Leica M11 -purplish tint ???

[jgeenen]

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@jaapv: I just played a little bit with the adaptive Adobe preset in ACR (not scientific, just on some pictures that show the magenta tint) - I did not recognize an improvement there. A manual correction of the magenta tint is still required for my taste. And - from the description in the Adobe blog I do not believe Adobe is trying to address this type of issues at all - it seems to be more an optimization of color and contrast balance. But we will see how it develops going forward. At least the adaptive profiles is an interesting way to make profiles more intelligent and to auto-tune it's behavior depending on the image.

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[LBJ2]

9 minutes ago, jgeenen said:

@jaapv: I just played a little bit with the adaptive Adobe preset in ACR (not scientific, just on some pictures that show the magenta tint) - I did not recognize an improvement there. A manual correction of the magenta tint is still required for my taste. And - from the description in the Adobe blog I do not believe Adobe is trying to address this type of issues at all - it seems to be more an optimization of color and contrast balance. But we will see how it develops going forward. At least the adaptive profiles is an interesting way to make profiles more intelligent and to auto-tune it's behavior depending on the image.

I did the same and compared M11 ACR Adaptive beta profile  processing with LRC processing. From what I've seen so far, ACR Adaptive beta profile continues with Adobe's aggressive WB/Tint default values for M11 file processing. 

Edited December 29, 2024 by LBJ2

[Smudgerer]

Well perhaps I am way too old fashioned, and perhaps coming too from years of working PP / timing in movie film-making to expect anything in image making to be as easy as having a photo come cooked perfectly right out of the camera to my eyes, be that colour or black & white on film or digital. Like with wet printing in PP one is always adjusting the look from the original negative or positive, perhaps even more so in digital finishing because of the non-destructive options there and frankly there's a lot of agreeable fun in that process, the changes one can make whether it is to whatever you feel would be the "true" colour or towards a different look that may or may not improve the original image to your eyes......The great thing about digital PP and DNG files is the great range of non-destructive options that are on your plate, and I for one do appreciate that even whilst my boots are seemingly still stuck in the analogue mud.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Smudgerer

[pedaes]

14 hours ago, hdmesa said:

it's highly irritating to see when out shooting. 

Should have got a 'D' then all would be good in the land of Leica.

[Smudgerer]

9 minutes ago, pedaes said:

Should have got a 'D' then all would be good in the land of Leica.

Which I did..........To my mind all screens and EVF's lie so everything is kinda subjective anyway.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Smudgerer
Spelling

[LBJ2]

10 minutes ago, Smudgerer said:

Well perhaps I am way too old fashioned, and perhaps coming too from years of working PP / timing in movie film-making to expect anything in image making to be as easy as having a photo come cooked perfectly right out of the camera to my eyes, be that colour or black & white. Like with wet printing in PP one is always adjusting the look from the original negative or positive, perhaps even more so in digital finishing because of the non-destructive options there and frankly there's a lot of agreeable fun in that process, the changes one can make whether it is to whatever you feel would be the "true" colour or towards a different look that may or may not improve the original image to your eyes......The great thing about digital PP and DNG files is the great range of non-destructive options that are on your plate, and I for one do appreciate that even whilst my boots are seemingly still stuck in the analogue mud.

I started with digital, and like you I continue to be amazed what I can do with these files in the final days of 2024 compared to just five years ago. A personal shout out to all the new masking features in Lightroom Classic, that just keep getting better and better.

[hdmesa]

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22 minutes ago, pedaes said:

Should have got a 'D' then all would be good in the land of Leica.

I did own a D, but we have screens in post production, too.

 

[lct]

2 hours ago, don daniel said:

[...] I repeat myself: This is not an issue with the RAW converter. The JPGs straight out of the camera have the same magenta cast. It’s the camera that produces it.

Sorry to repeat myself too but i have shown obvious differences in the past on this very forum. If a can retrieve them i'll post them again but is this really necessary?

[hdmesa]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the earlier discussions. Yes, different M11s have different levels of magenta tint. This was proven by a user shooting three different M11 units side by side at fixed Daylight WB and getting three different levels of magenta with the same tint values being shown. Each camera embeds different calibration data into the DNGs. By stripping this data from EXIF, they were able to align the WB between units. Some here have sent their M11 to Leica and had this calibration adjusted to not favor magenta tint as much. Some of us have had multiple units since launch and noticed the later models still have the magenta tint but much less if it.

It’s forum etiquette 101 to read a thread before posting.

Edited December 29, 2024 by hdmesa

[CDodkin]

25 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Everyone seems to be forgetting the earlier discussions. Yes, different M11s have different levels of magenta tint. This was proven by a user shooting three different M11 units side by side at fixed Daylight WB and getting three different levels of magenta with the same tint values being shown. Each camera embeds different calibration data into the DNGs. By stripping this data from EXIF, they were able to align the WB between units. Some here have sent their M11 to Leica and had this calibration adjusted to not favor magenta tint as much. Some of us have had multiple units since launch and noticed the later models still have the magenta tint but much less if it.

It’s forum etiquette 101 to read a thread before posting.

People are looking for the EASY button, and reading and comprehension are 'hard'....

Even self-help seems to be unpopular - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it take control of it's own color workflow it seems.

[LBJ2]

48 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Everyone seems to be forgetting the earlier discussions. Yes, different M11s have different levels of magenta tint. This was proven by a user shooting three different M11 units side by side at fixed Daylight WB and getting three different levels of magenta with the same tint values being shown. Each camera embeds different calibration data into the DNGs. By stripping this data from EXIF, they were able to align the WB between units. Some here have sent their M11 to Leica and had this calibration adjusted to not favor magenta tint as much. Some of us have had multiple units since launch and noticed the later models still have the magenta tint but much less if it.

It’s forum etiquette 101 to read a thread before posting.

Doubting Thomas here–I for one, maybe the only one was not so convinced by that one post that we all have unique color calibration data in our M11 cameras. But also, I don't have the inside manufacturing knowledge to argue one way or the other. It was however an interesting and thought provoking post and results. 

Edited December 29, 2024 by LBJ2

[lct]

Just retrieved this snap from 2022. M11, Macro-Elmar 90/4, f/8, auto WB. Silkypix vs PS Elements. Silkypix is colder with a bit of blue and/or cyan cast, while PSE is warmer with significant red and/or magenta cast. Reality was somewhere in between as clear as i recall.
• Silkypix
• PS Elements

[jgeenen]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb lct:

Just retrieved this snap from 2022. M11, Macro-Elmar 90/4, f/8, auto WB. Silkypix vs PS Elements. Silkypix is colder with a bit of blue and/or cyan cast, while PSE is warmer with significant red and/or magenta cast. Reality was somewhere in between as clear as i recall.
• Silkypix
• PS Elements

This example demonstrates, why making judgement on color is so difficult. Any camera manufacturer does something during development of a new camera - they do "color science". Every software developer does the same, and every hardware manufacturer (graphics card, monitor, printer, drivers etc.), too. The more parameters we change, the less we will be able locate differences.

I am used to color variations between camera makes - they can be huge. I have seen color variations between different generations of camera models as well but not to the same extent as the variations between manufacturers. But the differences between Leica M11 files and other Leica cameras of the same area are (comparatively) gigantic (Although in real terms it is just a few "ticks" of a slider or - mathematically - only 1-2% of deviation in level of the mid tones in red and blue channels.  

Whether Leica wanted it that way (did Leica search for the indistinguishable look?), it's a result of manufacturing or calibration variances (interestingly only in the direction of magenta - nobody complained about a greenish tint AFAIK) or "just" a Leica color designer who had fallen in love during M11 design - I don't have a clue.

[jaapv]

3 hours ago, jgeenen said:

@jaapv: I just played a little bit with the adaptive Adobe preset in ACR (not scientific, just on some pictures that show the magenta tint) - I did not recognize an improvement there. A manual correction of the magenta tint is still required for my taste. And - from the description in the Adobe blog I do not believe Adobe is trying to address this type of issues at all - it seems to be more an optimization of color and contrast balance. But we will see how it develops going forward. At least the adaptive profiles is an interesting way to make profiles more intelligent and to auto-tune it's behavior depending on the image.

That was indeed the thing that caught my eye: optimization of colour balance. 

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, jgeenen said:

This example demonstrates, why making judgement on color is so difficult. Any camera manufacturer does something during development of a new camera - they do "color science". Every software developer does the same, and every hardware manufacturer (graphics card, monitor, printer, drivers etc.), too. The more parameters we change, the less we will be able locate differences.

I am used to color variations between camera makes - they can be huge. I have seen color variations between different generations of camera models as well but not to the same extent as the variations between manufacturers. But the differences between Leica M11 files and other Leica cameras of the same area are (comparatively) gigantic (Although in real terms it is just a few "ticks" of a slider or - mathematically - only 1-2% of deviation in level of the mid tones in red and blue channels.  

Whether Leica wanted it that way (did Leica search for the indistinguishable look?), it's a result of manufacturing or calibration variances (interestingly only in the direction of magenta - nobody complained about a greenish tint AFAIK) or "just" a Leica color designer who had fallen in love during M11 design - I don't have a clue.

The speculation is that Leica was inspired by Ektachrome 64. 

[hdmesa]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

The speculation is that Leica was inspired by Ektachrome 64. 

Someone send them a roll of Portra 400 🙏

[jgeenen]

vor einer Stunde schrieb jaapv:

The speculation is that Leica was inspired by Ektachrome 64. 

hmm, if I remember correctly, Ektachrome was more neutral to „cold“. Magenta bias was the achill‘s heel of Kodachrome (most pronounced in K25, a bit less in K64). But at those days Kodak films were too expensive for me and I used Perutz and Agfa instead…

[don daniel]

I consider it a rumor that Leica supposedly tried to base the look of the M11 on a specific film. It doesn’t make any sense to implement this in the DNG files straight out of the camera. Leica could achieve this with good film simulations in JPG format, possibly even with those "Leica Looks." When I look at the sample images in the Photos app, not a single one of these looks convinces me. For example, "Sepia" – oh, good grief! Who still wants sepia these days? Another look has a green cast, yet another a red cast, and the highlights are blowing out. Seriously? Is this what customers want? It’s a half-hearted effort. I believe users would greatly enjoy well-executed film looks, either directly from the camera’s JPG engine or within the app. It would then make sense to save DNG (with a well-calibrated white balance as a starting point) alongside JPGs in a selected film look (not just "natural" or "vivid," but also options like "Tri-X," "Reala," Kodak this or that, etc.) simultaneously.

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[jaapv]

Well, yes. The last time that Leica actually said that they tweaked the sensor output to film was with the M9M (Delta 100). However the final result will be the photographer’s choice and as such the embedded DNG profile is fairly irrelevant.  We are going around in circles. There are two groups of photographers here. Those who expect the camera to do  as much preparatory work for them as possible and those who prefer to disregard the taste of the maker’s technicians and create their own workflow. 

[lct]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

[...] There are two groups of photographers here. Those who expect the camera to do  as much preparatory work for them as possible and those who prefer to disregard the taste of the maker’s technicians and create their own workflow. 

First group being jpeg users, second group raw users and a third group, being either users, may consider the maker's taste as a starting point for post.