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SL2-s users, have you noticed the magenta shift of sl2-s under low light conditions?


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Skintone will appear magenta under low light or warm LED light conditions. I have tested it many times with two SL2-s, this is not a problem of white balance. 

I guess that in order to make the M lens perform better on SL cameras, the glass in front of the CMOS that resists infrared light is made thinner, causing the magenta shift.

This problem bothered me a lot when I was shooting video.

Edited by opera207
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  • opera207 changed the title to SL2-s users, have you noticed the magenta shift of sl2-s under low light conditions?

No. In fact I'm impressed with how skin tone holds up under low light - unless the light source really is pretty narrow frequency. I shoot a lot in low light, and video - mostly drama & performance.

Edited by LocalHero1953
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On 10/25/2022 at 12:31 PM, Geoff C. Bassett said:

I think in general skin tone leans toward magenta on Leica bodies, but I have never noticed it being more magenta in low light.

 

Agreed. The SL2-S’ white balance leans a tad towards magenta. I prefer to use custom Kelvin presets in C1; others don't feel the slight magenta tint. Overall, the Leica’s skin tones are exceptional and resemble the individual complexions very well. We are talking about nuances here.

However, under houshold LED lights colours in general can be funky, depending on the LED light spectrum design. 15 years ago, when the first professional LED-based film light fixtures emerged, most of them were not convincing regarding true colours and could only be used for back lights. That changed when I Arri entered the scene with super heavy but brilliant LED-based fixtures that emitted true sunlight. These were the first LED panels that I used for key lights. 

 

I would not expect any camera to reproduce true skin tones under consumer-grade LEDs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

i have a similar issue only when using the leica color profile in lightroom, they tend to clip the reds, this for sl2s or m10, therefore in cases where i have people, i use the adobe standard profile, it works like a charm. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...

I have the same problem with Leica SL2-s. I've shot the same situations many times alongside Nikon Z6II. In low light or weaker sunset light, Nikon can capture the atmosphere perfectly, somehow connecting everything with the yellow undertones. The skin tones just look spot on. But Leica shifts towards magenta and no WB can fix this. You have to fix the skin tones selectively, but it some situations it is not so easy. I consider this one of the worst things about the SL2-s. In stronger daylight the camera is amazing.

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With longer experience, I can say that I’ve had no problems with low natural light that I can’t fix with a WB adjustment. In artificial light my practice now is to set a fixed WB, around 4000K. With any artificial light that has a frequency component, the WB could vary. Perhaps some cameras average WB over a longer period than Leica does. 

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