Leica Colors - the body or the lens?

[o2mpx]

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Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

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[rogxwhit]

12 minutes ago, o2mpx said:

Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

I'd say that nothing is 'mandatory' for your imagined purpose.  The colour output of various bodies may vary irrespective of make.  Just dive in & get on with it - it's an adventure, right?  That's the only way to find where your preferences lie.  With digital, your own post-processing may be the dominant key.  Explore & have fun! 

[LocalHero1953]

I started this thread to look at L-mount portrait lenses and commented as an aside on the slightly different colours I found between three lenses (2 Leica, 1 Sigma). That was an unscientific test. It would require more effort than I was willing to put in to eliminate any effect due to the SL2-S body treating the lenses as different and giving them a slightly different colour - i.e. the lenses could be neutral, but the body treats them differently.

I have been using the Sigma 85 quite extensively alongside other Leica lenses, and I can't say I've noticed a significant colour difference. If the Sigma colours are different, they are not better or worse.

Edited August 31, 2024 by LocalHero1953

[Jean-Michel]

There is no such thing as Leica or Canon or Nikon or whatever colour. People may argue all they want, but if there were such things, the all those cameras would have had a "brand" colour when loaded  with Agfachrome, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Fujichrome, Kodacolor, etc. They were not.

The Bayer sensor's red, green and blue filters are probably quite identical regardless of the sensor manufacturer. The algorithm that translates the data into an image does vary from camera manufacture to another, add to that the profile choices from you favourite raw processor nd you get quite a delicious smorgasbord of colour renderings.

David Farkas — Reddotforum — some years ago showed conclusively that you could achieve the exact same colours from a CCD (Leica M8 and M9) or a CMOS sensor without invoking any magic.

With film, your colour depended much if not exclusively on the chosen emulsion; you might add some CC filters from time to deal with the colour temperature or spectral conditions. You got pleasant colours. Sometimes quite close to the colour photographed, but, really, never exactly the same.

With digital, your colour depends almost exclusively on the statistical calculation of the raw engine. You get pleasant colours, sometime quite close to the original ones, if your can ever remember what those were.

Photograph, process, print and enjoy. Do not waste time going into rabbits holes of non-sensical colour hunting.

[Jeff S]

47 minutes ago, o2mpx said:

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

One can generally find either in black or silver.

For the rest, use profiles and/or PP.

Jeff

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Will respectfully disagree with the above. As someone who shoots multiple systems over multiple decades at a commercial level,  I've found it near impossible to get one software setting that accurately allows the same colours from different brands all the time. You get close for one image and the next is off again. Not forgetting most brands just use a generic calibration for the sensor. The only brand that hardware calibrates sensors individually is Hasselblad. For the rest it's kind of like a generic monitor calibration. Close but not exact. Nikon also specify their CFA specs to Sony Fabricating. I guess Leica do too. Other wise the Q3 and SL3 would be identical out of the box. They're not.

And we haven't gone down the rabbit hole of how bit depth and DR affect colour yet.

The answer to the OP's question is both. And more. You have both hardware and software influences on the sensor and glass and coatings on the lenses. Sometimes these differences are tiny. Sometimes bigger. Usually though you have the power to make something pleasing with a raw file and I wouldn't specifically worry about mixing lens brands. Leica is reasonably good about using coatings to keep colours consistant but things also change over time. Don't expect a lens from 20 years ago to have the same coatings as modern ones.

There is only one manufacturer with a complete calibtated colour path from sensor to output. That's Hasselblad's HNCS. You have calibrated sensors. The cameras use colour profiles for each lens at capture time. Phocus does calibrated corrections in post. Of course none of this matters if you're not in a colour managed workflow with colorimeters hardware profiling for monitors and spectromiters for printing. Even then as soon as you show someone a photo on your iPad all bets are off.

Generally, within the L mount you'll only see small differences between lenses that all use modern coatings. I wouldn't panic about mixing lenses and bodies.

Gordon

[Archiver]

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I wrote about this in another thread: a year ago, I shot some test images with the SL2S and 35 APO, and was blown away by the sharpness, clarity and rendering of this combination. The files needed only a bit of tweaking in Lightroom to produce a rich, vibrant image with distinctive colour palette. This prompted me to shoot side by side images with my Panasonic S5 and the SL2S using the same 35 APO, and the S5's files needed a lot of adjustment in HSL, curves and black/white point to achieve the same look. From these experiments, I created a Lightroom preset for the S5 to emulate what I liked about the SL2S.

Processing files from different cameras (Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 30D, Panasonic G9, Panasonic GX85) showed that this one preset could not be applied to every camera with the same results. Every camera, each model, had a different base palette. On the 30D, skin tones had too much orange. On the Panasonic G9 and GX85, reds were over emphasized. While I am sure it is possible to approximate the colours of one camera in another, there will always be something that isn't quite the same. I have never been able to recreate the same look of lightly processed M9 files with my S5, despite the S5 having a much better sensor that produces extremely malleable files.

[CptSlevin]

14 hours ago, o2mpx said:

Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

Sigma lenses (35 1.4,85 1.4,50 1.2) + SL2S body = Amazing quality, 90% of APO Leica lenses, 3d pop and rendering.

[Stuart Richardson]

Long story short: lenses will differ mostly in contrast and some very minor color casts, with APO lenses having the most accurate color, while camera bodies in conjunction with raw program defaults being responsible for the largest variations of color. 
Each manufacturer has their in house philosophy in what they would prefer their color to look like and they often work with Adobe and Capture One etc to help achieve that, but those defaults are just that…defaults. All high quality cameras can be adjusted to achieve the color a user is looking for, assuming the technique and tools are up to the task.  

[jdlaing]

15 hours ago, o2mpx said:

Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

 

I believe a combination of both.

[Jeff S]

Picky users could of course experiment with lens-specific custom camera profiles/presets.

Jeff

[BWColor]

Do Leica colors exist when using Leica lenses and Leica film cameras?  I don’t think so.  If there is such a thing as “Leica Colors” it must be a sensor/camera/firmware/software thing.  I currently shoot Leica Monochrom and Hasselblad for digital color and always shoot the Hasselblad raw and process in Phocus. 

[jaapv]

17 hours ago, o2mpx said:

Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

Basically you can create virtually any colour you wish in postprocessing, especially if you use custom profiles in raw conversion, but mainly what marketing whimsically calls "Colour Science" is driven by the choices made when specifying the Bayer Filter. Lens coatings and glass choice may have a minor influence as well. There is nothing really different to the film days: The main influence is the film choice, and lenses may have a colour character, which differs by lens. 

However in digital photography the user determines the colour results, not the camera.

[SrMi]

10 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Basically you can create virtually any colour you wish in postprocessing, especially if you use custom profiles in raw conversion, but mainly what marketing whimsically calls "Colour Science" is driven by the choices made when specifying the Bayer Filter. Lens coatings and glass choice may have a minor influence as well. There is nothing really different to the film days: The main influence is the film choice, and lenses may have a colour character, which differs by lens. 

However in digital photography the user determines the colour results, not the camera.

That does not match the experience of many experienced photographers, especially not those who struggle with colors anyway. 

[jaapv]

It does match the experience of many experienced Photoshop and Capture One users, though... 

[LocalHero1953]

(Nothing to do with the OP's post, just a slight digression prompted by it).

The traditional (pre-digital) Leica Look was nothing to do with colour, but the kind of photograph facilitated by a light, small, simple rangefinder with excellent tiny lenses - less to do with image quality and more image content and how those holding such 'miniature cameras' related to people, crowds, action and related documentary subjects - it often meant close up and personal (because unobtrusive and quiet) and photojournalistic action (because a Leica camera kit could be carried anywhere). There was no Leica Look associated with landscapes or other scenes without people: of course Leicas could take excellent photos in these scenarios, but other cameras could do as well or better.

Post digital, there is greater interest in a Leica Look associated with colour, contrast and detail (snap, pop 🤷‍♂️), and less in what kind of photos are Leicas good for. I don't mean that as a negative critique, although personally I'm more interested in the latter, with the former as something it's great to have (I still like my SL Apos!)

[Photoworks]

In the L-mount, the lenses don't make a big difference in colors. Different coding will give you different results, but they can be balanced out in post.

Back in the film days many of the R lenses had a warmer tone, some give you the golden tones and flares. But not all R lenses had the same tones, they didn't pay to much attention to it, plus not all lenses were manufactured in the same place, some of them were rehoused Japanese lenses.

But you can still get Leica Looks from lenses, the 3D pop and micro contrast are what keeps them apart, and the bokeh characteristics.

 

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[Leicaboy Norway]

20 hours ago, o2mpx said:

Asking a very general question : for those SL owners who also own other L Mount Alliance lenses, Panasonic/Sigma, have you noticed if the Leica colors (knowing that’s a very general term), are mostly coming from using the Leica body, or more driven more native Leica lenses?

Understanding different lenses and focal lengths are clearly different, but curious in a general sense, can you get the “Leica Look” from native Leica lenses on a different camera body, or the main driver is the Leica body even with non-Leica lenses, or is it mandatory to stay with Leica native lenses on a Leica body?

Lenses

I like the lumix 50 1.8. And the sigma 85 1.4 dg dn art, but the colors annoy me. Especially the sigma is less pleasing.

 

Where as when I mount a summilux-m 50 asph - magic happens 🤩

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Jean-Michel]

Lenses of course make differences in images — contrast, amount of chromatic aberration , flatness of field, vignetting, and so on. They do not create colours, but, yes, there can be tinges due to coatings, etc, or even things like the "Italian flag" issue with some wide angle lenses. So do sensors, especially if you want to use M lenses.

The colour image produced by the camera depends on how the camera software translates the raw data into a visible image: the jpg image you get to see on your camera screen. The jpg image colours are the only camera-produced colours, and if 'out of camera' jpgs are the only thing you hope for, that what it is. Once you decide to import your files into a raw or dng image processor all bets are off. The default parameters will give you a good starting point, but that is all it is. You need to develop sets of presets to deal with different cameras — I have starting presets for my SL2, which  differs form the one for the M-P, another for the M9, other for other non-Leica cameras. If you use Lightroom (or CameraRAW), you get to choose one of the Adobe profiles (Adobe colour, landscape, portrait, neutral...). All the other basic adjustments will of course also affect the colours. And you can/should make adjustments in the colour mixer, and in colour grading, And do not forget the RGB primaries calibration, And perhaps your own ColorChecker calibration if so inclined. All of these help greatly in achieving the colour output that you want, the amount of control we now have greatly surpasses what we had when only films available.

And with every new and improved iteration of Lightroom or CaptureOne, or... we get new tools that can extract even more data form our files. Many of my early Canon 5d files improved substantially when LR added a dehaze tool and I re-processed some image. 

Then, you need to decide how to display your images: sRGB for the phone or tablet, or proof for a particular paper and printer, or figure out what the image will look in a cmyk process, and how to make sure that your output sharpening is correct. 

Counting on any camera/lens/sensor combination to give you 'amazing' colour straight out of camera is just like hoping that a Polaroid is 'accurate'. Just get your raw or DNG file a learn how to process them, it is worth doing so if you care for your photography.

Edited September 1, 2024 by Jean-Michel

[Jeff S]

No coincidence that the term “photo” derives from light. It always matters, whether at time of shooting, from a computer screen, or specific lighting to display a print.  Colors and tonalities can be affected by light at every stage, even before the photographer lends his/her own personal touch throughout the shooting, editing and display workflow. Color “straight out of camera” is a gross oversimplification, even for JPEGs.
 

Jeff