Better jpgs from M240

[Olsen]

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I would check WB setting.

 

On 'auto' - on all three cameras:  Leica M P, Canon 1Ds III and IPhone.  Pictures taken in sunshine.

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[CheshireCat]

I would check whether some alien machinery emitting color-bending rays is present nearby.

As we all know, Leica can't be wrong, so this is the only possible explanation.

[don daniel]

You cannot achieve good JPGs in colors from the M240 as long as you cannot influence hue of colours in the camera settings.

 

This is three times the same capture. I corrected the whitebalance in all three pics. We got here first the jpg out of camera (with corrected wb), then the jpg I converted out of the DNG-file in Lightroom, then the jpg converted out of the same DNG-file in Capture One. Both converted files are made with no color profile. 

 

1. The M240 does this:

 

 

2. Lightroom does this in its ground settings, added some contrast and sharpness:

 

 

3. Capture One does this in its ground settings, added some contrast:

 

 

My opinion: The out of Capture One converted file shows the right colors, Lightroom shows too much magenta and the JPG out of camera is the worst.

 

My conclusion: The Leica M240 cannot do good JPGs. You should use either Lightroom to convert from DNG, but then you have to do create a color profile for it, or you use Capture One for your DNGs and simply enjoy good colors from the beginning and without a lot of work in calibrating colors. But you should not work with the JPGs out of cam if you want to achieve good results.

[don daniel]

And even more obvious in this comparison. 

 

The first ist the camera JPG (camera setting all standard, it gets worse if you push contrast and saturation in camera settings), the second is converted from DNG in Capture One. WB in both pictures adusted. 

 

 

 

 

 

If you like artificial colors, stay with JPG. If you prefer a more natural look and want to be able to get whole quality, use a RAW converter.

 

This is a pity, because I would like to use JPG only from time to time. I get much better results from a Nikon JPG than from a Leica JPG.

 

 

[jmahto]

On 'auto' - on all three cameras: Leica M P, Canon 1Ds III and IPhone. Pictures taken in sunshine.

Even in same camera AWB may give different results frame to frame. This is why manual WB is needed if you want consistency across jpegs. As for being happy with one camera JPEG and not with other, I will say that color perception is very much individualistic business. We compensate for what our eyes see. This is why we see white paper still as white in nighttime incandescent light even if it is yellow. Camera sensors can't do that, this is why we need to tell them which is white surface. This is what manual WB process is.

 

Finally the eventual display also matters which has its own rendering of color (print or monitor).

 

Most probably you know all this and it certainly doesn't help in you (or someone else) seeing different color of the same picture in your choice of output. What I am pointing out is that there is more to what the camera recorded. If you want "right" colors then you can't ignore the color rendering characteristic of your display method.

 

I have been unhappy/happy with diffeent cameras (canon, Leica, Sony) at different times. Even after shooting RAW and balancing it afterwards. Sometimes I have gone back and changed color balance of a pic I liked previously.

 

Color perception is complex and highly individualistic.

 

(Note: not dismissing your feeling about M240's color rendering in AWB jpegs. Simply explaining).

 

Edit: this is why I worry about "consistency" between different pictures more than "correctness" of color in pictures from same session). Shooting raw and correcting WB later to my choice is the only way to achieve it, Irrespective of camera.