Leica M11 -purplish tint ???

[Velo-city]

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1 minute ago, andybarton said:

All you have to do is carry a sheet of white paper or card with you. It’s not hard. 

I do agree with you.  It's not hard, I just don't think it's something I'd ever consider doing. It would be odd to be to have to introduce that workflow to counter something in a camera at this level.  I'm an amateur photographer, but work professionally in image based industry - perhaps we just have a higher expectation of kit to perform as it should.  In guess I just find all these 'justifications' odd.  I would have thought it would be in everyone's interest - for anyone who has a camera with an M11 with a magenta tint - for Leica to know about it and fix it so the problem goes away.  Thats what most pro manufacturers would do, so I see no reason why Leica wouldn't want to try and find a solution.

[andybarton]

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 
 

[Mahesh]

1 hour ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 
 

They should just take AWB off if they can't get it right and also if Leica owners don't use it. It is after all about the essentials.

PS- I have always used AWB except in challenging lighting when I would do it by manually reading, especially with my Fujis as they mostly get it right.

[LocalHero1953]

49 minutes ago, Mahesh said:

PS- I have always used AWB except in challenging lighting when I would do it by manually reading, especially with my Fujis as they mostly get it right.

Exactly the same here. I have no M11 - just SL2-S and Q3 43 - and no concerns with the result. But then WB out of the camera is always a starting point for me, not an end in itself.

[elmars]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

I have no M11 - just SL2-S and Q3 43

The M11 has a different tint to all other Leica cameras I know (M10, M10R, SL2 and Q3 included). 

vor 5 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

But then WB out of the camera is always a starting point for me, not an end in itself.

Different users, different needs. Some do not make much post processing. Independant from that: Not only AWB is affected also fixed white balance. And: If there is AWB it should work!

[LocalHero1953]

1 minute ago, elmars said:

The M11 has a different tint to all other Leica cameras I know (M10, M10R, SL2 and Q3 included). 

Different users, different needs. Some do not make much post processing. Independant from that: Not only AWB is affected also fixed white balance. And: If there is AWB it should work!

I'm not getting into this argument! My response was to Andy's post wondering how many people use AWB.

[setuporg]

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Fun fact: the purple holy grail in the reactions is an homage to the magenta tint!  Cheers!

[lct]

4 hours ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number.

Guilty as charged. Been using AWB with all my cameras since i missed this shot 17 years ago. While i was shooting in daylight, i forgot the camera had been set to tungsten from a previous shooting. Processing the raw file to 5,500k has been enough to fix the issue so that i set all my WB in post since then. (Epson R-D1, Elmar-M 50/2.8)

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[CDodkin]

4 hours ago, Velo-city said:

Gutted to say that I can confirm my M11 suffers from a fairly strong magenta bias using AWB outside.  So obvious after even one days shooting seeing everything with my own eyes versus the camera output.  I was hoping I was going to get lucky here, but sadly not.

Yes there are workarounds, but no way I’m going to carry anything extra with me to deal with it - I’ll use the post options. 
Should it be necessary on a high end (or even low end) camera in this day and age, I think all rational people know the answer to that.

I will reach out to Leica on this point (and a few others) as it would be such a trivial thing for them to add a customisation in for a magenta offset when using AWB. I don’t actually think it’s completely consistent and is a combination of colour temp and tint, but as we all know the tint parameter is very strong so small offsets make a big difference.  Even if it got you more into the ballpark would be much more acceptable and would include the jpegs too.

Leica likely can't provide a standard offset fix, because there is no standard offset - it's dependent on what latitude the shooter is at when the shot is taken. Using the expodisc should be something that anyone can adopt, and will always lead to better WB than any in-camera AWB, independent of camera brand. Literally takes 10 secs to use at the start of a shoot.

[CDodkin]

4 hours ago, andybarton said:

All you have to do is carry a sheet of white paper or card with you. It’s not hard. 

I experimented with calibrated WB target cards, and they were less effective at fixing any magenta cast than the expodisc. Reflected light vs transmitted light, with transmitted light via the expodisc being more accurate and consistent.

[CDodkin]

4 hours ago, Velo-city said:

 

IMO this is quite a trivial thing to fix, so I'll email Leica personally to ask about it.  Don't see why that gets anyone so upset.  

 

It's not trivial to fix. AWB is always a guesstimate of WB, based on the data from the sensor. In the case of the latest Sony sensors in the M11, and the GFX system, the algorithm works just fine for some folks depending where in the world they shoot, because the light at that latitude doesn't have a magenta offset that fools the AWB guesstimate. For other folks shooting at different latitude, the AWB algorithm no longer corrects sufficiently for the light at that location - and they see magenta tint when using AWB. After 4+ years research on this, over multiple camera models, and using cameras by multiple manufacturers, it would appear that the issue is likely rooted in their choice of Sony sensors, and the computational AWB that comes with them, and has yet to be solved/fixed by any of them. You can continue to use AWB, and get sub-standard results, or you can take control of your WB, and get perfect results every time. It's a step towards being a more proficient photographer - and relying less on the tech, and more on good technique. 

[CDodkin]

4 hours ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 
 

Based on the number of magenta images online from the M11 - a lot of people!

Now should they be using AWB - that's a different question.

You could assume that having enough interest and $$$ to buy a Leica should put you in the 'no AWB' camp.

But their are plenty of people with enough $$$, and little practice photography experience it would appear - based on M11 images posted online

[CDodkin]

1 hour ago, elmars said:

The M11 has a different tint to all other Leica cameras I know (M10, M10R, SL2 and Q3 included). 

Different users, different needs. Some do not make much post processing. Independant from that: Not only AWB is affected also fixed white balance. And: If there is AWB it should work!

M11 is the first to use Sony sensor - that's where the tint change happened

[hdmesa]

6 hours ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 
 

I actually do use AWB with my M11-D because I've found I need to make fewer adjustments in post versus those set to Daylight. I guess I have one of the M11 units with a calibration that matches my latitude and shooting environment in the desert southwest of the U.S. quite well. Occasionally it gets fooled, but that's rare. The AWB on my M11-D matches the more neutral AWB that Fujifilm finally achieved with their GFX 100S compared to their earlier 50S/R models.

I do have a unique perspective in that I tried many copies of the M11 back to the beginning of production to today with the D. I actually lost count, but I think it was five plus now the M11-D. My first M11 had a vertically misaligned rangefinder, and the rest had the usual freeze issues that turned out to be firmware in the end. But in the process of having these cameras then selling them eventually, the more recent ones had less magenta tint than the earlier ones. Given that current new complaints about magenta tint come largely from those buying used M11s, I have to assume Leica has done some work on the hardware and/or factory calibration side of things.

I still hope Leica would give us a firmware option to dial in a white balance bias of our choosing, though. Even the M10-R could use this as I always found the images to have a tint bias in the other direction toward green.

Edited November 7, 2024 by hdmesa

[Mahesh]

2 hours ago, CDodkin said:

M11 is the first to use Sony sensor - that's where the tint change happened

M11 is first to do a lot of things. Do we have enough evidence that Sony is causing so much tint? I have not noticed this much tint in any of the Sony cameras I have had in the past (RX1R, A7iii, A7Riii, A7iv)

[CDodkin]

3 hours ago, Mahesh said:

M11 is first to do a lot of things. Do we have enough evidence that Sony is causing so much tint? I have not noticed this much tint in any of the Sony cameras I have had in the past (RX1R, A7iii, A7Riii, A7iv)

We have Sony sensors across multiple camera manufacturers showing the same issue - no Sony sensor in a Leica sensor before the M11, and no magenta cast issue in models before the M11. Could all just be coincidence of course, but when I have two camera systems, each very high-end ($10k+) with the same issue, yet from different camera manufacturers - with the common denominator being Sony sensors, I'm joining the dots on that one.

I have used digital WB meters for testing, WB calibrated 'grey' cards, color calibration targets, Expodisc - I have opened cases with Adobe to see if it was their software that was causing the issue. All of the research came back to the camera's AWB decision being of variable accuracy depending on the lighting conditions experienced by the shooter - but the cameras all were able to make a highly accurate custom WB decision when using the Expodisc, regardless of lighting/location - including daylight, artificial, and studio flash lighting.

[Mahesh]

1 hour ago, CDodkin said:

We have Sony sensors across multiple camera manufacturers showing the same issue - no Sony sensor in a Leica sensor before the M11, and no magenta cast issue in models before the M11. Could all just be coincidence of course, but when I have two camera systems, each very high-end ($10k+) with the same issue, yet from different camera manufacturers - with the common denominator being Sony sensors, I'm joining the dots on that one.

I have used digital WB meters for testing, WB calibrated 'grey' cards, color calibration targets, Expodisc - I have opened cases with Adobe to see if it was their software that was causing the issue. All of the research came back to the camera's AWB decision being of variable accuracy depending on the lighting conditions experienced by the shooter - but the cameras all were able to make a highly accurate custom WB decision when using the Expodisc, regardless of lighting/location - including daylight, artificial, and studio flash lighting.

Maybe... I haven't noticed any magenta in any Sony cameras I have used. Oh yes and I forgot to add a ZV-E1 to the list of cameras I have used... too much GAS

[lct]

My Sigma fpl has a similar Sony sensor but its color rendition feels colder than the M11's. I suspect the Sigma has not the slight red oversaturation i see on the M11 but i did not do side by side comparos between them. None suffers from the so-called magenta cast anyway, in my view at least. FWIW.

Edited November 8, 2024 by lct

[Overgaard]

17 hours ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 
 

Considering a Leica camera of any model comes out of the box preset to AWB, I would presume quite a lot of people use AWB.

 

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[adan]

20 hours ago, andybarton said:

I wonder how many people use AWB with their Leicas, of any suffix number. 

I have always set my digital cameras (Leica or otherwise) to AWB. Just so that the preview images on the camera LCD are approximately neutral and readable regardless of the lighting conditions.

However, I have NEVER set my post-processing software to use what the camera picked (i.e. "As Shot").

My software is preset to its own WB default (usually 4900-5000°K, zero tint - a reasonable approximation of noon sunlight, as tested with a ColorChecker when I first buy the camera) as a part of my saved camera calibration color profile in the post-processing software. Which also includes tweaks to Hues and Saturation in the Calibration controls.

Which I then adjust further to the colors I need, via educated use of the WB eyedropper, plus knowledge gained from 50 years of "getting the colors right" in a variety of technologies, to professional publication standards.

Such as "never try to white-balance a photo using 'car-paint' white." Car makers add a lot of "UV-brighteners" to their paint (just as some gray-haired ladies "blue" their hair) - to avoid an appearance of too yellow and dingy. But that will screw up the final white the camera will record, and make them an "unreliable white."

And a hundred other such bits of education- and experience-based "color science" and judgement.

Spend a dozen years using these

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... to correct photo tints (magenta or otherwise) - under the supervision of instructors who can pass or fail you, or bosses who can fire you - and you end up actually knowing what the 🤬 you are doing, when it comes to color. 😉

Some other tools I learned on and use(d) - or near-equivalents:

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https://www.alternativephotography.com/19th-century-gum-bichromate-process/

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Edited November 8, 2024 by adan