Leica M11 Sony Sensor - Doesn’t have the “Leica Look”

[colint544]

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With some very gentle photoshopping, the Leica film image looks like this.

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[LocalHero1953]

24 minutes ago, colint544 said:

Maybe it's the case that the images from all modern digital cameras are now so malleable, they can be bent in vastly different directions without the file breaking up. Hence everyone's images cover the gamut from the HDR look to the blown highlights look. I encountered this even on my ancient mk1 M Monochrom. I could dodge and burn to the point where the picture looked unrealistic. 

Look at the Leica Mastershots page. If you take just the M11 category, there are images from that camera that range from sublime to heavily overworked. There's huge variability, simply because it's possible. The skill of the photographer's post processing skills is a big deciding factor. 

Go onto the Mastershots analogue page. There's a restfulness about most of those images. They generally don't tend towards harshness. I've been shooting a lot of film over the past few years. Mostly Portra 400. I've really enjoyed being able to scan the negatives, and the resulting image needing next to no post processing. 

I'm in the same camp - shooting more film in the last year or so: B&W in the Barnacks, and Portra in the M4 (with Summilux 35 and 50, both pre-asph. I'm trying 160, 400, and 800, but TBH I would be happy with 400 even if I hadn't chosen to try out the others. It has a pleasing gentleness of rendering, but with the ability to produce intense colours when there is good light. I don't see digital as better or worse, but just different.

[Jon Warwick]

3 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I don't see digital as better or worse, but just different.

Yes I agree. More broadly, IMHO, I think the aesthetic of 35mm film is certainly quite different to digital, but I do sometimes think that the rendering of large format film (5x4 and especially 10x8) reminds me quite a bit more of digital …..due to large format’s very high resolution and grain-free appearance, it can look more “digital” and it would certainly  allow one to read every word in the warning sign on Colin’s boat image above! But at the end of the day, so much of the look - and image quality - is driven by one’s ability to process the DNGs to one’s taste. I used to think I disliked the rendering off the M240, and sold it. Oops, 5 years later I’ve revisited the same files, armed with much more knowledge about processing to my taste (which is generally with a very light touch and making it look more like Portra 160), and now can see just how good the camera was in hindsight and just how heavy handed I was with the files in the past.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Jon Warwick

[DenverSteve]

On 5/12/2022 at 9:00 AM, Photoworks said:

The M11 camera has the most natural colors I have seen in a Leica. it reflect the closed to what I see with my eye.

I didn't get that with M10 or M240, there was always lots to tweak to get natural look. The limited dynamic range of this cameras reflects in the output .

 

The images out of the M11 are a little more contrasty , if you want the old look just tweet the JPG setting to your liking.

Noted that I didn't say the M11 sensor. The magic is how the processor and like software represents the image. So Sony or not, what is probably not, nobody should care.

To me the M11 and M10R are excellent cameras, and I am glad not to have to use the M10P or M240 anymore.

 

I have to agree that I've observed pretty much the same thing.  I don't think a "Leica look" has been established with the digital Leicas.  The 9 looks different than the 10. The typ 240 looks different than the 10p, the 10 looks different than the 11 BUT using Leica glass on them remains the constant similarity and you still get the Leica glass look. No one should be expecting the camera to impose the look when "the look" should be a combination of input from the camera body, lenses and - most importantly - the photographer.  I just want my cameras to provide a capture produced by me with an accurate representation of the scene I thought I photographed.  My 11 does that in spades and has a great OOC (whether JPEG or RAW) look.  I took a simple set of photos last week evaluating a new Leica lens I received. When I showed my wife she immediately said, "Wow, it has that Leica 3-d depth to the shots". She is right. We used to seek the Kodachrome or Ektachrome or Tri-X or Fuji look that came from our tested and expected results from specific films.  Now people want the camera to provide them a "look" which I think is a little unreasonable.  Each photographer should develop their own look, or just buy a D-Lux 7 and set it on automatic.  You'll get great results .... and save $6000 (minimum).

[Jipster]

On 5/12/2022 at 9:43 AM, KeyofG said:

This photo here is the M240 (as an example) 

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This one is the M10

M10R

Aaannnddd M11

 

Hey don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just saying. Sony sure does make some pretty sharp results though. I think I can count the leaves on the tree back there
😅

These M10 (and M240) results match my own. Last weekend I pointed the 10R into a pond and took a crappy photo, but the B&W jpeg looks like that. Buttery smooth. Unlike the M11 results. 

It might be a function of megapixels. At some point, people may want to consider that “hyperrealism” is not the end all and be all of photography. Sensors like that of the M11 capture more details than my eyes (at least with the amount of contrast and clarity people apply) and the emotions I wanted to capture was what my eyes were capturing. So, in short, it might be the focus on sharpness and detail in all of most modern youtubers and companies who oay attention to “what people want”, including Leica, my 2 cents,

JP

[Jipster]

On 5/12/2022 at 12:32 PM, M11 for me said:

Post processing makes the picture. I could even go further and say: OOC does not matter at all.

People say that, and yes, technically I can change every pixel in the OOC output, but in reality nobody does. And if you shoot lots of images, editing time is precious. So, it does matter. 
 

JP

[colint544]

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I've only recently discovered the photographer Dan Baker. If you're not familiar with his work, there is a video here of him at work with his Leica M11. He seems very likeable, and his pictures are wonderful. They're as good a demonstration of what the M11 sensor is capable of as any I've seen.

Edited November 25, 2022 by colint544

[robsonj]

On 11/25/2022 at 3:54 PM, colint544 said:

I've only recently discovered the photographer Dan Baker. If you're not familiar with his work, there is a video here of him at work with his Leica M11. He seems very likeable, and his pictures are wonderful. They're as good a demonstration of what the M11 sensor is capable of as any I've seen.

Thanks for the link to the video, was a great watch, I agree with your sentiment about him and his photography, but I also think his images are post processed quite a bit, on his IG he often tags them with ‘portra’, so I’m guessing some processing is going on. I’d love to know what he’s doing, because they do look nice.

[SiggiGun]

Thé final « impression » of color depends more of the light condition then any other components like sensor, FW and lenses. 
the only way to compare is a flash system with a well adjusted light temperature. 
 

BTW : I wasn’t happy with the M240 but happy with all the others 8 to 11. 

[nthomas]

I purchased the M11 on the first day of release. I would say the M11 images show more Leica color(look?) than the predecessors. Photos from M11 even show more M9 like color rendition, especially the SOOC JPG files. As for the DNG files, you can get the Leica color easily via using LR or C1, just like what every do with the predeccors. No complaint about this sensor so far, I totally fall in love with this camera.

[TheEyesHaveIt]

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but Cobalt sells profiles emulating M9 and M10R colors. I like using their film profiles in general and their B&W ones (including Leica M ones). You can probably achieve similar results by playing around with LR's sliders, but I've enjoyed the quick application with their presets to try out different looks.

[Jipster]

On 12/23/2022 at 2:08 PM, jaapv said:

So make  a profile and preset that defines your editing starting point...   

 

 

A profile for every situation. Hmm, sorry, but that does not work. I don’t want all my portraits to be the same or landcapes to be the same. I have had thee digital systems for long periods of time, Olympus (micro) four thirds, Nikon full frame, and Leica, and I can  tell you I cannot easily get the same colors I get from my Leica on my Nikon. Presets won’t solve this, except the overprocessed , oversaturated, overX you get from most presets on the market. And that’s not always (in fact rarely) what I want. I really know what I am saying, not for lack of trying or skills (well, maybe it’s lack of skills, and I don’t even know it :)).

 

JP

[jaapv]

That means that you have not made profiles using the X-rite Colourchecker. Those are applied automatically on import if you make them default. Nikon and Leica match closely. I use dual-illuminant ones which don’t require “for each situation “. Just create them once. 

[Kiwimac]

Surely the only thing that can create a “Leica look” is the glass?

 

 Before digital, any ‘look’ came from the film in the camera and the glass. That’s why Fujifilm have invested so much time in creating their very good film simulations. 
 

In film, the camera is nothing more contributory to the image than a box with a hole in. 
 

If Leica had done the same (eg having a Kodachrome setting or a Portra setting) then the look would be a conversation at least grounded in reality. 
 

As far as I can see, the only way to get the historical “look” is in post, by replication of the colour, grain and so on of whichever film you preferred. 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Kiwimac

[Adam Bonn]

In a DNG image pipeline the colours (pre editing in a RAW app) are basically driven by the white balance and in adobe the content of the dcp profile

cameras can only use RGB and every colour is derived from a mixture of RGB.

For the sake of brevity Red might equal 8 parts red, 1 part green and 1 part blue. Blue could be 8 parts blue, and 1 each of red and green etc etc

In rather over simplified maths (again for brevity, you’d need something like matlab and some python knowledge to work this out for real)

the WB that the camera used creates a tag in the DNG (“AsShotNeutral” or ASN)

The dcp profile contains one (or usually two) “ColorMatrices” (CM)  that map FROM the XYZ colour space of the illuminants TO the unwhitebalanced colours of the RAW data.

So ASN x CM = white balanced RAW colours within XYZ

(and after this mapped to XYZ_D50 then into an HSD LUT to provide flexibility. But let’s not get bogged down here 😅)

If you use a whibal card (or similar) to set the WB in camera then above maths (sic) produces more pleasing results because the white balance is more accurate

If you use a colorchecker chard to profile your camera, then you’re creating new colormatrices (assuming dual illuminant, one if not) which produces more pleasing results because you’ve created CMs for your actual camera.

The next step (!)  is too use dedicated software that allows you to design an entire dcp camera profile from start to finish (including tone curve) which enables you to work with the RGB split and the WB multipliers.

This  type of software is not free and designing a ground up profile is not a quick task.

Every profile is a series of compromises. These compromises start with the OEMs choice of CFA and base chip separate channel amplification. Then the profile compromises start… you have a certain amount of R and G and B to play with, how do you want to distribute it? How do you want your profile to handle gamut or exposure hue twists?

With the correct tools, patience, trail and error, more patience and a working knowledge of the DNG pipeline you can end up with a default (set of) profile(s) that are far more tailored to your personal choices and needs than you’ll get using freeware from X-Rite with no configuration options or by buying 3rd party solutions.

 

 

 

 

 

[cboy]

Anyone has used the Lightroom plugin Dehancer? Apparently has good film simulations with up to 63 film profiles incl Kodachrome & Ektachrome.

Imo I think the 'look' has to do with the Kodachrome simulation in the m8 along with the micro contrast/ falloff character of the Leica lenses. If you you put a zm lens on a m8 it's quite a different vibe than with a Leica lens

[Adam Bonn]

FWIW I wrote this in a different thread about the “M9 look”

FWIW… I think it’s a bit to do with the colours (depending on which RAW app you use, and in LR which profile you use) which can be quite cool and blue compared to more modern cameras. Particularly with adobe and the ‘embedded’ profile from Leica, which has very pure (not yellow) greens and quite purple-y red (red has a lot of blue in it)

But most of all I think it’s the far lower DR compared to modern cameras.

It’s a bit hard for me to explain what I mean…

So scene X that one is photographing has a certain amount of light and dark values, and seeing as this is real life these values are independent of the camera.

Now we all know that if we clip data whilst photographing it, it turns white or black. But just before it clips (especially highlights) it kinda glows brightly and shines.

As the M9 is capable of capturing less data than a modern camera parts of its images that look quite dull on a higher DR camera look shinier and more alive on the M9 because although the irl luminance values are the same, on the M9 the (say) sky or shiny red car is (say) only 8% away from clipping but on the higher DR modern camera the same object is (say) 23% away from clipping so looks quite flat in comparison 

(all % figures are completely made up)

As a shitty analogy 

Riding a motorbike down some very twisty country lanes at 50mph feels much more rewarding on a bike with a small engine, the throttle is pinned, the engine is on song and it all feels alive. Riding the same road at the same speed on a big engined motorbike feels dull, the engine’s barely ticking over.

Of course with the ‘big engined’ modern DR camera we need to play with the contrast in post to get some sparkle back, while with the big engined motorbike to get the sparkle back we’d end up serving serious jail time for trying to take curves on the motorway at 150mph 😅

I feel it’s important not to underestimate the native tonality that a sensor has (this tonality is hard coded by the OEM, but we can profile and edit it to some degree) in regards to how the pictures look.

As a super generalisation colours get brighter the further they are along  the camera’s native DR curve. But the colour in real life is a fixed point in that particular moment it was photographed. When a colour is very near the end of the M8/9 native tone curve (ie near the end of its DR) it will look different compared to a camera that has a far higher DR to use.

Like a car might make max power at 6000rpm but a motorbike might make max power at 14000rpm. Max power is max power but the experience of an engine running at 6000rpm feels very different to one running at 14000rpm, likewise a 9 stop DR camera has a different feel to a 14 stop one.

and that IMHO is the M9 look and why you can’t quite get it from a newer camera. 
 

 

[Adam Bonn]

Let’s take a moment to look at a Sony sensor…

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So here we have the IMX071 Sony sensor and in the column on the far right we can see some cameras that use this chip.

Because the chip is the same then all those cameras will produce exactly the same colours and tonality and DR and base ISO right?

 

NOPE

why?

Because in regards to the produced RAW image it matters zero f*cks where the chip is sourced from and all of the f*cks how the OEM codes it and CFAs it and cover stacks it

Of course a more modern chip can do more modern things, but when the same base chip is used in different applications then the results are also different.

 

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[jakontil]

5 minutes ago, grahamc said:

 

That guy sure loved his 10R BP 

Im afraid it’s first and only one since he despised the legendary silver too 😂😂😂

[grahamc]

5 minutes ago, jakontil said:

Im afraid it’s first and only one since he despised the legendary silver too 😂😂😂

Who doesn’t ! 🤔😝