]

What I don't understand is why Leica than included Lightroom with their cameras. I guess they had tested the colors with the software they officially ship with the camera, and if so they should have had noticed what many observed here. Anyhow, very funny.

 

It is not the LR, its the profiles.

[Guest redge]

Here is a side by side color test, although somewhat limited in range. I shoot a lot of pro boxing. Since I have been following the various threads on color etc. I thought I would do a simple test. Leica M240 (which just arrived yesterday) w/ Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 and Canon 5D3 w/ Zeiss 50mm 1.4. Both cameras were set up identically, all manual ISO 3200, 1/250 at f/4. A bit of a challenge to track action with manual focus, but is a limited area. The images were imported into Lightroom (which I use exclusively, and have since first released), not adjusted and merely exported as jpegs. We have 2 heavyweights sparring, two images the first lis Leica, the second is Canon.

 

Thanks. Your post and Chris Tribble's are rather more helpful than a bunch of camera geek Sony vs Leica chit chat sans images.

[adan]

I'll let everyone in on a little secret:

 

Cameras don't produce color - processing produces color.

 

If you ran a roll of color film through your M2/3/4/5/6/7, and dropped it off at a random lab, and got crummy color in your slides or prints - rationally, would you blame the camera, or would you blame the lab?

 

Digital photography (especially in the case of raw pictures) is no different. All the camera produces is a "latent image" of 1s and 0s on the flash-memory card - just as a film camera produces nothing but a "latent image" on the film.

 

The final result is totally dependent on the processing. Which, for digital/raw, includes creating good color profiles for your camera.

 

Yes, Leica and Adobe "provide" a single profile (either Embedded from Leica, or "Adobe Standard" from Adobe. But if you think you can trust the Leica or Adobe engineers, consider this:

 

They give you a single profile.

 

Here are just a handful of the possible spectra of light sources under which you might take pictures: http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Images/Illustrations/SO%20SPD's.jpg

 

Now - does anyone in their right mind really think any single profile will work across all those spectra?

 

So - at BEST - all they are giving you is a generic starting point for "approximately correct" color under generic (not necessarily "daylight") lighting. If you want really good color (and this has been true with every single camera I've used for raw shooting - Nikon, Canon, Leica, Sony....) - you have to make your OWN profile(s).

 

Adobe (and Leica) make good tools - but I NEVER trust their canned profiles. It is about as safe (and smart) as believing the NSA or Google never read your emails....

 

YOU have to invest some brain oil and elbow grease (and a little money) to build a good profile (or, ideally, profiles, for different lighting).

 

It isn't any different than film. A good professional-grade C-41 or E6 lab - every morning - runs a "control strip" through their chemicals. A control strip is a piece of film with a pre-exposed image (not unlike a Gretag/Macbeth Color Checker) of gray scales, color patches, and "shirley" (the Kodak/Fuji female models).

 

Once the control strip is processed, it is taken to a color densitometer and all the gray and color patches (and possibly "shirley's" skin tones) are measured in red, green, and blue light. And the measurements are graphed and compared to standard values for those patches. If the test graph is slipping away from the correct values ("out of control") - which could mean color casts in the grays, or problems with the other colors or the skin tones - you know it is time to toss the chemicals and mix fresh. (And then run a new control check of the fresh chemicals before letting them touch anyone's pictures).

 

A certain amount of work - but that is what it takes to run a color line that could be trusted to handle photographs by professionals. And analogous work is required when the color lab is in your computer - IF you want better than "slacker" results.

 

You can't say anything useful about the color output of a given camera until you have done your "control strip" - which amounts to making a custom profile, using a ColorChecker target and your preferred software's calibration tool(s).

 

You set the white balance off the middle gray patch; you check that there is no color "cross-over" (pink whites and green shadows, or vice versa) on the whole range of the gray scale; you measure the green primary color patch and compare the balance of red/green/blue to the "known correct values" - and CORRECT the software's rendering of that patch using the calibration hue and saturation sliders until the green is the "right" green, numerically; you repeat for the blue and red target patches (and yes, every canned Adobe profile I've used - for any camera - usually makes the reds too magenta and too saturated - and the PROFILE is the precise place to fix that, globally, for all your future pictures!!).

 

When you are done, you have a revised profile for your camera, that will give you greens that are the right green, reds that are not too magenta or saturated, and blues/yellows that are likely far less saturated than the canned/standard/embedded profile.

 

It is exactly like running a control strip through color chemicals and graphing the numerical results - except that you don't have to do it every day **, and you have the opportunity to "correct" the results immediately, rather than tossing the chemicals and starting over.

 

BTW - I don't use the "automated" calibration systems like Gretag "Passport" - because they are still dependent on some code engineer's opinion of what the "right" color values should be. My experience is that that is a bad assumption. "Distrust, and verify!"

______

** I DO re-profile my cameras every six months or so. Who knows whether digital sensors "age" and change output with time - but I assume they might, so I re-profile. I always check my profile measurements ever time something changes in my workflow - new computer, new OS version, new version of Photoshop. I asssume any of those MIGHT change the color output.

_________________________

 

As a side note on magenta skin under yellow lighting: it is a natural outcome of white-balancing a digital image (from ANY camera). Reddish-yellowish subjects actually don't change color much under yellow light - they are already red-yellow, so the wavelengths they reflect (see spectra image linked above) are present in approximately correct amounts - so long as you leave the overall picture yellow.

 

When you hit the eyedropper or "auto" white-balance button, you are adding a whole lot of artificial BLUE value to EVERY pixel (not just the supposedly white and gray ones) - and if you add blue to red; yep, you get magenta. That's basic color theory:

 

http://www.d.umn.edu/~mharvey/colorwheel.jpg

 

A good custom calibration profile for yellow light (tungsten and its replacements) will move the red-hue slider much further towards yellow than a "daylight" profile will.

 

e.g. for my M9 profile(s) in Camera Raw, the red hue calibration slider is set to:

 

+10 (more yellow-ish reds) in my daylight profile

+25 (even MORE yellow-ish reds) in my tungsten/yellow light profile

 

Totally as an aside, if you have Photoshop or another program that allows you to see the individual color channels, try this little experiment to see what white-balancing does, and just how much it has to mess with the pixel data for a simple correction of yellow indoor lighting. (And you wonder why the M - or any camera - ends up with skewed reds!

 

Here's a sample (M9). Under yellow light, there was virtually NO blue image recorded. When I white-balance it, I am amplifying "virtually nothing" to make an approximation of equal amounts of blue/red/green. Note how MUCH blue had to be added to the skin tones - they would have been very magenta except for my "correcting" profile for yellow light.

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[Guest redge]

I'll let everyone in on a little secret:

 

Cameras don't produce color - processing produces color.

 

If you ran a roll of color film through your M2/3/4/5/6/7, and dropped it off at a random lab, and got crummy color in your slides or prints - rationally, would you blame the camera, or would you blame the lab?

 

Digital photography (especially in the case of raw pictures) is no different. All the camera produces is a "latent image" of 1s and 0s on the flash-memory card - just as a film camera produces nothing but a "latent image" on the film.

 

The final result is totally dependent on processing.

 

Nah, there's no art to printing. Walmart will do a swell job, especially if one owns a Sony camera instead of a Leica.

[anupmc]

I'll let everyone in on a little secret:

 

Cameras don't produce color - processing produces color.

 

If you ran a roll of color film through your M2/3/4/5/6/7, and dropped it off at a random lab, and got crummy color in your slides or prints - rationally, would you blame the camera, or would you blame the lab?

 

Digital photography (especially in the case of raw pictures) is no different. All the camera produces is a "latent image" of 1s and 0s on the flash-memory card - just as a film camera produces nothing but a "latent image" on the film.

 

The final result is totally dependent on the processing. Which, for digital/raw, includes creating good color profiles for your camera.

 

....

 

Sorry, but your analogy breaks down completely because (a) different sensors have different sensitivities, so it's not at all similar to using the same film in different cameras... and ( even raw captures are processed in-camera before they're put on file, which is why raw files from different cameras with the same sensor supplier still look different.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[MirekE]

BTW - I don't use the "automated" calibration systems like Gretag "Passport" - because they are still dependent on some code engineer's opinion of what the "right" color values should be. My experience is that that is a bad assumption. "Distrust, and verify!"

 

The right values are those that are on the target. The software just calculates how far off are the measured from their known values.