How to un see Magenta cast?

[Minigill]

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Probably a bit long winded question or more like therapy needed 🥲

Background, been Fuji and Q user for many years, recently upgraded to Q3 + Q43 and got rid of Fuji gear to try and simplify not having two brands and which camera/lens to take out.

Had a 1:1 at Leica Acadamie In December with the Q328 and scratched the itch, what is an M like.  Have a blast with instructor and got my mitts on M11 to play with.  Test drove M11 for a weekend later in December from Leica.  Had a great time with it, weather played ball one day, and next day was awful, and pics showed it!

To try and keep this shorter !  Sold the Q's and purchased M11.  I did not go in blind, I knew about Magenta cast, normally I research up front then when purchased avoid all the threads of doom and gloom as it only brings you down.  I dislike the Magenta thread.... 😔

Now to the therapy bit, I cannot un see Magenta, not just in M11 images but profressionals ones as well using M11 (and theirs probably don't have Magenta !!)  I am at the point having not purchased the lenses as this is a few £K, I cannot settle with the Magenta issue.  Most people seem to be LR users and adust, I am Capture One Pro and don't know the best way to correct this and don't hear about it much.

I have borrowed others half lens to test how 'bad' my Magenta is, typical british weather its a dull as dish water with Magenta cast this weekend without even taking a photo!  Bit of blue sky today and yes, my favourite colour hue is there.  

This has wiped out all the enjoyment of M for me after feeling very excited to learn this new path as first time M user.

Thoughts, as I have no back up camera, not jacking it totally in !  Do I take a hit and go for a different M without Magenta cast?  I loathe to buy any lens as I am not enjoying viewing pics as all I see is Magenta.

Any suggestions appreciated, even hints on correction in C1, camera's.  No discussion on lenses required, I have thoughts on those sorted.

Thankyou for getting this far, lady in distress welcomes comments !

Edit, only shoot in RAW and daylight WB (which my instructor at Leica Acadamie recommended for daytime).

Edited February 9 by Minigill

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[pedaes]

13 minutes ago, Minigill said:

I cannot settle with the Magenta issue.

Don't let it make you ill. Sell the camera and right of loss to experience. A quick visit to this Forum would have filled you with pre-knowledge about the teeny tiny magenta issue!

This guys take on colour from M11, with comments from Leica developers, may give a different perspective https://www.thephoblographer.com/2022/01/13/three-great-cameras-in-one-leica-m11-review/

[lct]

You may wish to inspire from what our colleague @Jamie Roberts was suggesting here if this little tool doesn’t make it for you. Happy snaps

[Minigill]

19 minutes ago, pedaes said:

Don't let it make you ill. Sell the camera and right of loss to experience. A quick visit to this Forum would have filled you with pre-knowledge about the teeny tiny magenta issue!

This guys take on colour from M11, with comments from Leica developers, may give a different perspective https://www.thephoblographer.com/2022/01/13/three-great-cameras-in-one-leica-m11-review/

But what to replace it with !  I know my mind will currently be making more of an issue than it is, I am really looking forward to using some lovely Leica lenses and explore a different way of taking photo's, the Q's were starting to feel like a point and shoot (albeit lovely P&S!).  

If I can learn a way to tame it down in C1 that might be all I need (I hope!).

[FarbSpieler]

I hear you. Once you see the magenta, you can’t unsee it—and it takes the joy out of shooting. As someone who values colour, I went through the same experience with M11 and ended up staying with M10 and M10-R. Of the M10, M10-R, and M11, the basic 24MP M10 has the absolutely best colors, no weird tints, just rich, warm, balanced tones.

How about the resolution? Believe me, 24MP is more than enough, even if you print large formats. It resolves more detail than ISO200 35mm film did.

If you’re already this frustrated, it’s not going to get better. You could try tweaking ICC profiles in Capture One, but do you really want to fight your camera every time you edit? If the M is supposed to be a joy, not a struggle, maybe an M10 or M10-R is the better path.

Edited February 9 by FarbSpieler

[pedaes]

44 minutes ago, Minigill said:

But what to replace it with !

And that's the rub! Why I can work around any of its little foibles and be a happy Leica M9 through M11 snapper!

[FarbSpieler]

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1 hour ago, pedaes said:

This guys take on colour from M11, with comments from Leica developers, may give a different perspective https://www.thephoblographer.com/2022/01/13/three-great-cameras-in-one-leica-m11-review/

I clicked it expecting a camera review, not a crime scene. Those image samples made my eyes bleed. It's just the camera being held hostage by someone who shouldn’t be allowed near a lens.

[pedaes]

7 minutes ago, FarbSpieler said:

Once you see the magenta, you can’t unsee it

No - but you can do a literally two second tweak on the "Tint' slider and anything you see is gone. Geez, on images where you see it as a issue it is so so easy to fix.

[Ray Harrison]

You can unsee it by using Capture One to adjust to your liking in the raw file. The challenge is that there are so many different opinions and experiences of “magentaness” here, this is doomed to turn into YAMG (yet another magenta-gate) thread. For some, it is insurmountable, for others (I’m one), it isn’t relevant. Any color tint, magenta or otherwise, can - for me and how I shoot - 100% be addressed in post processing. I also use Capture One. I never shoot AWB and always raw. Others do the same and see magenta. No, I’m not color-blind and yes, I know what magenta shift looks like 😀. For me, anyone telling me what I should see isn’t relevant or interesting, at the end of the day. I try to measure to see what contributions are coming from the RGB channels in the rendered image. You can look at contributions from files in tools like RawDigger. I use three different camera manufacturers and the raw processor can render the same scene differently given the profile. Leica prostandard in C1 tends to be the most over the top in some scenes. The tint, for me, is shifted slightly green out-of-the-box on import. Good luck!

[JimmyCheng]

I always create custom profiles for my cameras in lr. That way, it is correct to start with right at the moment you import it. 

[Photoworks]

5 hours ago, FarbSpieler said:

I hear you. Once you see the magenta, you can’t unsee it—and it takes the joy out of shooting. As someone who values colour, I went through the same experience with M11 and ended up staying with M10 and M10-R. Of the M10, M10-R, and M11, the basic 24MP M10 has the absolutely best colors, no weird tints, just rich, warm, balanced tones.

Yeah, to bad the M10 needed to be underexposed otherwise the highlights turn yellow.

So either way you need to edit the photo

LOL

In any case, part of digital photography is to learn to edit.

[Stevejack]

It bugs me too, sometimes I tweak the sliders to take the magenta cast out, but other times I leave it in. Generally if a photo is strong, it just doesn't matter to anyone but yourself (and a few on the forum who will point it out!). Colours are interpretive, you only need to look at film to see how differently the reds / blues / greens looked on different film stocks. The beauty with digital is that we might get stuck with a default output that we don't like, but it's easy to tweak it. 

If you shoot with a manual white balance, usually you can apply one correction to all of your images in a set to eliminate the magenta. Shooting on auto white balance makes it difficult because you end up trying to correct each image individually. 

I shoot a lot of blue skies and notice it most there, but a very quick adjustment to the tint and/or the hue/saturation slider fixes it in every case that I've come across - but again, sometimes I don't bother adjusting it. It's purely an aesthetic choice, unless you are doing colour critical work - but in that case you'll be making adjustments no matter which camera you have. 

[Minigill]

Thanks for all the replies, I will have a play more in C1, I am not a critical editor by any mean, just a wish to tame the Magenta beast and wished to hear of users with this C1 editor.    In the meantime I will stop reading the big Magenta thread 😀

I prefer warmer colours in life, maybe a push to green to suits me, new feature for M12.. choose what colour cast you want 😀

Edited February 10 by Minigill

[Stevejack]

2 minutes ago, Minigill said:

Thanks for all the replies, I will have a play more in C1, I am not a critical editor by any mean, just a wish to tame the Magenta beast and wished to hear of users with this C1 editor.    In the meantime I will stop reading the big Magenta thread 😀

I prefer warmer colours in life, maybe a push to green to suits me, new feature for M12.. choose what colour cast you want 😀

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help as I don't use C1, but in at least for my editing in Lightroom in most cases the tint slider will solve the magenta cast, but if I'm not liking the result I move to the hue sliders.   I was initially shooting in daylight white balance like yourself (which I think Leica has at around 5200k?), but I switched to a custom setting of 5500k in camera and I seem to be happier with that. I'm in a very sunny location in Australia so I'm sure it's different everywhere, but Leica's daylight white balance always seemed a bit cool for me outdoors. 
Good luck with whatever you decide, FWIW I'm sure someone would gladly trade their M10-R for your M11 if you decide to make a switch. 

Or you could join the dark side and switch to the Monochrom.... 😁

[Minigill]

7 minutes ago, Stevejack said:

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help as I don't use C1, but in at least for my editing in Lightroom in most cases the tint slider will solve the magenta cast, but if I'm not liking the result I move to the hue sliders.   I was initially shooting in daylight white balance like yourself (which I think Leica has at around 5200k?), but I switched to a custom setting of 5500k in camera and I seem to be happier with that. I'm in a very sunny location in Australia so I'm sure it's different everywhere, but Leica's daylight white balance always seemed a bit cool for me outdoors. 
Good luck with whatever you decide, FWIW I'm sure someone would gladly trade their M10-R for your M11 if you decide to make a switch. 

Or you could join the dark side and switch to the Monochrom.... 😁

i have a love / hate relationship with Monochrom, Alan Schaller I love his work, then when viewing the images thread for any camera variant, after a few B&W's, I want to see colour !!

I was wondering about the M10-R..... and still am if being honest!  

From memory, daylight WB shows in C1 as 4960 (not quoted exactly as I cannot remember 100% without firing up photography computer).

Who knew a 1:1 street photography with Leica would end up totally disrupting my Leica journey 😊

 

[LeicaR10]

Minigill,   I feel your angst.  I went through 2 M11s and found one at my dealer that did not render the magenta cast but it had other issues and it caused me to go back what works for me.  Many have written about the magenta cast as you well know.  One Leica tech told me it was a sensor calibration issue.  That was my first one.  It is a real issue, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  Some M11s have it, some don't.  Why?  Who knows.  Frustrated, I went back to the M10-R.  Very stable, reliable and most excellent color.  The M10 is the same way;  excellent camera.  For me, I use the M11-M for my B&W landscapes, M10-R for color M and SL3.  The Leica M lenses are superb and I suggest you consider finding a mint M10 or M10-R until a M12 arrives that resolves the issues.  Last, I was told by my Leica dealer, always wait at least 6 months after fielding a new camera to let the first adopters debug the camera.  Very sage advice IMO.  In the case of the M11, it took almost two years to resolve most of the issues.  In the meantime, I suggest swapping out the M11 for a M10 or M10-R camera and simply go enjoy taking excellent photographs.  Doing so, will end your angst.    r/ Mark

Edited February 10 by LeicaR10

[anonymoose]

Create your own present the slightly adjusts the image towards green?

[Telemetric]

3 hours ago, LeicaR10 said:

In the case of the M11, it took almost two years to resolve most of the issues

Another reason why I always buy the P version, But in the case of the M11-P, they didn't fix the magenta cast issue. At least my M11-P has it.

 

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[Steadimann]

Here we go again...

Just use daylight or shade WB depending on situation. Yes, AWB does have in certains situations more magenta, some people like, some - don't. I would probably prefer not have it, but it's there and I think it's a choice made my Leica, not an error. If it was an issue, they would have fixed it easily in any FW imho.

[dugby]

Minigill, I empathise with your situation, though surprised you gave up on the Q3/43APO

 

3 years ago I walked into my dealer, ready to purchase an M11, but after some handling, I walked out with a new M10-R

I enjoy having to do very little PC/LR adjustments to my M10-R images, usually cropping and the occasional brightness/contrast adjusting, and that's it.

 

It's quite relaxing to know that I I don't have to stress about magenta, or SD/IM not retaining images, or impending freezes at the most inconvenient moment for an M owner.

 

To me ( I know many will aggressively disagree)    :     holistically an M10-R was my upgrade from the M11