Leica M11 -purplish tint ???

[R4p70r]

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21 hours ago, la1402 said:

There is no need to discuss whether the magenta tint is there. It is very obviously there in jpeg and in Adobe software, which is mainstream and Leicas Partner for Raw and therefore absolutely ok to use as a reference point. But how much of an issue that is, is a personal thing, and acceptable corrections are quick and easy. My Sony A7RVs AWB  is almost equally wrong towards yellow. Depending on subject, lighting and personal taste, either tint can be helpful or destructive. 

But I would be more interested if people found new ways of dealing with it. 

 

Exactly. Also coming from years of using Canon, Fuji & Sony cameras. Each camera manufacturer has their colour bias. With Sony for example as you wrote it I have to correct the tendency of towards yellow WB and green tint. 

Leica M11 platform's tendency towards magenta is apparent and I have wide gamut colour space and colour calibrated displays I am working with on my RAW files. My go to RAW converter is Capture One Pro most recent version.
I got photos in which you see that mostly in photos on sunny days with blue sky and a lot of sunlight reflected by surrounding surfaces. The blue looks more like purple instead the blue you see with your eyes on location. In the M11 image thread you see a photos that show that.

It's annoying and you have to correct it every time. However it isn't more problematic than a Sony camera. Sony's tendency towards yellow is bad for photos during sunrise and sunset scenes; green tint when the lighting conditions are either scenes in the shadow / indoors and artificial light. Sony made some efforts in their newer generations of cameras to mitigate those colour bias but those I haven't tried yet to see if it has improved.

Is it a problem? For most people probably as people in photography genres e.g. wedding, commercial, product, portrait, fashion want a "neutral colour" starting point that should be across all the photos under all lightning conditions to have a common baseline either to have less work in their workflow or that all photos should look the same colour-wise from the beginning before doing like colour grading with a customized preset etc..  

It would be nice if Leica can offer a solution or collaborating with the RAW converter software companies to solve this.

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[Budfox]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:38 PM, Overgaard said:

This should not be corrected in firmware as that would then make the colors look strange to the 50% who seem to like the colors (and color cast) of the Leica M11. 

I have suggested that Leica make it possible to choose between looks, meaning that the camera would offer two (or more) DNG profiles to choose from. One as the one it came out with and which it uses now, and a new "Neutral" or "Color True" profile.

Fundamentally a camera should only offer one look, and that one should be correct colors. In case of the Leica M11 where it doesn't, but nobody at the factory seem to have noticed before 18 months after the release, the solution could be to include one more (correct) profile. 

The profiles could also be changed on editing level, meaning that Adobe and Capture One make updated profiles. But again, it would have to be new additional, alternative profiles, not changing the ones that was made when the camera came out (because if they changed the core of the existing profile, suddenly all your final edited pictures would change).  

Of f# problem to have with a camera. 

In any case, been working with this since May and will be releasing a couple of new articles on M11 exposure and M11 fixing colors in the next weeks. 

Won't this alleged problem be fixed by just using a set white balance rather than autoWB to get a predicable look? Or is it embedded deeper into the DNG file somehow?

[don daniel]

vor 38 Minuten schrieb R4p70r:

Leica M11 platform's tendency towards magenta is apparent and I have wide gamut colour space and colour calibrated displays I am working with on my RAW files. My go to RAW converter is Capture One Pro most recent version.
I got photos in which you see that mostly in photos on sunny days with blue sky and a lot of sunlight reflected by surrounding surfaces. The blue looks more like purple instead the blue you see with your eyes on location. In the M11 image thread you see a photos that show that.

It's annoying and you have to correct it every time. However it isn't more problematic than a Sony camera. Sony's tendency towards yellow is bad for photos during sunrise and sunset scenes; green tint when the lighting conditions are either scenes in the shadow / indoors and artificial light. Sony made some efforts in their newer generations of cameras to mitigate those colour bias but those I haven't tried yet to see if it has improved.

Is this the case with all Sony cameras? At Leica, we actually only have this problem with the M11. This means that in earlier models, the red tones were somewhat magenta-heavy. But only the red tones. With the M11, we now have a magenta tint that is particularly evident in sunlight throughout the image, for example in the blue sky or in skin tones. Yesterday I photographed a choir concert: artificial light in a concrete church. There was no magenta cast. The automatic white balance did its job well.

[la1402]

20 minutes ago, don daniel said:

Is this the case with all Sony cameras? At Leica, we actually only have this problem with the M11. This means that in earlier models, the red tones were somewhat magenta-heavy. But only the red tones. With the M11, we now have a magenta tint that is particularly evident in sunlight throughout the image, for example in the blue sky or in skin tones. Yesterday I photographed a choir concert: artificial light in a concrete church. There was no magenta cast. The automatic white balance did its job well.

Yes we Sony it’s a general tendency. So at least they are consistent 😉. 

[Overgaard]

7 hours ago, Budfox said:

Won't this alleged problem be fixed by just using a set white balance rather than autoWB to get a predicable look? Or is it embedded deeper into the DNG file somehow?

It's deeper. And the pre-set white balances of the M11 is off on warm/cold as well (meaning that the Kelvin is generally 600-1000 off in both Capture One and Lightroom).

If one uses a WhiBal or Kodak R-27 card, this one will calibrate the kelvin and tint to a large degree and solve the problem and balance the overall colors back to neutral colors.  

So basically, shooting Auto WB, and then take photos of a WhiBal card now and ten (or for every scene) will make it possible to adjust the colors. 

[florian.zahn]

Am 11.12.2023 um 10:15 schrieb jgeenen:

I tried the curve profile described yesterday to a good number of M11 pictures taken in sunlight, overcast and various artificial light sources and found:

• The color temperature setting out of camera - regardless of fixed or auto - is not bad at all.
• Virtually every photo - according to my taste - benefits from a treated tone curve with slightly reduced red and blue channels (red 128->125, blue 128->127)
• After applying this curve adjustment, there is usually no need to manipulate the color tint of WB at all.
• Until now I haven't found any sample where the curve adjustment makes the result worse than before.

 

Hi,

thanks for this  post.

I have created a preset in Lightroom Classic containing exactly that correction and it does the trick.

Best regards,

Florian

 

[hdmesa]

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On 12/11/2023 at 2:15 AM, jgeenen said:

I tried the curve profile described yesterday to a good number of M11 pictures taken in sunlight, overcast and various artificial light sources and found:

• The color temperature setting out of camera - regardless of fixed or auto - is not bad at all.
• Virtually every photo - according to my taste - benefits from a treated tone curve with slightly reduced red and blue channels (red 128->125, blue 128->127)
• After applying this curve adjustment, there is usually no need to manipulate the color tint of WB at all.
• Until now I haven't found any sample where the curve adjustment makes the result worse than before.

My personal conclusion:

• It is not the M11 white balance that is off, it is the color baseline of the M11 that some people (including myself) don't like.
• Applying an import profile with slightly reduced red and blue channels creates a starting point that is a good starting point for further tuning and almost always sufficient for less critical observation.

If someone is interested in my settings as a starting point for further tests, see the attached screenshots from Lightroom Classic's curve editor. Please let me know, if you have a different opinion/solution. As I mentioned earlier, my setup is not fully calibrated and I haven't completed tests yet (in particular I need to do some prints)

The M11 profile of DxO 5 seems to apply some magenta corrections to the color as well and usually does not need a treatment similar to LrC. Capture One 22 on the other hand seems to behave similar to LrC (I don't have the latest releases of DxO or C1, that might have changed) (judging from two or three sample images I did on the fly)

 

 

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The current version of C1 does well with the M11 white balance, but it's best to set the in camera white balance to daylight for best results, at least outdoors.

I agree that the M11 sensor may be too sensitive to blue and near-blue frequencies of light. I can see this with the M11 Monochrom (and to a lesser degree with the Q2M) when trying to deeply darken blue skies with a red filter but only being able to achieve a small to moderate amount of darkening. It takes near-infrared levels of filtration to get the same dark blue skies with the M11M that I can get with film. But the problem with lowering the sensitivity of the M11 sensor to blue (via a better IR/UV cover glass or in firmware) might mean a small reduction in light gathering and dynamic range. 

[jaapv]

All Monochroms need stronger filtering than film. On my Monochrom M9M I use Orange instead of mid yellow. For near-black skies I use a polfilter. Influencing colour in firmware is completely impossible. There is no colour information out of the sensor due to the absence of a Bayer filter. Leica tweaks the transmission curve of the sensor by coating the cover glass to respond like Delta. 

[hdmesa]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

All Monochroms need stronger filtering than film. On my Monochrom M9M I use Orange instead of mid yellow. For near-black skies I use a polfilter. Influencing colour in firmware is completely impossible. There is no colour information out of the sensor due to the absence of a Bayer filter. Leica tweaks the transmission curve of the sensor by coating the cover glass to respond like Delta. 

Yes, there is no color information coming from the mono sensor, but the mono sensors do have their own specific responses to different color frequencies. For example, with the Q2 Monochrom, I could use a light red filter and get the amount of darkening of blue skies I wanted. But with the M11 Monochrom, I need either a dark red or completely move to the mildest infrared filter and use a tripod.

[jaapv]

Yes,  that is a possibility. If you want to check the response curve shoot a Greta Macbeth colour chart. It may be that they changed the film that they match. As you may recall different films reacted differently to colour filters as well. As I said, the coating on the IR filter makes the difference. This is a very deliberate process for Leica.
 

Try a pol filter for darker skies. 

[don daniel]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb hdmesa:

The current version of C1 does well with the M11 white balance, but it's best to set the in camera white balance to daylight for best results, at least outdoors.

This results in even more magenta than when using AWB and LR. C1 shows more saturated colours than LR from the start. And if you set the camera's white balance to daylight, you will get a stronger magenta cast than if you use AWB.  And the magenta bias of a DNG is no less pronounced in C1 than in LR. But maybe the C1 version I tried a month ago is out of date and there is a newer one that solves the problem. In that case, you are welcome to post a result here.

[Overgaard]

2 hours ago, don daniel said:

This results in even more magenta than when using AWB and LR. C1 shows more saturated colours than LR from the start. And if you set the camera's white balance to daylight, you will get a stronger magenta cast than if you use AWB.  And the magenta bias of a DNG is no less pronounced in C1 than in LR. But maybe the C1 version I tried a month ago is out of date and there is a newer one that solves the problem. In that case, you are welcome to post a result here.

I doubt Capture One would tamper with the profile as it would change the look of all photos so far imported into C1. 

My experience is the same, AWB is a better starting point in C1. 5400 or Daylight seem to bring the starting point even further away. Often when using AWB, you can pick a neutral spot somewhere, which will then balance the Tint to the left (it will start at -6 and then go to -15 or so), and then you can deal with Kelvin (warm/cold) and finally also see what to do about the purple tint (often reduce blue in the picture overall, or a bit of red/blue overall).

 

 

[hdmesa]

3 hours ago, don daniel said:

This results in even more magenta than when using AWB and LR. C1 shows more saturated colours than LR from the start. And if you set the camera's white balance to daylight, you will get a stronger magenta cast than if you use AWB.  And the magenta bias of a DNG is no less pronounced in C1 than in LR. But maybe the C1 version I tried a month ago is out of date and there is a newer one that solves the problem. In that case, you are welcome to post a result here.

I misspoke, sorry. I did often set the M11 to manual daylight just so the Auto WB wasn't jumping all over the place in tricky lighting at sunset, but then later in C1 I would switch the WB from As Shot to Daylight. So whether I shot the M11 on Daylight or in Auto, I usually found myself switching to Daylight in C1. Capture One's Daylight WB setting was usually less magenta than the M11's Auto WB for me in sunset lighting as shown in the screenshot below. That said, sometimes in sunset lighting like this, a little more magenta and warmth is more pleasing anyway.

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[mosh1]

Hey all, I did a decent amount of investigation into this. It turns out that while all M11s I've seen  have a magenta bias in white-balance some of them have more than others. I saw two M11s set to Daylight white balance each render a different level of magenta tint. This was true whether it was in-camera rendered JPG, Capture One, Lightroom, etc. Both cameras had a magenta bias but one camera would consistently render more magenta when shooting the exact same scene with the same settings and set to a static Daylight white balance (I did not use Auto to remove that variability). After some back and forth in emails with Leica, it turns out each camera is individually calibrated with their own "As Shot Neutral" and "White Point" EXIF tags - perhaps done to account for sensor variability but in practice this results in different output. I verified this by looking at the EXIF tags of multiple M11 files and each has a different "As Shot Neutral" and "White Point".  In fact, I used a tool to modify the EXIF data and was able to get all the files from the cameras to render the same (with the same level of magenta tint) by making the tags the same. This suggests that Leica's per-camera calibration appears to have more variability than any actual sensor variability (in my small sample set of DNGs tested).

 

M11 #1  - As Shot Neutral                 : 0.2740899358 1 0.5818181818

M11 #2 - As Shot Neutral                 : 0.2764578834 1 0.5791855204

M11 #3  - As Shot Neutral                 : 0.2816281628 1 0.5953488372
 

The level of tint each camera was set to for a 'Daylight/Cloudy/etc' white balance depended on the above EXIF tag, and each camera had its own individual value for the tag. This explains why some users here may think the magenta bias is less of a problem than others. It's different for each camera. And the difference appears to be more due to Leica's internal calibration than sensor variability (again in my small sample set).

 

I think the solution to this is to have something other camera makers like Fuji have for a while, allow a user defined white balance shift (example from a Fuji camera). This would better allow a starting point for white balance per user taste and per camera variability that can be carried over into JPG and RAW renderers.

 

 

 

 

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Edited December 26, 2023 by mosh1

[don daniel]

If it is true that Leica calibrates the white balance setting of each M11 individually, and it must be, then the people who do this should be sent to the eye doctor very quickly. For me, however, this still doesn't explain why the automatic white balance produces a magenta cast in daylight, but works quite well in artificial light. By the way, in the picture thread for the M11 you can see horrendous examples of magenta cast on the last few pages. 

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, don daniel said:

By the way, in the picture thread for the M11 you can see horrendous examples of magenta cast on the last few pages.

Quite apart from the question of OOC white balance, which I don't dispute, surely the blame here must be on the posters. I cannot imagine myself publishing an image on the forum with a "horrendous" cast, regardless of the cause. Especially as it is easy to correct. The last one has a strong orange cast BTW.

Anyway, if the final WB tweak is indeed done individually by Leica, it should be the easiest thing in the world for them to put an end to the complaints. 

[don daniel]

M11, Apo50, AWB, in LR temperature: 5350, tint: +21, Adobe Standard profile, firmware 2.0.2

Temperature is okay for me here, but tint is magenta heavy:

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Tint slider moved to the left to +10:

The JPG looks like the first one with the magenta cast. 

When I tried an M11 for the first time, I brought it back and said: "No, thanks. Something's not right. The M11 can't do natural color reproduction." I bought an M10-R. A while later, I tried the M11 again. It was a different model. It had the same problems. On closer inspection of the files on the computer, I realized that I simply had to correct the white balance on every image, not primarily the temperature, as I was used to doing when the white balance had failed, but the tint. Or I would have to do an instant white balance every time the light changed before taking the picture. And so I bought an M11 because, in my opinion, the M11 has many advantages over the older M versions and because the colors are really good as soon as the white balance is right. In the meantime, the M11 has even been given an improved dynamic range in the shadow drawing for JPG. The JPGs could therefore be used and shared directly if the white balance wasn't so off. Nevertheless, I am surprised that in artificial light or candlelight indoors, the white balance of the M11 can also function completely normally. However, as soon as real daylight is added, the tint shifts to magenta. I do not assume that Leica will leave it like this. 

Edited December 26, 2023 by don daniel

[M11 for me]

Everything is disputable here. To my liking the second image is too green. I know the place from which you took that picture very well and I know well the colors of the houses when the sun goes slowly down. I prefer the first image. Lets then take out a detail: Look at the hills in the background: I am sitting here at home and I look out of my window into "my" hills. The tint is more like in your first image than in the second one. You have rduced the tint slider by -11. I would agree to reduce from 21 to maybe 17. I could agree with that. But not down to 10.

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[don daniel]

vor einer Stunde schrieb M11 for me:

Everything is disputable here. To my liking the second image is too green. 

Well, I am sorry to say but are you sure about your eye sight? White balance of any other camera must look green to you. I took this shot at half past two in the afternoon. Although it is winter there is no reason to excuse a magenta cast like this on the river Rhein, on the houses and in the sky as "colors of the houses when the sun goes slowly down". You get the same magenta cast in summer at high noon, when the sun is shining right from above or even when it is all cloudy and magenta instead of grey.

[M11 for me]

Thank you Daniel, that is why I proposed to push the slider down to 17. But to my liking not as far down as 10.

You might be right with my eye sight though. I have no clue if you are right. Maybe we should go together to the optician: I see green where there is none and you see magenta. 

But to be franc: I appreciate your perseveration. Hopefully you will get some satisfaction by Leica. 

Here 2 images with the tint out of cam:

M11 with 21mm Super-Elmar at 2pm in the afternoon in full summer

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and here M11 and 28mm Summicron at 4:30h pm in December 

Edited December 26, 2023 by M11 for me