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CL colour versus SL colour

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
'Tis the Last Rose of Summer



60mm macro

I was going to leave it there, but I also took some images with the SL and 24-90 lens (at 90mm



Both images were taken within a few minutes of each other, both on auto, and both with the same LR processing. Both are DNGs. The CL has a colour temperature of 5250ºK, the SL was 5550º; I changed this to 5250º.

I didn't intend to make identical images with both cameras; I was in more or less the same place, and at a similar distance from the flower both times. I don't get too hung up on exact, faithful colour fidelity most of the time, but the differences here surprised me. I'd say that the pink of the CL image is a bit too pink; normally, I'd try to tone this down a bit. What did surprise me is the cyanotic fringe in the SL image, I don't remember the flower having that. For me, the CL colour is more pleasing. (Both lenses have a UV filter, Leica UVa for the CL, Leica UVa II for the SL.) I can't go back to this particular bloom, for it's faded and gone.

Any thoughts?
 

KeithL

Well-known member
Both images were taken within a few minutes of each other, both on auto, and both with the same LR processing. Both are DNGs. The CL has a colour temperature of 5250ºK, the SL was 5550º; I changed this to 5250º.

I didn't intend to make identical images with both cameras; I was in more or less the same place, and at a similar distance from the flower both times. I don't get too hung up on exact, faithful colour fidelity most of the time, but the differences here surprised me. I'd say that the pink of the CL image is a bit too pink; normally, I'd try to tone this down a bit. What did surprise me is the cyanotic fringe in the SL image, I don't remember the flower having that. For me, the CL colour is more pleasing. (Both lenses have a UV filter, Leica UVa for the CL, Leica UVa II for the SL.) I can't go back to this particular bloom, for it's faded and gone.

Any thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Only that I find the SL image to be preferable in every way.

What profile did you use? Adobe Standard or Embedded or perhaps something else?
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I agree that the two are quite different ... and looking at the JPGs with all the glorious compression ... my pick would be for the SL rendering. It seems
to have much more delicate and useable midtones which could be accessed in post. The cyan is probably lens or filter related standardizing on one lens one filter
might allow you to discern the differences in the sensors and how LR depicts the color. Norm Kasson has a recent article on the new LR and how the color profile
for the Z 7 has changed from the LR he was using one week ago.

I have of late been taken with video ... that from the SL and a slew of other cameras. What I have found is how important for color description and
manipulation are the monitors available in Davinci Resolve. RGB histograms to me are worthless as they are not plotted on a consistent color scale ... other
than saturation and intensity. Would be great to import both of these into the program and compare the vector scope ... which delineates small skews in color.

I downloaded both and captured screen shots of the two with the respective vectorscope and waveform monitors ... the density of the vectorscope was increased to
show a bit better on screen.


Would be nice to use one filter ... oversized on the 60 to eliminate the difference in color between the two. Probably more the difference in elements between the SL and Cl lenses ...
Might try the CL lens on both bodies to discern the difference ... Leica UVaII has 0.1% reflection and very little color so the filter may not be the source.

https://blog.mingthein.com/2016/03/21/to-filter-or-not-to-filter/



Here I pulled the overall color of the second picture away from cyan ...


One other factor is that WB is important but each camera and perhaps every camera has a different calibration that may display a bit differently.

Forensically you could shoot a Color Checker in similar light and compare how close each comes ... alternating lenses and filters on the 60.

Great topic ... with a lot of variables that I will hid behind in professing my limited knowledge and expertise in color correction.

Regards,

Bob
 
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Godfrey

Well-known member
Looking at these two photos, it looks like the clouds moved between them because the background of the CL shot definitely has a much much lower value than the SL shot and the flower itself is in more direct sunlight. I suspect that a bit of cloud cover changed the basic lighting balance by quite a bit between them, rather than that the two cameras produce that much of a different image in the SAME light.

My exposures of tabletop subjects illuminated exactly the same way using the SL+SL24-90 (@90mm) vs CL+Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm, at the same ISO, aperture, and shutter settings, are nearly indistinguishable from one another. I'd do another test now to show them compared to each other but I no longer have the SL+SL24-90 to work with. I was very pleased when I tested my new CL because the rendering it makes is so identical to the SL that I liked so much.

G
 

erudolph

Member
Re: CL colour versus SL colour: a tangent

Interesting that Bob is color correcting still images in Davinci Resolve. I always wished that photoshop would have the hue offset wheels that are used in color correction systems for motion pictures. Also the vectorscope and wave form displays.
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Actually ... I do most of my color correction in C1 ... but I have learned a lot from the vectorscope and waveform monitors from Davinci Resolve. And I
do think that if I had a very difficult correction ... Resolve would handle it better than any of the still paradigms.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Between the two the SL looks more realistic and life like but the CL does have the “punchy” look that jumps out at you. Either look is pleasing but I’d tone down the saturation in the CL shot a bit personally.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
Only that I find the SL image to be preferable in every way.

What profile did you use? Adobe Standard or Embedded or perhaps something else?
I left it to LR; on checking, the CL image was processed with 'Embedded', the SL with 'Adobe Standard'. I can't change the CL to Adobe Standard; if I change the SL to Embedded, there is a much more marked blue colouration.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
I agree that the two are quite different ... and looking at the JPGs with all the glorious compression ... my pick would be for the SL rendering. It seems
to have much more delicate and useable midtones which could be accessed in post. The cyan is probably lens or filter related standardizing on one lens one filter
might allow you to discern the differences in the sensors and how LR depicts the color.


Forensically you could shoot a Color Checker in similar light and compare how close each comes ... alternating lenses and filters on the 60.

Great topic ... with a lot of variables that I will hid behind in professing my limited knowledge and expertise in color correction.

Regards,

Bob

I'm afraid that this stuff about video is well over my head.

I did try with a mini colour checker; I had the 60 macro on the CL and the SL, and the 24-90 on the CL and the SL. I didn't try with/without the UV filters.

I thought that all the images were very similar. The SL consistently had a colour temperature of 300º more than the CL. Equalising these makes very little difference.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
Looking at these two photos, it looks like the clouds moved between them because the background of the CL shot definitely has a much much lower value than the SL shot and the flower itself is in more direct sunlight. I suspect that a bit of cloud cover changed the basic lighting balance by quite a bit between them, rather than that the two cameras produce that much of a different image in the SAME light.
G
The two photos were taken 7 minutes apart. Yes, there is some difference in the lighting; it was a sunny/cloudy day.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
Between the two the SL looks more realistic and life like but the CL does have the “punchy” look that jumps out at you. Either look is pleasing but I’d tone down the saturation in the CL shot a bit personally.
Neither is totally realistic; the rose is a pale pink, with perhaps a very light cyan tinge to the edges of the petals. This bloom is over, but there is another on the way, not quite ready to photograph.

I thought that the CL looked like overenthusiastic jpg processing.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
Thanks all for the comments and suggestions.

My original idea was just to say how easy it is to use a modern auto-focus macro lens; just press the button and it's done. I remember using the 60mm Macro Elmar on the R series, and there was a lot of turning to get focus. Now, change from infinity to macro at the touch of a button. And without a yard or two of lens extension.

I didn't expect such a marked difference between the images; in part, perhaps, this is due to the processing; Adobe Standard for the SL, and Embedded for the CL. LR did this automatically. The auto colour temperature also differs, but changing this makes very little difference.

Back in the day, bluebells were said to be very difficult to photograph in natural colours; they would come out as 'pinkbells'. This was a UV light effect. I wonder if this is what's happening here, perhaps with some IR effects. In other words, it isn't the cameras, it isn't the processing, it's the subject. If so, this might explain the "gaudy" colours in the CL, and the peripheral cyanosis in the SL image — a sort of over compensation. It might also explain why the colour checker images are so similar.
 

KeithL

Well-known member
I left it to LR; on checking, the CL image was processed with 'Embedded', the SL with 'Adobe Standard'. I can't change the CL to Adobe Standard; if I change the SL to Embedded, there is a much more marked blue colouration.
I've no experience using the SL but when using my M240 cameras I typically try both profiles and my preference is invariably with Adobe Standard.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Neither is totally realistic; the rose is a pale pink, with perhaps a very light cyan tinge to the edges of the petals. This bloom is over, but there is another on the way, not quite ready to photograph.

I thought that the CL looked like overenthusiastic jpg processing.
The rendering depends so much on how the raw data was interpreted by the camera calibration profile, what the settings of the particular raw converter are with respect to that ccp, etc, that there are few conclusions that can be drawn from just looking at this pair of images. Depending upon your workflow and use of the image processing tools, you can take away specific ideas for how the two cameras differ in that workflow and modify it to achieve what you want from either: That's about it. :)

In LR: The CL embedded profile produces results that are typically far too hot and contrasty. The Adobe Standard profile produces results that are much more even-handed and 'normal' to my eye. For exposure with either camera under controlled lighting, I use a ccp generated by Xrite Passport that produces output even more consistent between the two cameras than the Adobe Standard.

G
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
The rendering depends so much on how the raw data was interpreted by the camera calibration profile, what the settings of the particular raw converter are with respect to that ccp, etc, that there are few conclusions that can be drawn from just looking at this pair of images. Depending upon your workflow and use of the image processing tools, you can take away specific ideas for how the two cameras differ in that workflow and modify it to achieve what you want from either: That's about it. :)

In LR: The CL embedded profile produces results that are typically far too hot and contrasty. The Adobe Standard profile produces results that are much more even-handed and 'normal' to my eye. For exposure with either camera under controlled lighting, I use a ccp generated by Xrite Passport that produces output even more consistent between the two cameras than the Adobe Standard.

G
LR 6.3 gives me the choice between Embedded and Adobe Standard for the SL. For the
CL, it only gives me Embedded, there is no other option.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
BTW: I've also been testing Affinity Photo on macOS, comparing raw conversion for the Leica CL with LR 6.14.

So far, AP and LR (Adobe Standard ccp) rendering of an Xrite Color Checker exposure is producing very near to identical color results with either set to the defaults, outputting full resolution JPEG with minimum compression and sRGB color profile, and I'm beginning to think that AP's are very very slightly sharper with slightly better tonal gradation on some continuous toned tests.

If anything, it means there's a non-subscription, reasonably priced alternative to the Adobe hegemony. The AP UI is a bit cluttered, but it seems to work well and doesn't give me a headache like Capture One does.
:D

G
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
BTW: I've also been testing Affinity Photo on macOS, comparing raw conversion for the Leica CL with LR 6.14.

So far, AP and LR (Adobe Standard ccp) rendering of an Xrite Color Checker exposure is producing very near to identical color results with either set to the defaults, outputting full resolution JPEG with minimum compression and sRGB color profile, and I'm beginning to think that AP's are very very slightly sharper with slightly better tonal gradation on some continuous toned tests.

If anything, it means there's a non-subscription, reasonably priced alternative to the Adobe hegemony. The AP UI is a bit cluttered, but it seems to work well and doesn't give me a headache like Capture One does.
:D

G
The Affinity Photo Workbook is 40% off until October 26th. It’s nicely designed and a nice addition to the program. I’ve been on Affinity Photo for a couple years now since dropping Adobe. I don’t use it too often but on the occasions that I do it works well as an alternative IMO.

I also hear the iPad version is nice but I don’t own it.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
The Affinity Photo Workbook is 40% off until October 26th. It’s nicely designed and a nice addition to the program. I’ve been on Affinity Photo for a couple years now since dropping Adobe. I don’t use it too often but on the occasions that I do it works well as an alternative IMO.

I also hear the iPad version is nice but I don’t own it.
I've had the iPad version for a year and some but only started using it recently. It's the best raw converter I've found on the iPad Pro, although I prefer SnapSeed's simpler interface for iOS. I do like that it has some image management capability.

Now I have both iOS and macOS versions. The UI seems more natural on macOS.

I bought the workbook as soon as I saw the promo. It arrived yesterday. :)

Thanks for that: I did download and install...and after a restart or two it works fine.
Glad to help. It's unfortunate that Leica's embedded profiles always produce such cartoonish, unnatural colors.

G
 
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