Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: scott morrish on June 10, 2009, 05:23:25 pm
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Does anyone manage to get equivalent levels of 'digital' lens-correction from Lightroom as they would from either C1 or Phocus?
This is any area of digital photography that i have not paid much attention to until recently, but i am also curious to know how specific the 'corrections' are. In the absence of movements, can one simply determine correction settings per lens? ... or is it more complex?
I know Hasselblad make a big thing of their DAC... and by all account it is very good.
Phase also make a big thing about the fact that C1 allows corrections for Hassy lenses, as well as their own lenses.
Should Lightroom be able to equal either?
Regards,
scott
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Does anyone manage to get equivalent levels of 'digital' lens-correction from Lightroom as they would from either C1 or Phocus?
This is any area of digital photography that i have not paid much attention to until recently, but i am also curious to know how specific the 'corrections' are. In the absence of movements, can one simply determine correction settings per lens? ... or is it more complex?
I know Hasselblad make a big thing of their DAC... and by all account it is very good.
Phase also make a big thing about the fact that C1 allows corrections for Hassy lenses, as well as their own lenses.
Should Lightroom be able to equal either?
Regards,
scott
In my opinion Hasselblad don't make nearly enough of a big thing about their corrections. (I think they made a mistake calling them corrections in many ways as it leads people to believe they are fixing an inherently bad lens which isn't the case, but I digress).
To answer your question (in part) There is no one correction per lens. There is a correction for a given focal length (think zoom here), at a given aperture, and crucially at a given subject to sensor distance. Hasselblad (via Phocus) is the only medium format option that has and uses all this data and the results are outstanding.
Other companies allow you to manually select a correction and tell the software wether you were close or far focussed so the software can apply a fairly generic correction.
(As an aside I used to have a V series 50mm lens that had a floating front element that the user manually adjusted depending on focus distance).
Oh and you mentioned "in the absence of movements" well with an H3D and an HTS the corrections with movements as the degree of tilt/shift/rotate is embedded in the raw file. Pretty clever stuff IMO.
Nick-T
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Does anyone manage to get equivalent levels of 'digital' lens-correction from Lightroom as they would from either C1 or Phocus?
At this point in time it's impossible to get it in Lightroom. The only lens correction you can get in LR is lateral chromatic aberration correction and vignetting. C1 (and I would expect Phocus) is also prolly doing spherical aberration as well as distortion correction. But I wouldn't be surprised to see that stuff come to LR/ACR as well in the future. Some stuff is _SO_ much easier to fix after the fact in software than it is in designing and building lenses that it makes more sense to fix it after the shot instead of in the lens.
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To date the lens corrections in C1 are
Distortion
Sharpness Falloff
Purple Fringing
Lens vignetting
Chromatic Aberrations
Now most of these are with all of the Mamiya lenses and than also has the H Hassy lenses the V Hassy lenses and also supports the Contax lenses. Give or take some of those features depending on the lens itself.
Also you can do LCC profiling. Very nice addition to the program
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It would be nice to use PTLens from Tom Niemann as a real Lightroom plugin and not as an external editor for Lightroom.
http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/ (http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/)
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It would be nice to use PTLens from Tom Niemann as a real Lightroom plugin and not as an external editor for Lightroom.
http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/ (http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/)
I've seen very good results from Acolens (http://www.nurizon-software.com/en/acolens/). It seems that their targets/ charts and their algorithm are the most advanced out there.
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Does anyone manage to get equivalent levels of 'digital' lens-correction from Lightroom as they would from either C1 or Phocus?
Regards,
scott
Phocus makes zooms adequate for critical work by the 50Mpx or 24*34" @240 ppi yardstick (on a tripod with mirror locked up).
With a full range of movements with my Apo-digitars and P3 I hope that I will get even better results as apo-chromatic lenses are supposed to be free of chromatic distortion, or fringing or whatever... but can apo-digitars benefit from digital correction?
Has anyone tested apo-digitars against the Hassy lenses?
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I know Hasselblad make a big thing of their DAC... and by all account it is very good.
I think the simple answer is that the Hasselblad solution is the best 'out of the box' solution, but if you want to use other custom solutions you can perform the same corrections or more on any lenses, perhaps even better. Might be a lot slower though. I don't know how well third party corrections can be integrated into Photoshop or Lightroom - would be the obvious place to do it.
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To answer your question (in part) There is no one correction per lens. There is a correction for a given focal length (think zoom here), at a given aperture, and crucially at a given subject to sensor distance. Hasselblad (via Phocus) is the only medium format option that has and uses all this data and the results are outstanding.
Other companies allow you to manually select a correction and tell the software wether you were close or far focussed so the software can apply a fairly generic correction.
(As an aside I used to have a V series 50mm lens that had a floating front element that the user manually adjusted depending on focus distance).
I think the simple answer is that the Hasselblad solution is the best 'out of the box' solution, but if you want to use other custom solutions you can perform the same corrections or more on any lenses, perhaps even better. Might be a lot slower though. I don't know how well third party corrections can be integrated into Photoshop or Lightroom - would be the obvious place to do it.
Please post a real world example where the Hasselblad DAC system creates a better final image than Capture One Lens Corrections for a Hasselblad H series lens.
I agree that in theory the focus distance is an element in the aberrations in a lens, but you'll have to show me a real world example before I believe that difference makes a meaningful difference.
The Capture One lens corrections for Hasselblad H series lenses are really excellent so I don't see where the improvement would be.
Doug Peterson (e-mail Me) (http://mailto:[email protected])
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
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Please post a real world example where the Hasselblad DAC system creates a better final image than Capture One Lens Corrections for a Hasselblad H series lens.
I agree that in theory the focus distance is an element in the aberrations in a lens, but you'll have to show me a real world example before I believe that difference makes a meaningful difference.
The Capture One lens corrections for Hasselblad H series lenses are really excellent so I don't see where the improvement would be.
Doug Peterson (e-mail Me) (http://mailto:[email protected])
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
Well, lets take the implementation of lens corrections in Phocus. Here is the tool...
[attachment=14449:Picture_18.png]
Doesn't get much simpler than that and you are guaranteed to be absolutely perfect. No distortion, no vignetting and no CA. Bear in mind that not all distortion is text book 'pin cushion' and is much harder to correct generically.
In our experience we have seen much better corrections in terms of overall accuracy. When time is money ticking a box is far easier than tuning a dialogue for every capture. Yes, I am aware you can save presets but how comfortable are you in using those presets over a broad range of images? Plus you would then have to refer to meta data on each image to be sure what the conditions were.
Best,
David
Quick Edit - I should add there are approximately 60,000 tables of corrections in Phocus relating to Lens, Aperture, Distance and HTS movements (the last element was close to 10,000 alone). This is a lot of presets to make yourself!
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I think the simple answer is that the Hasselblad solution is the best 'out of the box' solution, but if you want to use other custom solutions you can perform the same corrections or more on any lenses, perhaps even better. Might be a lot slower though. I don't know how well third party corrections can be integrated into Photoshop or Lightroom - would be the obvious place to do it.
Better, no, slower, yes.
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Better, no, slower, yes.
I think it stands to reason that with the best software out there and using your own specific lens to build correciton profiles, the results should be better? Is that difference even noticeable? Perhaps not
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Is there a reason for having these corrections as an option? For vignetting yes the user might want to control it but for CA and (moustache) distortion, why would anyone want to leave those in the images? Why not correct the images on the fly and drop those checkboxes?
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Is there a reason for having these corrections as an option? For vignetting yes the user might want to control it but for CA and (moustache) distortion, why would anyone want to leave those in the images? Why not correct the images on the fly and drop those checkboxes?
Any pushing around of pixels degrades resolution. If you are not shooting anything with straight lines (e.g. tree bark or rocks or faces) then you might prefer not to apply the correction.
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Is there a reason for having these corrections as an option? For vignetting yes the user might want to control it but for CA and (moustache) distortion, why would anyone want to leave those in the images? Why not correct the images on the fly and drop those checkboxes?
Because you do not want to use those corrections with eg. the HC35 and people in it. it can distort people in a really ugly way. In that case I am very glad I can turn it off (I was very happy to be able to turn it off in these cases). CA, I cannot think of a reason to turn that off.
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Because you do not want to use those corrections with eg. the HC35 and people in it. it can distort people in a really ugly way. In that case I am very glad I can turn it off (I was very happy to be able to turn it off in these cases). CA, I cannot think of a reason to turn that off.
I would say that the Hasselblad DAC works and works well. It does what it is supposed to do. Distortion is corrected, Chromatic Aberrations are removed (in the vast majority of cases) and vignetting control is there to lighten the corners.
Since the beginning of the thread was about all the options, I will say that some of the pluses of the Phase One approach are a little different. First, there are many more options for control, including:
*purple fringing
*sharpness falloff
*light falloff
*distortion control
*vignetting control
*chromatic aberration
*and of course color cast, (LCC)
Also, while Hasselblad's DAC corrects the distortion or does not, Capture One's corrections allow you to manually adjust the amount of correction. And while most images just need to be corrected, for some things it's nice to be able to allow for distortion if it suits the end result, people for example. You can still correct that lens exactly the way you want and save that as a setup to be used as the default for that lens.
In addition, the vignetting tool in Capture One allows for darkening the corners as well, something that not all lens correction tools allow. And not only do these corrections work on the Phase One lenses, most of them are available for ANY lens - Hasselblad HC, Hasselblad V, Contax, Canon, Nikon, Schneider Digitars, etc.
Steve Hendrix
Phase One
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Because you do not want to use those corrections with eg. the HC35 and people in it. it can distort people in a really ugly way. In that case I am very glad I can turn it off (I was very happy to be able to turn it off in these cases). CA, I cannot think of a reason to turn that off.
So for some applications it would be better, I suppose, to use a straight lens?
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[retracted]
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I agree with Nick-T, Hasselblad does not do a good job letting photographers know about the digital corrections available for the system. It is the natural outcome of designing the lens and knowing the optical and mechanical properties intimately that provides the ability to do these types of adjustments that are not just a "best guess" or "average."
Of course, this is not just a Hasselblad thing, Canon and Nikon do it too. I imagine PhaseOne and Mamiya are shooting test targets now to build a similar tool with tens-of-thousands of data points so that the photographer can confidently shoot and correct without playing with sliders and hoping to get the correct image.
Vignetting tool on/off is not just about a single photo and the traditional look of light falloff; this is a very efficient and effective way to compose panoramic images as well.
Right now, I believe Hasselblad has a better tool for these operations but I know this will only inspire others to deliver their best as well.
John
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hotwire-digital.com
Atlanta GA USA
"don't believe what you read - get a demo!"
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Of course, this is not just a Hasselblad thing, Canon and Nikon do it too. I imagine PhaseOne and Mamiya are shooting test targets now to build a similar tool with tens-of-thousands of data points so that the photographer can confidently shoot and correct without playing with sliders and hoping to get the correct image.
We have the tool you're talking about. We just ALSO allow end-user control for those who want it.
Please note that Phase One allows you to "play with the sliders"
1) so that you can apply corrections to lenses like Rodenstock/Schneider large-format glass, classic glass (e.g. Mamiya manual focus glass), and Canon/Nikon/Leica glass for which there are not specific test-target-based adjustments
2) so that YOU have control over the type of corrections being applied when adjusting images from "known" lenses. Phase One HAS shot hundreds of test targets to compile their lens correction database and knows with scientific accuracy the *mathematically correct* adjustments. However, as numerous people on this thread have pointed out, there are many cases where you do not want the mathematically correct amount of distortion, light fall-off, or sharpness adjustments.
Doug Peterson (e-mail Me) (http://mailto:[email protected])
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
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I would like to have some automation though in C1 . The sliders are great and you can control pretty much anything you want as Doug mentioned. Actually it works great on all types of systems. But i would like some automation control so let's say the 28mm lens for example. It would be nice to toggle after a interior shoot say to toggle on the distortion and maybe a few other options and when it recognizes that lens in the preview it automatically make those toggled corrections to make the desired corrections. This way you can work at a pretty fast pace. Now i know I could correct one file per say to exactly what I want and copy those adjustments and apply to any or all of the rest of the files but sometimes if you used different lenses at different times it makes it a little slower working. Be nice for the software under your control to just make the adjustment for you that you setup in the beginning. Obviously another way is to save a style or preset. You do have a lot of options here but some automation would be handy. Sorry was thinking out loud as I was writing that , little confusing. My favorite is the lens vignetting for darkening the corners.
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Is there a reason for having these corrections as an option? For vignetting yes the user might want to control it but for CA and (moustache) distortion, why would anyone want to leave those in the images? Why not correct the images on the fly and drop those checkboxes?
Also means for demo purposes you can see exactly what is happening.
Plus, options are always nice....
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Any pushing around of pixels degrades resolution. If you are not shooting anything with straight lines (e.g. tree bark or rocks or faces) then you might prefer not to apply the correction.
Resolution is not degraded, infact increased with the correction of CA.
The distortion correction shows no measurable loss in quality.
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*and of course color cast, (LCC)
'Custom White' option available in Phocus which does the same job.
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'Custom White' option available in Phocus which does the same job.
Yes David I knew that, which was why I added the "of course" to indicate this is somewhat standard as all the MFDB companies offer the cast correction.
Steve Hendrix
Phase One
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Yes David I knew that, which was why I added the "of course" to indicate this is somewhat standard as all the MFDB companies offer the cast correction.
I smell a SlapDown.
Why don't you two guys sponsor some kind of MF Olympics? Pick a photographer from each brand, and send them to a certain building, or interior, and each guy shoots his own camera/software in his own way -- the same scene -- and then blind-publish the results? And let the chips fall where they may.
All this talk. All this posturing. All these claims. And never any pictures, side by side, to back up the claims.
It would be so easy. Reichmann could sponsor it. The hits and downloads would be off the charts. And then stage some fake-fight at the end, Sasha Baron-style, throw some chairs, stick it on YouTube, and then wait for the hits.
You wanna talk to photographers and get your point across? You gotta do it in pictures; not words.
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I have to agree with gwhitf.
It's becoming a forum for the dealers.
Have fun,
Willem.
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I smell a SlapDown.
Why don't you two guys sponsor some kind of MF Olympics? Pick a photographer from each brand, and send them to a certain building, or interior, and each guy shoots his own camera/software in his own way -- the same scene -- and then blind-publish the results? And let the chips fall where they may.
All this talk. All this posturing. All these claims. And never any pictures, side by side, to back up the claims.
It would be so easy. Reichmann could sponsor it. The hits and downloads would be off the charts. And then stage some fake-fight at the end, Sasha Baron-style, throw some chairs, stick it on YouTube, and then wait for the hits.
You wanna talk to photographers and get your point across? You gotta do it in pictures; not words.
This is a good point and I think all of 'us' have done a lot of this in the past. The issue is that the results can often not be trusted as in 'The Coke Survey commissioned by Coke and tested by Coke employees found that Coke was the tastiest drink!". Ta da!
So when we do do it, the response is often - ah you have fudged the results. So it needs to be very independent to have credibility.
At the end of the day not one system would shoot a 'bad' image so you really have to look deeper.
But you are 100% right when you say pictures not words, we can all be too nerdy at times.
David
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At the end of the day not one system would shoot a 'bad' image so you really have to look deeper.
David,
I think you make a good point here.
You know how, in Southern California, they have those "auto dealer neighborhoods", where some developer picks a giant piece of empty land, and he bulldozes it, and he leases off portions of the land to about eight or ten different brands of dealer? It sets it in people's minds: "This is where you go to buy a new car. If you don't like Chevy, then Toyota is next door. One stop shopping, in a way."
My suggestion to Phase/Mamiya and Hasselblad is to TEAM UP. On the surface, it might look like you're enemies, or valiant competitors, and you're out to get each other. But my humble suggestion is: The enemy is Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Red.
I agree with David, great images would come out of both Hasselblad and Phase. No doubt. But if we zoom out to the big picture, everything in this industry is headed Smaller, Cheaper, and Damn Near Disposable. I'd suggest that, if MF is to survive, (and it might not), then I'd have Phase and Hasselblad band together, like some kind of Brothers In Arms. You need each other alive, more than you need the other one dead. You need each other to create a large enough Auto Neighborhood that it appears to the mass audience that MF is still alive and kicking. Better that, than simply fade into the woodwork.
So maybe instead of MF Olympics, a better thing would be an event that says, "Come find which brand of MF suits YOUR needs, (and while you're at it, find out how truly mushy a Canon file really is"). But the emphasis is on: "Whatever you buy, just make sure it's MF and not 35". Go on the road TOGETHER -- both Hasselblad and Phase. Wear the damn Viking hats if it gets you attention. Rent you an 18 wheeler. Hire a rock band.
But the goal here is to GET GRAPHIC. Show pictures. Show examples. Do battle with Canon. Put your money where your mouth is. Show the real difference, in a 20x24 print, the difference in a Hasselblad file and a Canon file.
The enemy is 35. The other enemy is Video. So go do battle. The time is now. Because that Canon 5DII is eating you both for lunch. You can posture all you want, but I'm betting if you looked at the units sold -- 5DII versus Phase and Hasselblad combined -- your jaw would drop. That little 5DII is still backordered in a lot of places, even in this crazy economy.
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At the end of the day not one system would shoot a 'bad' image so you really have to look deeper.
David
David,
With all due respect I disagree.
Some cameras jam, some shoot green thumbnails if overshot, some cameras eat batteries like water and some require lens convertors, stopping down, opening up and stopping down again to take a photograph.
Some camera lcd's don't work when tethered, some software crashes if you breath hard on it, some require a month of study just to batch process. Some camera have raw files that take enough raid 5's to drain France of it's nuke powered electricity, so given enough chances I do guess all cameras shoot a great image but under fire not all are equal.
Besides all of that you larger than smaller sensor guys are so lost in the large pixel, ca removal, dac correction world, that I believe your missing why a photographer uses any camera personally . . . to shoot the photo of their lifetime.
For biz it's to get what the client wants.
I can promise you of the 10,000,000 working or non working professional photographers in this world, only about 4 can honestly tell you what camera they will use most of the year, because only 4 probably know what they will be shooting in the next 12 months.
Still, all this forum talk goes around in circles . . Mostly the 12 Phase dealers, reps and loyalists and you and Nick, talking about which software's lens correction is better.
You want to make a dent, make some waves, then get your cameras in the hand of really good photographers. (BTW: NPS has no problem shipping any equipment to good photographers for something important).
Tell them the only rule is to shoot the photograph of their lifetime.
If still photography is going to have a future it's going to be in still photographs, not a clip from the RED, a 5d2 or a 10fps Nikon image. Nikon, Canon and Red have that territory covered, but for you to be the "large format" option, get those images out there.
Your doing a good job, Hasselblad has come leaps and bounds from the Imacon days and puts on the best show in medium format marketing (though honestly, that's not hard to do), but get the cameras in the hands of photographers.
The photographer that loves his/her camera is the photographer that just shot the photo of a lifetime with that camera.
BC
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The banter between reps is kind-of-funny / long-winded... but point-scoring aside, thank you all.
Looking forward, and FWIW, it would be good to see all three programs (LR, C1 & Phocus) offer individual auto corrections that can be selectively switched 'on' or 'off' according to the intentions of the person using the software... kind of based on the assumption that the photographer knows best.
The better tool, in terms of optical corrections at least, will be the one that offers both 'selective-auto' & 'fully-manual' corrections. Ideally let software fix technical issues... and let photographers focus on creativity. If a given correction is unnecessary / detrimental to some images... let us turn those 'corrections' off: they are, after all, our pictures!
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I have not played with phocus yet so i won't comment on it but i would like to see some more auto on/off switching according to lens in C1 as I mentioned several posts ago. Nothing against the program at all just more preferences. Case in point a couple versions ago the 28mm did not have the corner sharpness activated and today it is. To me it is not about tearing any program down because of this or that it is about getting things correctly made to improve the programs we use and letting the OEM"s know about it in a constructive way.
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I have sought out a bit more information regarding DAC and can summarise the functionality below...
1. The DAC function are based on the mathematical model of the lens. In our lens design software, we can simulate all kinds of aberrations to find out exactly how each lens works for each capture condition. DAC will automatically correct distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting regardless of capture condition. It works as well at any distance, with or without converter or extension tubes (or a combination of both!). If you take a picture e.g. of a chart and try to analyze the result, you will practically only be able to take one distance into account. Most aberrations are very distance-dependant and vary in a complex way.
2. Our DAC correction does not include any manual user interaction as opposed to the competition, but is fully automatic. The reason for having checkboxes is that we want to be able to show how effective DAC really is and that sometimes you don't want to correct for distortion or vignetting.
3. Most aberrations have a fairly complex shape as a function of distance from image center and is by no means linear. It also changes shape with distance and different focal lengths in a Zoom. Very difficult, if not impossible, to handle with manual lens testing.
4. DAC will handle all settings (15 positions) on the Zoom lenses. Try to analyze two zoom lenses at 15 Zoom positions, at all distance setting and at all aperture settings. Then top that by adding 3 different extension tubes and different color temperatures! I think you can imagine that it would be impossible with any other system than DAC. DAC for one zoom lens contains more than 15 000 correction data sets (capture conditions).
5. We have now passed 130 000 different data sets for the DAC corrections. If a manual measurement of one set takes 1 hour, it would take almost 15 years to do the same with manual testing.
6. We take the actual color temperature setting into account. Other solutions don't.
Best,
David
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I have sought out a bit more information regarding DAC and can summarise the functionality below...
1. The DAC function are based on the mathematical model of the lens.
5. We have now passed 130 000 different data sets for the DAC corrections.
David
Does Phocus make these calculations, or does it look up the data from tables?
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You want to make a dent, make some waves, then get your cameras in the hand of really good photographers. (BTW: NPS has no problem shipping any equipment to good photographers for something important).
Tell them the only rule is to shoot the photograph of their lifetime.
This is, indeed, the idea of the Masters competition. Winners will receive a load H3D unit for a period of time to do exactly what you describe above.
Then it is published in the Masters Book, website, expo's etc etc.
D
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Does Phocus make these calculations, or does it look up the data from tables?
The data is within Phocus and based on the meta data from the individual images, the correct correction data is applied.