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My AUTO WB stil sucks even with firmware upgrade


enchong

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Well, I didn't see much improvement either, if any. If you shoot RAW, which is practically mandatory with this camera, the AWB performance shouldn't matter, in my opinion.

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Well, I didn't see much improvement either, if any. If you shoot RAW, which is practically mandatory with this camera, the AWB performance shouldn't matter, in my opinion.

 

Yeah, the white balance is the same, and so is the ISO 2500 noise. Contrary to what heard prior to uprading.. And I don't care much about the first issue, but ... :)

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Don't know - never use it. If I'm in daylight that's what I use, if I'm in tungsten that's what I use etc., etc., etc.

 

Agreed ... ALWAYS work in RAW, and if it's mixed or I've been working quickly in reportage I use a LR pre-set which imposes an auto on the imported batch and then fine tune in LR. I now can't distinguish between end results colour-wise whether I'm working with 1DM2 / 5D or M8.

What's the problem?

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I agree with the above. I don't see the point of using auto WB at all. Just use manual and set to daylight/tungsten, etc. Think of it as using daylight balanced film. Of course shoot RAW and adjust afterward if necessary.

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Guest tummydoc

I wouldn't care if the AWB was perfected in this firmware, I'm not upgrading. Finally I got an M8 (#3) that hasn't died suddenly, I'm prepared to live with its remaining bugs and glitches until the M9 (or at least until Leica issues an upgrade with a specific list of features, not vague and cryptic allusions).

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Hi would like to know if there are those whose Auto WB improved when they updated their firmware..... I have to LR all my photos to correct WB. Is this how you guys all do it?

 

Mine seems better on the whole for indoor shots but outside can still be unpredictable, eg. going very 'cold' occasionally. As the others say, taking DNG is best. I also use an Expodisc sometimes and find that is usually very helpful.

Matthew

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The thread title is overstating the case imo.. In my close family we have four M8's - three users and we agree, in AWB more than 80% of the shots are spot -on, 15 % needs slight corrections and less than 5 %, far less, go "Ice-Queen blue", which is a 1 second correction in DNG conversion. I admit it is a bit disconcerting on the LCD, but it is a harmless quirk. Most digital cameras I know don't achieve the 80 % spot-on btw. There it is more like 40% good -59 % minor correction - 1% way-off. More PS work than the Leica situation.

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Hi would like to know if there are those whose Auto WB improved when they updated their firmware..... I have to LR all my photos to correct WB. Is this how you guys all do it?

 

HI Lorenzo

I agree with Jaap - it works most of the time.

With respect to the firmware update - as far as I know it wasn't intended to improve the Auto White balance. My understanding is that the next firmware should do that.

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I don't see any improvement in the AWB with the new firmware. I wouldn't say it is correct most of the time, but I would say it is correct some of the time. It is especially whimsical indoors; I have had readings from 2850 to 7400K. Regardless of that, if one shoots Raw, it is very simple to correct in ACR, and as someone said earlier in the thread, using the WhiBal card makes it very easy to correct. Regards. DR

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With respect to the firmware update - as far as I know it wasn't intended to improve the Auto White balance. My understanding is that the next firmware should do that.

I'm not very hopeful on that,Jono. I believe the final cure would be an external WB sensor like the Digilux2.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I shouldn't really complain on my first post but the WB function kinda bugs me as well. Doesnt matter which of the pre-sets I use, shadow, daylight, etc, it usually comes out strange particularly indoors. Last night at the airport, for some inexplicable reason, all my photos looked liked they were bathed in butter (chose fluorescent setting). I shoot in RAW so it doesnt matter as only takes 1 sec to auto in C4 but I wish I didnt have to do that. In the past I've used Canon and Nikon DSLR's and their AWB function were also pretty horrible. My venting for the day...amen

 

Btw, hi I am based in Beijing but live half my life on a plane commuting from BJ to SP. Aside from the WB and no EV dial, I love my M8 ! It's brought so much enjoyment back into taking photos again. Taxing on the brain as you need to think HARD about composition beforehand rather than the machine gun auto-focus approach when using the DSLR but I looooove it :) Oh, the lenses I am using at the moment are the ZM 25/2.8 and the Lux 50/1.4.

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The problem with the presets is that they are exactly that - pre-defined fixed values for WB which are much more likely to be out than not - so for me are the bottom of the pile. AWB is a work in progress, it's better than when the camera first came out but the camera doesn't have the measuring capability outside the image that a DSLR might have. In difficult/mixed lighting situations, there's no substitute for using a white card or colour meter.

 

As for your assertion that DSLR AWB "was also pretty horrible", you don't say which DSLRs you were using but my experience of the D2X is that it get's it close most of the time, enough for me not to even think about it for the majority of shots.

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Jaap,

I dont agree at all.

My d2x and d200 have much better whyite balance, the best WB I ever experienced was the Oly E1 I once owned.

The M8 is the first digital camera which is so often off that I started to use the presets and often change later in raw conversion if necessary. However I dont find this to be a big problem.

cheers, Tom

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Anyhow, quite apart from the fact that colour temperature is an objective and measurable parameter, it is also clear that the desired colour balance in a photograph is one of the decisions a photographer must make, like focus, aperture and exposure. Any automation is likely to be wrong, as correct as it may be objectively.

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Anyhow, quite apart from the fact that colour temperature is an objective and measurable parameter, it is also clear that the desired colour balance in a photograph is one of the decisions a photographer must make, like focus, aperture and exposure. Any automation is likely to be wrong, as correct as it may be objectively.

 

I agree, however some camera seem to get closer to what I "think" to have seen with my eyes.

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