Color problem on playback

[Csacwp]

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When I review images on my SL some of the color tones are way off. There are ugly purple and yellow patches throughout the images, and when I zoom in the patches are still there. When I viewed the raw files on my computer the same patches of color were there at first, but after a while the images would load with the correct colors and no patches. Any idea as to what might be causing this?

 

I should add that this is when using R and M lenses with the R to L and M to L adapters. I have not tried any SL lenses.

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[LocalHero1953]

I can't say why they are there to start with, but I suspect that they are somehow "normal" features recorded in the jpg displayed on the SL screen. When you open the raws in Lightroom, it reaches for these same jpgs to display to you. Then the built-in colour corrections and profiles kick in and you are shown the image you expected. I am sure others can provide a more comprehensive explanation.

 

Edit: can you say more about the images? Natural or artificial light? Is it only skin that is affected? There were problems with early firmware producing cyan skies, and yellow blotches in whites under artificial light, but I don't remember magenta issues. Is your firmware up to date? And are you identifying the lens correctly in the menus (though 6 bit M lenses should be identified automatically)?

Edited April 7, 2017 by LocalHero1953

[Csacwp]

The images are in natural light. I can't spot a pattern to the botches.. they are spread throughout the photos... on animal skin, grass, trees, sky, dirt, and everything between. I haven't been able to open them up in lightroom yet- on my way back from a safari. I noticed all the incorrect colors on my camera screen and when reviewing in the EVF, so I checked some DNGs on my macbook using the photo viewer. At first the errors were still there but after about 30 minutes when I reopened the images they had disappeared. My firmware is up to date and the camera is new.

[Csacwp]

The lenses are coded and are identified correctly.

[LocalHero1953]

The images are in natural light. I can't spot a pattern to the botches.. they are spread throughout the photos... on animal skin, grass, trees, sky, dirt, and everything between. I haven't been able to open them up in lightroom yet- on my way back from a safari. I noticed all the incorrect colors on my camera screen and when reviewing in the EVF, so I checked some DNGs on my macbook using the photo viewer. At first the errors were still there but after about 30 minutes when I reopened the images they had disappeared. My firmware is up to date and the camera is new.

Ah, I misread you. I thought you opened them in LR. The same answer may still apply if the Mac photo viewer is applying Leica's embedded profiles/corrections.I'm a PC person and wouldn't know.

[LD_50]

Post an image and you may receive a more definitive answer.

 

I would suspect an issue with the SD card and embedded jpegs.

[Csacwp]

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I'm using sandisk extreme pro cards. I've tried three and seen the color patches on all of them. I'll try to take a photo of my screen... I can't post an actual photo since the effect seems to go away on the computer after a while.

[Csacwp]

Here is a quick photo of some wildebeest that shows the issue clearly enough. These color patches appear pretty much anywhere in my photos. Sorry for the poor quality... took these shots of the back screen with my iphone.

 

http://s385.photobucket.com/user/csacwp/media/IMG_0137_zpsg7qudraa.jpg.html

 

Zoomed in it is easier to see the problem:

 

 

http://s385.photobucket.com/user/csacwp/media/IMG_0139_zpsfa78uuxp.jpg.html?sort=1&o=0

 

http://s385.photobucket.com/user/csacwp/media/IMG_0138_zps6touqzot.jpg.html?sort=1&o=1

[ramarren]

I am assuming that you are capturing your photos with JPEG + raw mode set.

What JPEG parameters are you using? 

What firmware revision is your camera loaded with?

 

It looks to me like highly compressed data and compression artifacts. 

[Csacwp]

I have the current firmware and am shooting raw only, not JPEG + raw.

[futura]

I also see this issue, mainly when zooming in. However as the artefacts don't appear in the image when importing into Lightroom, I've not been too concerned

[Csacwp]

I see it clearly without zooming in.

[Csacwp]

Another thing I've found is that I get a lot of noise at ISO 3200. I thought the SL was fairly clean through ISO 6400? At 3200 it is as bad as my M240.

[helged]

Another thing I've found is that I get a lot of noise at ISO 3200. I thought the SL was fairly clean through ISO 6400? At 3200 it is as bad as my M240.

The SL sonsor is about 1 stop cleaner (wrt noise) than the 240 sensor. Comparing similar photos (lens, aperture, light) should show this.

[ramarren]

I have the current firmware and am shooting raw only, not JPEG + raw.

 

 

This is most likely your issue. Switch to JPEG+raw and see if it goes away. 

[jrp]

I have shot only raw since the first few interations of firmware really messed up the highlights in jpegs and the previews embedded in the DNG. (The were either vanilla or blueberry, irrespective of the real colour. ) Previews with the current firmware are better but still often unusable until rerendered by Lightroom.

[LocalHero1953]

Another thing I've found is that I get a lot of noise at ISO 3200. I thought the SL was fairly clean through ISO 6400? At 3200 it is as bad as my M240.

Not clean like ISO 100 through to 6400. Like any camera I've ever had, SL noise gets progressively worse with increasing ISO. Only you can define at which ISO  it is clean for you, and at which ISO  it is noisy. I find the SL produces noise levels equivalent to the M240 at two stops higher: ISO 12500  on the SL looks like ISO 3200 on the M240. But there is still obvious noise at 3200 on the SL.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

When I review images on my SL some of the color tones are way off. There are ugly purple and yellow patches throughout the images, and when I zoom in the patches are still there. When I viewed the raw files on my computer the same patches of color were there at first, but after a while the images would load with the correct colors and no patches. Any idea as to what might be causing this?

 

I should add that this is when using R and M lenses with the R to L and M to L adapters. I have not tried any SL lenses.

 

The embedded jpeg in DNG files is both small and highly compressed. Even a recent update to the DNG standard didn't make the preview even close to the embedded jpegs in other systems. The only way to get a decent or full sized preview is to shoot jpeg+raw.

 

Gordon

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[thighslapper]

Ditto ..... I briefly tried RAW only after the last firmware update but reverted to RAW+JPG as review quality is poor.

 

IF the SL follows recent Leicas the review quality also mirrors the jpg settings (size etc) so I use the full size jpg's even though you lose some disk capacity.

Edited April 9, 2017 by thighslapper

[Dunner]

I stumbled across this 3 year old thread after experiencing the exact same problem as you and Googling it.  I was recently on vacation in Spain/Portugal and noticed that some of my images had weird colours in the playback on screen in-camera.  Blackish/greys in some cases had almost a purple/magenta tone reminiscent of my old M8 when a IR cut filter wasn't used ...In other shots I got weird, yellowish blocks of pixels, that were still visible upon zooming in on the photo.

As you can appreciate I freaked out as I was on an expensive vacation and (besides my cellphone) the only camera I had taken with me.  Also, since I didn't bring a laptop all I could do was download photos to my phone using the Leica wifi app.  When I did this the problems followed to the phone.  I should point out I only shoot RAW.  However, after downloading to the phone and importing to LR the weird colours seemed to disappear once exported to jpeg.

To further confuse things this problem seemed to be worse using my 50mm 1.2VM than my Zeiss 35mm 1.4ZM.  At first I wondered if the UV filter on the 50mm was bad so I removed it, and it seemed to make a bit of a difference but not entirely.  Anyway, the problem seemed to go away for a while and then this weekend happened again, a picture of a black/grey jacket came out with a magenta/purple tone identical to what used to happen with my M8 when a IR cut filter wasn't used.  The rest of the tones in the photo (forest) all look natural.

Now, you might ask, if the images look fine after being exported to Tiff/Jpeg in LR then who cares.  Well...I do, because I would like to sell my SL to fund the purchase of an SLii.  Who in their right mind is going to pay me much for a camera that exhibits this weird behavior?  It isn't a consistent problem but I would never sell the camera to someone without disclosing this first, it isn't fair to someone and I wouldn't want someone to do it to me.  I could ship the camera to Leica but from what I've read I could be without my camera for months and who knows if they could even fix it.

 

Anyway, sorry if this post is in the wrong spot, I signed up for the site so I could post on this thread.