Leica SL2, SL2-S - Which is closest to the Q2's color?

[trippalhealicks]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Title.
I own a Leica Q2, and it's a marvelous camera, and I think it's my favorite camera I've ever owned. From what I've heard, the colors of the SL2 and SL2-S vary somewhat, and I'm wondering if anyone here has some experience with these three cameras and can provide their take on which of these matches the Q2's color (unedited) most closely?

Thank you

[hansvons]

The Q2 shares the same sensor with the SL2. My uneducated guess is that SL2 and Q2 match nicely.

[Jeff S]

Custom camera profiles (e.,g., ColorChecker Passport) will help to create more uniform color output before any additional editing.

Jeff

[RBB]

I did some comparison between the SL2 and SL2s.

 

[Gavin Cato]

To be honest I haven't done side to side comparisons, but with that said I shoot weddings over 3 cameras, 2 x SL2 and 1 x Q2 and when imported everything into Capture one the colours look identical across them.

I haven't used an SL2-S though. They didn't exist when I bought in.

 

[hellobrandonscott]

17 hours ago, Gavin Cato said:

To be honest I haven't done side to side comparisons, but with that said I shoot weddings over 3 cameras, 2 x SL2 and 1 x Q2 and when imported everything into Capture one the colours look identical across them.

I haven't used an SL2-S though. They didn't exist when I bought in.

 

And I shoot weddings with 3 cameras too, but with the Q2 and 2x SL2-S. The Q2 is always a notch or two more green for tint than the SL2-S photos, but colors overall are the same. 

[trippalhealicks]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Great feedback.  Thank you, all.

 

[AKorenc]

I'm also using the Q2 in combination with SL2, they do use the same sensors, but also different processors; Q2 uses Maestro II and the SL2 uses Maestro III. The processor has stronger influence on color-rendering, than the sensor itself, and although I find colors from these 2 cameras similar (enough to not seeing it as a problem), they are most definitely not identical.

Then there are the lenses; the latter from Leica, Sigma and Panasonic are all rendering colors slightly different. What I'm trying to say here, is you can probably never perfectly match colors from a camera with a fixed lens with colors from a camera with interchangeable lenses.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

9 hours ago, AKorenc said:

I'm also using the Q2 in combination with SL2, they do use the same sensors, but also different processors; Q2 uses Maestro II and the SL2 uses Maestro III. The processor has stronger influence on color-rendering, than the sensor itself, and although I find colors from these 2 cameras similar (enough to not seeing it as a problem), they are most definitely not identical.

Then there are the lenses; the latter from Leica, Sigma and Panasonic are all rendering colors slightly different. What I'm trying to say here, is you can probably never perfectly match colors from a camera with a fixed lens with colors from a camera with interchangeable lenses.

And they're also not *exactly* the same sensor. The cover glass and microlenses are different as the Q2 doesn't need to deal with M lenses but does need treatment for the extremely compact 35 that's glued to it.

But the SL2 is closer to the Q2 than the SL2-S. Of course, that doesn't make the SL2 better. Just different.

Gordon