Digilux 3 / L1 color cast

[lkemilai]

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Hi!

 

Has anyone experienced strange color casts with Panasonic L1 or Leica Digilux 3? I have noticed that blue plastics sometimes record pretty strangely. For example in the attached photo my friend's jacket is cyan in the highlights, purple in the shadows. His bag also has a magenta cast. The same happens with blue Lego bricks etc.

 

Could this be caused by insufficient infrared filtering, as in Leica M8?

 

You reckon I should contact Panasonic about this issue? For me it really isn't big deal, as if it is because of too thin IR filter on sensor to prevent chromatic aberrations, that is a design compromise that I can agree with.

 

Lari

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[jdlaing]

I don't have that problem with the Digilux 3 unless I hokey up the white balance.

 

The Leica version is set to render colors differently.

 

I had heard the L1 has to be set differently for some things.

[karlitos]

Can't say that I have noticed anything like this on my D3's. What SW did you use for these? All I can say is that ACR does a pretty naff job of RAWs IMO. Out of the bag RAWs in C1 are nailed for WB and colour. Don't have cast problems to deal with at present.

 

Karlitos.

[lkemilai]

I shot at AWB and used Lightroom for editing. Photos shot in shade look ok but ones shot in sunlight look as the sample. Unedited RAW looked a lot worse, actually. The blue jacket was more like oversaturated violet.

 

It doesn't look like a software/processing problem to me. Anyone with an M8 could possibly confirm if the look is similar to their shots that have been affected by IR leak.

[dugby]

If you search back in this forum, we did discuss that the V2.0 firmware on the L1 has significantly improved the in-camera produced jpegs produced by the V1.10 firmware.

 

Now these are two levels higher than that in the D3.

 

The L1 with V2 fw produces beautiful colours. I just scanned through 20+ shots of blue clothes, fabrics, ceramics, plastic items in various light conditions, outdoor and indoor and do not see the variations mentioned in the 1st post.

 

Are you referring to a D3 or L1 issue ?

Which version of Firmware ?

With raw or jpegs ?

In camera produced jegs ?

What "film¨ settings did you use ?

[lkemilai]

This was an in-camera JPEG, Lumix L1 with Firmware 2.0 - don't remember the film setting. The colours are usually nice, including blue. If the problem is caused by IR, the cast is caused by the object material -usually plastic- not object colour per se. On M8 this was noticed on black materials having magenta shifts.

 

I will have to investigate this myself as well. I know that blue lego bricks will be affected by the phenomenon, so I can shoot them with different settings and under different lights.

[spylaw4]

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Like dugby I've never had any blue problems with the L1 even before the V2 firmware. Nor have I had any problems with processing in Lightroom. It might be worth even with the V2 firmware setting the WB manually for the light conditions.

Mark you I only very rarely shoot in jpeg with the L1, whereas I use jpeg more on the D2.

[lkemilai]

First of all, thank you for your comments, guys.

 

It took me 1000+ shots before I first experienced this phenomenon, so it isn't something that you bump into very easily.

 

I don't usually set WB manually, 'cause most of the time the AWB is great on L1. It also is just too much of a hassle when I'm outdoors and the lighting changes all the time. Another thing is that adjusting white balance in Lightroom is not very helpful in these situations, so it shouldn't help on-camera either, right?

 

But if you guys have similar gear and feel curious, go shoot stuff in sunlight -Lego bricks are good, as I said before- and see if you can repeat it. If there is an issue, maybe we should receive some complimentary IR cut filters as well

[winsurfer]

Hello Lari,

I see the same problem with my D3 when certain blue or blue-green items ( usually plastic ) are photographed. I think there is a dye thing going on here. In my film days, certain dyed fabrics would come out with different colors driving us commercial photographers crazy trying to get it right for the client.

[audidudi]

At one time or another, I've had problems with the accuracy of pretty much every color (especially red), but I don't think the L1/D3 is unique in this respect as I've had similar problems with other digital cameras as well.

[jdlaing]

Back in the early days (I can't believe I said that) of the M8 release there was the magenta cast issue. Come to find out it is on black synthetic fabrics.

 

A NEW USE!

 

Take the M8 and L1/D3 into the clothing stores and weed out the inferior fabrics if you like natural fibers?

[lkemilai]

Hello Lari,

I see the same problem with my D3 when certain blue or blue-green items ( usually plastic ) are photographed. I think there is a dye thing going on here. In my film days, certain dyed fabrics would come out with different colors driving us commercial photographers crazy trying to get it right for the client.

 

Could be. The blues that I've had trouble with were pretty similar, bright pure blue. They might use the same color pigment. But the reason, as I understand it, is that those dyes reflect more infrared or ultraviolet than other dyes. Human eye can't discern that, but cameras without sufficient UV/IR filtering will "see" that colour and "mix it in" with the visible bandwidths.

[lkemilai]

Back in the early days (I can't believe I said that) of the M8 release there was the magenta cast issue. Come to find out it is on black synthetic fabrics.

 

A NEW USE!

 

Take the M8 and L1/D3 into the clothing stores and weed out the inferior fabrics if you like natural fibers?

 

Good one! If the reason for the color cast is infrared leak, I don't complain 'cause there is so much fun/artsy stuff that you can do with an IR sensitive camera.

[cluso]

Hi,

 

I haven't had this problem before, the colors tend to turn out amazingly accurate. Compared to my Digilux 1, the automatic white balance had improved dramatically. However, I found that with the L1 the colour saturation is quite high in the Normal Film mode. I tend to use a customize fim setting with -1 or -2 for the saturation and +1 for sharpening.

 

Is this what you are referring to, jdlaing? Do you have any more information on what you wrote?

I had heard the L1 has to be set differently for some things.

 

Chris.

[jdlaing]

Yes sir.

That is exactly what I had heard.

The L1 differs from the Leica image and to get the "Leica Image Feel" the saturation needs to be set down and sharpness up to compensate.

 

I must say that the "Leica Image Feel" is more a personal preference rather than a defect or shortcoming.

[jank]

Hi!

 

Has anyone experienced strange color casts with Panasonic L1 or Leica Digilux 3? I have noticed that blue plastics sometimes record pretty strangely. For example in the attached photo my friend's jacket is cyan in the highlights, purple in the shadows. His bag also has a magenta cast. The same happens with blue Lego bricks etc.

 

Could this be caused by insufficient infrared filtering, as in Leica M8?

 

 

Lari

 

This picture was take in high altitiude.

There is more of UV light present. It could be a result of fluorescence.

Try to look at the same jacket under the "black light" to confirm it.

UV may not be present at at this high intensity, to show this fenomenon in lower altitudes, other locations,this might explain that it is rarely noticed.

Jan