M11 adopts the Japanese~American look to color science

[setuporg]

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On 6/4/2022 at 2:12 AM, adan said:

1992 - Fuji replaced my beloved RF50 with RVP50 Velvia - finer-grained, but lost the neutral, open colors I loved. Darker/contrastier, and more purple. Adapted to it.

Adan -- can you comment on this wild perception I found on old film forums, that "Fujifilm is somehow more attuned to the Asian vision than the European / American one"?  Today is sounds incredibly racist, and I wonder whether there was any research to confirm or disconfirm this.  I was really shocked, from today's sensibilities, to find that on those old film camera forum archives, probably looking for old lenses rendering on film.

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[setuporg]

I keep shooting with my M9 and M10R instead of getting M11, and the M9 colors really pop!

What's more interesting is that Lightroom "Auto" correction button does an incredible job on the M9 DNGs.  It generally does a good enough job on all DNGs, basically replacing the better metering with postprocessing, but on M9 it does wonders.  It might mean M10R metering is already good enough, or that M9's needs more work, but the overall effect is that I get crisp and well-balanced results just running Auto on all M9 images OOC.

[adan]

4 hours ago, setuporg said:

Adan -- can you comment on this wild perception I found on old film forums, that "Fujifilm is somehow more attuned to the Asian vision than the European / American one"?  Today is sounds incredibly racist, and I wonder whether there was any research to confirm or disconfirm this.

The research suggests that there may be many possible influences on how color is perceived. Possibly with ethic, national-origin or geographical components - but also gender and language.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/202006/why-we-dont-see-the-same-colors

My own sense is that cultures (not races) develop certain tastes for colors, based in part on the historical availability of pigments, especially when cultures did not trade or interact world-wide. Sources of natural pigments included minerals, animals, plants - and basically the best "red" was whatever one could find close to the village.

Europe progressively sourced various reds from various places in the past millennium - Red Lead (mineral mined in Spain and elsewhere), Turkey Red (from a middle-eastern plant), Red Lake (from squashed bugs in India - it is a corruption of "red lac" or "red lacquer"), Cochineal (from other squashed bugs in Mexico, once Europeans reached it). "Chinese Red (a.k.a vermillion)" comes from cinnabar (a mercury-sulfur mineral) which is found in China - and Spain, but Chinese potters made the most of it, pre-trade era).

But for most of human history, it still came down to "what's easily available locally from nature, and thus most likely to be seen in any culture." Grow up in a culture where most red things are colored with cochineal, and you'll have a perception of "red" as a kind of raspberry color. Grow up in a culture where the most common red pigment available is cinnabar-based, and you will think of "red" as more orangish or "brick-red."

There is not a lot of point to an artist in China getting excited about cochineal crimson, if the only way to acquire it is a 15000-km trip in a small, leaky sailing vessel across the Pacific to Latin America. And vice-versa for cinnabar red to a Latin American artist. They will learn to "like" whatever it is they can get.

Of course, differences in fine color perception can occur even among people in the same town, let alone the same culture............... .

Be happy that these guys are not handling Leica's "color science."

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by adan

[SoarFM]

On 6/2/2022 at 12:10 PM, Jim B said:

That guy that got banned was right, the magic is gone…

Who got banned? 

[Jeff S]

27 minutes ago, SoarFM said:

Who got banned? 

Jeff

[Adam Bonn]

5 hours ago, SoarFM said:

Who got banned? 

M10R user, who then came back as grittyphoto, who then might have come back as key of G and now perhaps is back as jim b

I’d like (sic) to see him come back as bobby ewing next or maybe patrick duffy shower scene. Something like that.

[Archiver]

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17 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Yeah kinda... people go on about the M9 colours (and they are nice. Sometimes) but that low DR sensor makes the M9 images light and sparkly and I think that's what people like.

The fact that the M9 is a legend, has a cult following and is still quite a few people's favourite rendering camera says a lot about attribute vs variable data. (18mp, maybe 8-9 stops of DR and only decent ISO for triple digits)

Can you elaborate on how low DR makes M9 images light and sparkly? Because if we're talking about the same thing, the light and sparkly attributes, along with the way the M9 renders skin tones, is what I love about it. I've been working on making my Panasonic S5 images have colour similar to the M9 by making adjustments to yellow, orange, green and red in Lightroom's HSL sliders, but if there is a further way to get that light and sparkly look, I'm all ears.

[Adam Bonn]

1 hour ago, Archiver said:

Can you elaborate on how low DR makes M9 images light and sparkly? Because if we're talking about the same thing, the light and sparkly attributes, along with the way the M9 renders skin tones, is what I love about it. I've been working on making my Panasonic S5 images have colour similar to the M9 by making adjustments to yellow, orange, green and red in Lightroom's HSL sliders, but if there is a further way to get that light and sparkly look, I'm all ears.

Natively the M9 has a lower contrast (so blacks are lighter and whites are softer) than cameras with more DR. The M9 also produces quite a saturated image (AKAIK because colours glow more brightly as they approach clipping, and having limited DR means the M9 clips sooner, so a particular colour, say red, shot with an M9 might only be, say 10% away from clipping but with a higher DR camera on the same scene it might be closer to 30% away and look more flat in comparison)

So overall the M9 makes (based on user exposure choices obviously) an image that has glowy blacks, soft puffy whites and bold colours

It’s generally considered impossible to make camera B render exactly as camera A. But if you have a clear idea of what you like about the look of camera A, you can incorporate it into your camera B preset/profile to close the gap a little.

In this thread here I posted some shots all taken with the M9, all with the same lens and all of the same thing.. but at different times (months apart) and the take away is that the M9 look isn’t a particular LAB value of red or whatever.

IMO the M9 renders colours at a native WB level with a lot of blue in them.. dropping the kelvin value closes some of the gap. I think you might struggle to make anything matching this look with LR HSL tool, but it can close the gap.. also there’s the camera calibration sliders… sure you can move the green hue to the right, which makes green and red more pure… but that can damage yellow and adds a reddy glow to skin tones. You can remedy this by moving the blue hue to the right, but ultimately the range of adjustments with the cam calib sliders in acr/lr will have to much of a wide range to be specific enough.

You might want to try backing off the contrast slider and a negative value with clarity. Then use the white and black sliders to get the tonality you’re looking for.

You’d really need design a dcp file from the ground up… failing that you could modify the adobe one using dng profile editor, or better (far better) yet buy something like Lumariver (yeah I’m a fan) which gives you considerable control over the end profile, but takes some time to master.

Cobalt have an M9 CCD profile, it’s not a terrible product but it’s not a complete doppelgänger for a real M9.. but it might make a reasonable foundation to build a preset around.

I’ve no clue about the pany.. but some cameras look more M9-a-like than others… apparently the M11, but the M10 (with the adobe profile) isn’t a zillion miles off the M9 colours (with the adobe profile), well maybe not so much with the colour red.

 

[pgk]

2 hours ago, Archiver said:

Can you elaborate on how low DR makes M9 images light and sparkly? Because if we're talking about the same thing, the light and sparkly attributes, along with the way the M9 renders skin tones, is what I love about it. I've been working on making my Panasonic S5 images have colour similar to the M9 by making adjustments to yellow, orange, green and red in Lightroom's HSL sliders, but if there is a further way to get that light and sparkly look, I'm all ears.

I'm not sure about 'light and sparkly' (as an M9 user its not a description that I would personally apply). However M9 RAW files are to my mind, very flexible indeed. If I compare them to Sony files I am still surprised at how much I can boost the shadows without really unpleasant noise creeping in. And colourwise they are fine, although care has to be taken with reds as has been noted - I shot a lovey, wld garden a week ago but the red poppies are impossible to tame despite not (quite) being clipped.FWIW I think that it takes a long time to fully appreciate a camera and its output which is why I am sceptical of reviews of new cameras based on short experience times. My M9s will be used until they fail which hopefully will mean a good long life ahead of them. They are better now that when they came out (new sensors) so will take at least as technically good images as they ever did.

[Adam Bonn]

21 minutes ago, pgk said:

I'm not sure about 'light and sparkly' (as an M9 user its not a description that I would personally apply)

Yeah definitely my lexicon there 😅

Here's what I mean

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M10 (left) and M9

Same exposure settings both AWB and completely unedited for the purposes of this comparison (cos y'know I edit pictures normally!)

M9 image is lighter and more blue. (M10 is darker and more yellow) ergo in my speak more light and sparkly

 

[pgk]

9 minutes ago, Adam Bonn said:

Yeah definitely my lexicon there 😅

Here's what I mean

M9 image is lighter and more blue. (M10 is darker and more yellow) ergo in my speak more light and sparkly

M9 shadows seem to have more data in them as ever. This may well just be the differing camera's interpretation of exposure and its colour/tonal mapping, but it is one of the reasons that I still use M9s. 

[Adam Bonn]

OK one more

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!

M10 (left) and M9 - unedited DNG same exposure settings and AWB. Again M10 darker and more yellow!

and now

M10 (left) and M9.

M10 edits

Kelvin dropped by 450

exposure +0.10

contrast -16

Clarity -9

Sat +17

Then using cam calib sliders

red hue -10

green hue +6

OBVIOUSLY NOT EXACTLY THE SAME but less contrast, less clarity, a bit brighter, more saturated, and red and green made more pure and the difference closes tangibly IMO (but again I stress - not exactly)

@ArchiverI'd base your preset around these sorts of edits IMHO.. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Adam Bonn

[setuporg]

Whatever it is M9 has, I see it when I pick it up and it makes me smile.  

[Adam Bonn]

50 minutes ago, setuporg said:

Whatever it is M9 has, I see it when I pick it up and it makes me smile.  

Yeah I think that’s thing with it’s legend.. we see different things (well the same thing differently) when we look at the images from it

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, setuporg said:

Whatever it is M9 has, I see it when I pick it up and it makes me smile.  

I feel the same way when I pick up an avocado at the grocery store.

[tom0511]

Am 3.6.2022 um 23:04 schrieb frame-it:

seems like its another hit-n-run thread..the OP hasn't replied since their 1st post

yes, waste of time.

[elmars]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb setuporg:

Whatever it is M9 has, I see it when I pick it up and it makes me smile.  

Try this test and report Your result:

http://www.reddotforum.com/content/2015/02/the-great-debate-ccd-vs-cmos-part-1/

[hdmesa]

24 minutes ago, tom0511 said:

yes, waste of time.

Banned user(s) have resorted to either asking other users to post something for them or outright buying of semi-dormant accounts.

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[jaapv]

On 6/3/2022 at 12:40 AM, SrMi said:

I hoped that nobody would respond to this post and that it would drop into oblivion. No such luck :).
I would never judge a camera's output by other people's forum posts. 
I agree with Gordon.

It just works this way - if somebody posts bollocks or is not well versed in the postprocessing of images you get push-back from our members.

[jaapv]

25 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Banned user(s) have resorted to either asking other users to post something for them or outright buying of semi-dormant accounts.

Accounts cannot be bought (albeit stolen) and such actions will be self-defeating soon enough.