Schneider Digital Center Filters

[buckshot]

Well, having dropped a lot of $ on Schneider Apo-Digitars over the past couple of years, I was interested to see that they are now shipping them with digital center filters, which kinda do a similar thing to LCC corrections in C1 by the sound of it, though Schneider claims they produce a better finished file.

Anyway, thought I'd drop Schneider an email to see if they'd supply these filters to customers who already own their lenses - and, surprise, surprise - nope, you gotta get in line and buy them. So, if you spent $ on an Apo-Digitar a few weeks back you don't get the center filter, but if you spend that today on an identical lens you do. Jeezo, talk about cold blooded. Cheap these things ain't, so what about encouraging some customer loyalty Schneider? And remember, you have to buy a license for every lens. You can't even get a demo version for any lens to see just how useful it might be.

Hats off to Alpa here for making their lens correction software available to everyone for free. I'll be sticking to that plus LCC corrections in C1 until the day comes that I make enough money to buy Rodenstocks.

[tho_mas]

Schneider claims they produce a better finished file.

bla bla... just a claim... IMO.
What is wrong with the LCC based light falloff in C1? If anything, the opposite is true as I can use C1's LCC based light falloff for shots captured with a (lens-) center filter or without. Too, LCC based light falloff refers to exatcly my lens on exactly my digiback.
Does the Schneider digital center filter also corrects color cast? In C1 you can do both in 1 step... and you do it already in the RAW software.
So... actually the digital center filter doesn't make much sense. Maybe for shooting film...

Hats off to Alpa here for making their lens correction software available to everyone for free.

Absolutely! I even would have payed for it without hesitating. Great tool!

[PaulSchneider]

I tried the digital filter with the 43xl on the cambo rs.

In my experience, scene calibration in Phocus does a way better job. With the digital filter I get unnatural looking vignetting corrections and more noise in shadow areas.

Also LCC is quicker.

So not big of a deal IMO.

Kind regards

Paul

[Steph974]

I do use a CF with the 24mmXL : I have to make a LCC in C1 anyway  for lens color cast and light fall off...Not a very good tool in digital capture I think.

[tho_mas]

I do use a CF with the 24mmXL : I have to make a LCC in C1 anyway  for lens color cast and light fall off...Not a very good tool in digital capture I think.

I think the "not so good" tool here is the 24XL that barely covers the film plane of a 49x37mm sensor and shows heavy light falloff. Now imagine to remove the center filter and correct the vignetting with the "digital center filter" in post. Assumed you shoot at ISO50 you would end up with ISO800 or so in the corners.
This is why a real center filter still makes sense (for some lenses) - it reduces the noise at the edges as you don't have to push them that much in post.

[Steph974]

For sure the 24mmXL is quite limit in digital : I use it with a P25+, with a IId 4X center filter and the LCC. The results are still good. But as you sais Thomas, without a CF it bring too much noise in the corners on a shady capture.