SL2-S Input Requested

[hansvons]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

On 5/13/2021 at 1:18 AM, la1402 said:

If you don‘t plan to buy any native lens, (the new kit lens is not one either), I see little reason to buy any SLx. Lenses is where Leica shines. In terms of body, the SL2(s) offers nothing that others cannot do at least as well.

I heartily disagree. Leica's colour is different to what others offer. If that's a non-issue because you're a birder (because there are no skin tones involved), other camera bodies make more sense due to their better AF system. If you love vibrant and healthy skin tones, Canon cameras could be a good idea. But if you are into delicate skin tones and the colour in general that Leica offers, you are stuck with them. This was the main reason why I bought the SL2-S. Lenses are another good reason, but many of them work on other camera bodies.

[syd]

14 hours ago, hansvons said:

I heartily disagree. Leica's colour is different to what others offer. ...

If you love vibrant and healthy skin tones, Canon cameras could be a good idea. But if you are into delicate skin tones and the colour in general that Leica offers, you are stuck with them. ...

Interesting - are there any side by side tests that illustrates this?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[hansvons]

8 hours ago, syd said:

nteresting - are there any side by side tests that illustrates this?

This is highly subjective, and I don't think that this makes much sense. For a meaningful test, you need at least five typical skin tone variants. A never complete list: the Irish/Hungarian/Scandinavian porcelain skin tone, south European skin tone, East/Middle African skin tone, Indian skin tone, Japanese/Korean skin tone, and that might be not enough because there's much more to it than these skin tones can picture (and let alone the variety of Caucasian skin tones is myriads, now transfers that to Asia or Africa or South America). 

You need different skin tones in one picture because that's the only way to see how a camera's colour differentiates these skin tones or harmonises them. Recently I was on a shoot where a chap with a light Caucasian skin tone, a guy from the Middle East and a man of the southern European type were standing in a group. I took a picture with the Leica while a colleague took a BTS shot with a Fuji. Both cameras interpreted the skin tones quite differently. The Fuji harmonised the skin tones much more than the Leica did. We used the Fuji Standard interpretation. I wouldn't say that Fuji's take was terrible; on the contrary. It looks filmic, somewhat stylish and pleasing. But Leica's take was much closer to the people's personality and peculiarities. That's what I prefer. 

Since a decade, I'm used to shooting with Arri and Red cinema cameras. In the recent two years, I've used Canon's offerings in this kind of productions every here and then because they caught up dramatically (I can't say anything to Sony, I haven't used their cameras for ages) and I was interested in something new. While Canon is technologically on the forefront, especially in AF (what I don't use when filming), their cameras are considerably different to Arri in skin tones, sky blue and foliage. You have the option to chose Canon or Neutral, and even Neutral still looks too harmonising to me. I know from the horse's mouth that Canon is striving for pleasing skin tones because they consider colour to be a defining part of the user experience. That includes everything, from sensor and colour science to lens coatings. Compared to traditional Zeiss lenses, the Canon glass is warmer and adds to the healthy skin tones considerably, as I found out in a test. I like that. Leica has a similar approach with its lenses, but Leica's camera colour science is very different.

When you ingest Arri footage in your edit/colouring suite, and you add the correct LUT, everything looks pleasing and right out of the box. From there, you can create your desired moods as easy as it gets. I have a similar experience with Leica footage and stills. With Canon footage, I'm always fighting. I find the skin tones too vibrant, too healthy. Many see this differently and want that look, which brings me to the beginning of this post. 

On my blog, I have a short article on skin tones: https://theletgo.net/en/2020/11/24/skin/

 

 

 

[syd]

1 hour ago, hansvons said:

... I took a picture with the Leica while a colleague took a BTS shot with a Fuji. Both cameras interpreted the skin tones quite differently. The Fuji harmonised the skin tones much more than the Leica did. We used the Fuji Standard interpretation. I wouldn't say that Fuji's take was terrible; on the contrary. It looks filmic, somewhat stylish and pleasing. But Leica's take was much closer to the people's personality and peculiarities. That's what I prefer. ...

So this would be comparing out of camera JPEGS with the standard Fuji Provia film sim and the Leica Standard STD profile?

[hansvons]

 

5 hours ago, syd said:

So this would be comparing out of camera JPEGS with the standard Fuji Provia film sim and the Leica Standard STD profile?

I’m using Capture One. Capture One provides a specific SL2-S raw interpretation, which isn’t associated with Leica’s Standard Profile, at least not by name. For Fuji, I chose from many options Film Standard (not Provia film simulation) because it looks the most natural or less “graded”.

[syd]

9 hours ago, hansvons said:

 

I’m using Capture One. Capture One provides a specific SL2-S raw interpretation, which isn’t associated with Leica’s Standard Profile, at least not by name. For Fuji, I chose from many options Film Standard (not Provia film simulation) because it looks the most natural or less “graded”.

 

On Fujifilm cams, Provia is the Standard according to my manual.

And I guess if you're comparing processed RAW, you're essentially comparing Capture One's color science rather than Leica v Fuji?

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[ravinj]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

On 5/14/2021 at 10:49 PM, pixeljohn22 said:

Has anyone else seen or had denting or scratching issues with the SL2-S?

Any camera will dent or scratch in the "right" conditions. And yes, I had this on both my SL2 and SL2-S. No different than when I dropped my Fuji GFX 50R resulting in a small dent. 

[BernardC]

11 hours ago, syd said:

I guess if you're comparing processed RAW, you're essentially comparing Capture One's color science rather than Leica v Fuji?

Yes and no. CaptureOne works with the information provided, so many of Leica's and Fuji's design decisions are baked-in. Sensor colour filter arrays are especially relevant here, since both companies are known for having different CFA strategies.

[la1402]

On 5/16/2021 at 1:30 AM, syd said:

Interesting - are there any side by side tests that illustrates this?

While that special Leica Colour Science is talked about a lot,  I have not seen something presented to demonstrate it, which is strange as we talk about photos. Maybe this is more about feeling than illustration 🙂 But there is certainly no wizardry that the camera does for your -  you need to know what you do. AWB will produce significantly colder skin tones on the SL2-S than Canon, Fuji or Nikon. It depends a lot on the subjects skin, the rest of the picture and your personal taste whether it actually is/looks/feels better - it can look quite sick. Creating your own profile does make sense. I use the xrite color color checker passport for it.

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, la1402 said:

While that special Leica Colour Science is talked about a lot,  I have not seen something presented to demonstrate it, which is strange as we talk about photos. Maybe this is more about feeling than illustration

I know. It's a huge issue in cine, but not in stills.

Photographers rarely try to match pictures from different stills cameras. The exception is catalogue and product work. In the old days, studios would buy a single film emulsion batch to make sure that every shot in a catalog was absolutely consistent in colour. They would also expose colour charts every day to make sure that the lab was consistent.

Switching film batches mid-job involved lots of calibration work, and colour correction filters.

There is a perception with digital photography that you can always make one camera look like another. The cine corollary  is that "you can make an expensive camera look like a cheap camera, but not the other way around!"

Cinema shooters are more concerned with matching cameras because of editing. Our eyes are very good at noticing colour differences when switching back and forth between two images, which is what happens on every edit in a film.

In short, it's not a big concern for most stills photographers. You may notice that some colours, and colour relationships, are different between cameras, but this doesn't really affect the end product. This doesn't mean that different cameras do not have different colour response, but these are hard to notice when images are viewed in isolation.

[syd]

@BernardC  @la1402  @hansvons you may be interested to have a watch of this comparison of Leica v Fuji colors, RAW processed in Lightroom and C1, and OOC JPEGs. I found it after looking around. 

 

[Photoworks]

On 5/16/2021 at 10:13 PM, syd said:

 

On Fujifilm cams, Provia is the Standard according to my manual.

And I guess if you're comparing processed RAW, you're essentially comparing Capture One's color science rather than Leica v Fuji?

 

The Fuji simulation are actually done in the process from the sensor before it becomes a RAW file. This simulation can't be done in post the same way, but you can close in capture one.

 

[syd]

1 hour ago, Photoworks said:

The Fuji simulation are actually done in the process from the sensor before it becomes a RAW file. This simulation can't be done in post the same way, but you can close in capture one.

 

The comment above was about comparing two images using C1 as the RAW renderer, which to me is more about C1’s colour algorithms than those of Leica and Fuji, irrespective of hope the RAW files are made in-camera. 

[hansvons]

9 hours ago, syd said:

which to me is more about C1’s colour algorithms than those of Leica and Fuji

I'd say this assumption is incorrect. Camera manufacturers supply the industry with an SDK that interprets the sensor's data and allows certain adjustments (e.g. Kelvin). From there on,  Lightroom or Capture One apply their interpretation (in Lightroom that's called Adobe if I recall correctly) or add the camera manufacturer's own different interpretation like the Fuji's film styles or Nikon's ideas of landscape, portraiture etc... The same applies to Canon, can't say much to Sony. With Leica, Capture One, for some reason, offers Pro-Standard and Generic, both very close and hard to differentiate. Capture One claims that their Pro Standard is even closer to reality. In my line of work, I can't see much of a difference. 

The same approach is taken in the moving picture industry. Arri, Red, Sony, Canon, BM etc... supply the Industry with SDKs to read the raw files. Such SDKs can be pretty complex (Red) or relatively simple (Arri, BM, Canon,Sony). 

[caissa]

On 5/18/2021 at 1:27 AM, syd said:

@BernardC  @la1402  @hansvons you may be interested to have a watch of this comparison of Leica v Fuji colors, RAW processed in Lightroom and C1, and OOC JPEGs. I found it after looking around. 

 

Usually I first need to see the real thing. You could say this is the reference point. And afterwards I can say if I like what the camera makes out of it. And if I think that it is closer to reality or to what I perceive as reality.

So this comparison is completely useless for me.

Edited May 20, 2021 by caissa

[Reggie]

I found this video quite interesting and informative.

It allows you to conduct a blind preference test on the default colour palettes of Canon, Fuji, Ricoh and Leica.

My wife and I consistently preferred the output of the Leica (which is just as well!).

Which do you prefer?

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Reggie

[BernardC]

Here's a more in-depth analysis:

https://www.cinematography.net/LED-Camera/LED-Camera-Index.html

They tested 5 cine cameras and two types of film stock, along with 13 different LED lights. The process was to match middle grey and see where everything else falls.

CML doesn't provide conclusions, just data, but you can see that the cameras have different colour response even when using the same light sources. It's not something that you can fully fix in post. It's also more of a problem with light sources that have a non-continuous spectrum (LED, fluorescent), and less with sunlight or tungsten.

As I mentioned before, this isn't a concern for most stills shooters. We can always tweak a single image until we like the colours. It's different for cine work, because you might be using two different cameras in the same scene, so they should match exactly (in most situations, sometimes you want to have the shots clash for narrative reasons).

[hansvons]

26 minutes ago, BernardC said:

It's not something that you can fully fix in post.

Exactly. And because that's the case, cameras do have different colour responses and unique characters. That may not matter to everyone, but to some, it does. That's the primary reasons why out of 10 academy winners, 9 have been shot on Arri (or even more). Most cinematographers prefer Arri's colour response, especially Arri's reproduction of skin tones.

 

[syd]

5 hours ago, hansvons said:

I'd say this assumption is incorrect. Camera manufacturers supply the industry with an SDK that interprets the sensor's data and allows certain adjustments (e.g. Kelvin). From there on,  Lightroom or Capture One apply their interpretation (in Lightroom that's called Adobe if I recall correctly) or add the camera manufacturer's own different interpretation like the Fuji's film styles or Nikon's ideas of landscape, portraiture etc... The same applies to Canon...

There are no Canon camera profiles for the EOS R series, According to this, Canon has not supplied Adobe with any API nor ability to create profiles that match the in-camera profiles to render the RAW file. Owners can use Canon's own DPP software which have the profiles, but that's using Canon software to process Canon raw files. It would be the same as using Fuji X Raw Studio tethered to a Fuji X camera to process the RAW file using Fuji's color algorithms:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4428091

I agree with you that camera sensors have different colour responses. But I don't agree that using 3rd party software to render the RAW file and then labelling that rendering as the "look" of that camera's sensor is meaningful. If you use Fuji's software with the Fuji camera processor to create a JPEG from a RAW file, then I would agree that that is aFuji "look". But not if the JPEG was generated by C1, LR or some other 3rd party. 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[hansvons]

19 hours ago, syd said:

But I don't agree that using 3rd party software to render the RAW file and then labelling that rendering as the "look" of that camera's sensor is meaningful.

That’s the reason why the amazing Ken Rockwell (love his passion for cameras!) only shoots JPEG (for my taste, often horrendously oversaturated). So do other testers. But this is moot for me because I don’t shoot JPEGs but Raw. And because LR doesn’t cut it for me like C1 does, which applies to every other raw converter, I use C1. From there, I derive my findings because that’s my workflow. Of course, your mileage may vary, and that’s the whole point of the game called creativity.