Jobo LensTRUE: like a shift lens, but in post production

[Manolo Laguillo]

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Yesterday I read in the blog of this very same forum the article about LensTRUE, Jobo's new product, written by Jörg Haag.

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-news/2015/12/jobo-lenstrue/

 

Short explanation: it's a way of correcting converging lines (vertical and/or horizontal) in postproduction.

 

It consists of two items:

 

1. A hardware device (essentially a gyroscope) which measures how much the camera is 'out of level'.

 

2. A software which applies those values in correcting the image, using at the same time a profile specifically developed for the employed lens to overcome pincushion or barrel distortions.

 

It's available for Canon, Nikon and Sony [this is of course uninteresting... :-) ], but also for the Pentax middle format and the Leica S [this is of course very interesting].

 

 

...

 

It could be a solution for the missing 30mm shift lens for the Leica S...

Edited December 4, 2015 by Manolo Laguillo

[John McMaster]

May manage similar with the 24mm, but not a true solution ;-(

 

john

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[SaW]

Thank you Manolo for pointing this solution out. I find it quite promising. Results on non linear subjects look very good.

I'm less convinced by the process: synchronise the gyro with the pc and the camera body clock with the pc... save a text file in a folder before applying the corrections.... 1st make the lenstrue correction then send a tiff file in Lightroom for postprod (I want to make my Lightroom corrections on my DNG files, not on TIFF converted files)...

 I couldn't find a list of supported S lenses (e-mailed them to ask). 

The price tag is high for the M version (1280eur I think) so, before investing, I would like to be sure it can flawlessly work with the S007 and my set of lenses.

[Joshi_H]

Hello,

 

My name is Jörg Haag and I am the author of the article Manolo mentioned in his starting post. I am a LensTRUE Ambassador, but to make this clear: I am not sponsored by JOBO. The only thing they do me good is that I can use the LensTRUE for free to be able to help other people using it. So if you have any questions I am more than happy to answer them, although I am "only" using LensTRUE on my Sony mirrorless cameras A7RII and A7 I.   

 

@SaW: This is the list of supported Leica lenses:

 

• Leica S (Typ 006) Super-Elmar-S 24
• Leica S (Typ 006) Summarit-S 35 CS
• Leica S (Typ 006) Elmarit-S 45
• Leica S (Typ 006) Summarit-S 70 CS
• Leica S (Typ 006) Apo-Macro-Summarit-S 120 CS
• Leica S (Typ 006) Apo-Elmar-S 180

Let me just add one or two more point to what Manolo mentioned. Using LensTRUE turns all your supported lenses into Shift-lenses which you can use free-hand and not only from tripod. This is one advantage I like most about this. The other thing is, that in postproduction you cannot only correct converging lines but also proportions like wheels from bicycles or motorbikes or faces from models, which is something you can't do in postproduction in Lightroom for example. This is worth the extra processing step which I found a bit disturbing in the beginning as well but as soon you found a good workflow this is acceptable. My workflow is: I import all my images into Lightroom, add the textile with the gyro-data, drag that file onto the LensTRUE software and do an automatic correction which I store in the same directory where the RAWs are. When done I synchronize folders in Lightroom and have direct comparison of original and corrected pictures.

 

Yes, there are some minor downsides like that there is no Windows version yet, but this is a question of time. If you own a MAC all I can recommend is: Give a try and order a rental system. When convinced just refer to me and my writing here and you get the rental fee as a discount on the sales price.

[SaW]

Hello Jörg,

Thanks for this feedback.

I have a few other questions,

Regarding the workflow:

* Is it stable and reliable ? I mean if your camera clock is not perfectly synchronized with your computer, if you erase some shots or take a quick series of shots, does this app still be able to apply the right corrections to the right files, anytime ?

* Is there a way to use it together with Lightroom when keeping the files in DNG format ? (I've red that it is recommended to first apply the corrections in the Lens True software and then send the corrected TIFF file to Lightroom, but I don't want to apply my lightroom postproduction settings on a Tiff file. It should work as other Lightroom compatible external modules (export from Lightroom in the module then re-open in Lightroom, still in DNG format).

* The synchro-X connection for the S007 is a Leica Lemo connection. Should it be possible to bypass this Lemo connector (protrudes too much for confortable handhold camera use) and use the flash hot shoe mount ?

Something like this for instance:

 

 

Thanks,

 

Vincent

Edited December 8, 2015 by SaW

[Joshi_H]

Hello Vincent,

 

sorry for my late response, but yesterday was a busy day.

 

1. I would call it stable. There are three different ways to synchronize entries in the shots.txt with your images:

• "use image index of filename" which requires the same number of shots.txt entries and pictures
• "use intelligent matching" which can handle missing and / or additional files and / or shots.txt entires
• "use image exif date" which relies on the exif shot-time of the image

I always use the "intelligent matching" and this never let me down. To me, this is stable.

 

2. Currently this is a standalone solution which I easily squeezed into my workflow. I import all images into Lightroom and put the shots.txt into the same directory. Then I start the batch auto conversion and store the output files (tiff) into the same directory. After syncing the LR folder I have RAWs and tiff side by side in LR. I spoke to JOBO LensTRUE and there are plans to provide an optional export to jpg in addition to tiff. When? I can't tell. Currently there are no plans towards developing a LR plug-in.

 

3. Currently there is no information on whether the X-Sync on the S007 will work as you plan to do it. The S007 has not been in the LensTRUE Lab yet. I'll let you know as soon as this is known. I use the flash hot shoe of my Sony just like you plan to do.

 

Edit: I had a short discussion about using the flash shoe mount as you plan to do it and this is expected to work with an adapter like the one you showed in your picture.

 

 

Hope this answers your questions. I really can recommend to order a trial device and experiment with it. Use this link to get to the shop: http://www.jobo.com/digital-pro-line/lenstrue-rent-black?ecms_lang=EN

Edited December 10, 2015 by Joshi_H

[MarkP]

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Hi Jörg,

 

this is very interesting. Do you know if there there any plans to extend this to Leica M or SL systems?

 

Regards,

Mark

[Joshi_H]

Hi Mark,

 

Yes, there are plans to support M and SL within the next 6 to 9 month. SL will probably be first in the row.

 

Regards, Jörg

[SaW]

Hello Jörg,

Thanks for your feedback, this is helpfull.

Regarding the Lightroom workflow, do you think the following would work:

* Import all files in Lightroom first

* Perform main adjustements (White balance, tones, HL/BL recovery). No crop, horizon, lens profile, vertical/horizontal adjustement at this stage

* Export from Lightroom in a new folder still in DNG file format

* Add the shots.txt to this folder and run the LensTrue software

* Import the Tiff generated by Lens True back in Lightroom if needed or in Photoshop for finetuning (local adjustement, sharpness, etc)

 

Thank you,

Vincent

[Joshi_H]

Vincent,

 

this is an applicable workflow.

 

Joerg

[Joshi_H]

This is to the German Leica S-Users in Cologne / Bonn / Düsseldorf area - if there are any. A couple of photographers are meeting this Friday in Cologne and I could bring my LensTRUE System to do a demo. Any interest?

[Winedemonium]

Hi Joshi et al,

 

If I buy this unit, is the same unit compatible across different camera and lens formats, or is it necessary to buy a different unit for each camera type that is supported? If a one-time purchase would work on S, SL, and M, then that is very very interesting indeed.

 

Thanks.

[Winedemonium]

Also, to all who have used this, how much micro-contrast and fidelity do you think you lose through the adjustment? When you pixel-peep, is there much loss? More usefully, when you print, can you see the loss compared to the original file?

 

Thanks.

[SaW]

From what I've red on their site: Medium format users have to buy the M version (20% more expensive) that is compatible with the S system and also with the DSLR's.

From my understanding the M LensTrue version will work with the S/SL/M cameras while the normal, less expensive version, will only work with the M/SL but not with the S (don't know if the SL is supported by the way).

Joerg will probabily confirm.

[Joshi_H]

Hello

 

the easy question first: SaW is right - if you get the M version you can use that with any other supported camera and lens, but you can't use the DSLR version on a Leica S for example.

 

Coming to the second question: LensTRUE is using the best available method for interpolation - I don't have any technical details other than bi-cubic something.  Looking at it from the practical point of view. I got a couple of images printed which where corrected with LensTRUE and in the print I don't see any quality issues. I checked back with the LensTRUE engineers and any negative effect on image quality should be negligible when tilting the camera within a range of 20 - 25° up or down. Above or below it may be depending on the structures in the picture. If you have homogeneous areas you won't see any difference. In case of fine structures there may be little artifacts, but image quality is reducing step by step the more you shift your tilt-/shift-lens because you move the image circle into areas with imaging quality problems.

[mgrayson3]

There's no way to see the framing and geometry of the final shot, is there? That's the big advantage (to me) of a shift lens/technical camera - knowing what you have in real or near real time.

 

--Matt

[Joshi_H]

Hi Matt,

 

no, a sort of preview ist not available. You pay one advantage like being able to use zoom lenses as shift-lenses with the advantage of the preview. Maybe one day, when the sensors in the cameras are accurate enough and the CPUs in the cameras fast enough, we might get a LensTRUE implemented in the camera with a preview in the viewfinder or on the screen - in realtime. 

[Manolo Laguillo]

There's no way to see the framing and geometry of the final shot, is there? That's the big advantage (to me) of a shift lens/technical camera - knowing what you have in real or near real time.

 

--Matt

 

Regarding the geometry of the final image, it is not that difficult to imagine what it will look like: all vertical lines will be parallel.

The other aspect is the horizon, which will fall more or less on the same place where it was at the moment of making the photo tilting the camera up or down.

 

With a view camera the emotions of adjusting the image's geometry happen while the camera is being adjusted.

With this LensTRUE device the emotion occurs in front of the computer's screen...

 

Perhaps the older members in this forum will remember the Plaubel 6x9 Shift: it uses a window-type viewfinder, with a frame that shifts up or down in such a way that it is possible to have an approximate idea of what the shifted lens will include. The Arca-Swiss VarioFinder for the R-line cameras works in the same way.

 

...

 

The point in using LensTRUE is that the final result looks as if the lens would have been shifted, but without having been shifted, actually. In other words, we don't need a shift lens anymore. With camera systems where shift lenses are available we can buy them. But what if we use a camera system (the Leica S, for instance) which don't have wide angle shift lenses at all? Till now we had only one solution, correcting the convergence in PP, but the resulting image is not like the one delivered by a shifted lens or the LensTRUE system, because the proportions are wrong.

 

...

 

Of course, it is possible to adjust the image in PP without LensTRUE to the point where it will look like the one produced by LensTRUE, but for making those adjustments we will need having in front of us the image created via LensTRUE or a shift lens, for using as a comparison...

Edited December 14, 2015 by Manolo Laguillo

[Joshi_H]

Manolo, thank you. This is a very good explanation. I just would like to add something to your first part:

 

Regarding the geometry of the final image, it is not that difficult to imagine what it will look like: all vertical lines will be parallel.

The other aspect is the horizon, which will fall more or less on the same place where it was at the moment of making the photo tilting the camera up or down.

 

 

 

Don't limitate or reduce the LensTRUE System to the correction of converging lines. Also think about the proportions that will be transformed correctly - something any other software solution I know can handle. I let pictures do the talk. Look at this example of a model shoot I did a couple of weeks ago.

 

Original, for which I hold the camera like a 5 year old on purpose:

 

Corrected in Lightroom (the facade of the cathedral is corrected but look at the face of the girl and her left jaw):

 

Corrected with LensTRUE:

 

The second thing you can do with LensTRUE is the virtual change of perspective moving yourself towards central perspective as if you would have been there at the moment when you took the picture.

 

Again the original:

 

Corrected with LensTRUE auto correction and cropped:

 

LensTRUE auto correction and manually changing the angle on the Y-axis by -19.7°:

 

If you want full details on the virtual change of perspective have a look at my blog on http://joerghaag.com/2015/11/04/jobo-lenstrue-der-virtuelle-perspektivwechsel-the-virtual-change-of-perspective/

 

Regards,

 

Jörg

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[SaW]

I've got the following info from Jobo, so I share it with you:

 

Thank you so much for making contact with us - and thanks for your interest in LensTRUE System.

 

We have not yet added the Leica S007 profile to our LensTRUE System, and we are still waiting for 2 more lenses which we would like to add to our profile:

- Elmarit-S 1: 2,8 / 30 mm

- Vario-Elmarit-S 1: 3,5-5,6 / 30-90 mm

- Summicron 1:2 / 100 asph

(these 3 lenses are still missing!)

 

We are only waiting for a RAW file of the S007  - then we could add the sensor properties of the S007 to our LensTRUE visualizer.

Once we have the sensor properties - then Leica S007 can be used with LensTRUE system.

 

The attachment shows the 6 lenses that have been profiled for Leica S.

 

We would be very happy to count you among our happy customers someday soon ;-)

You are welcome to test our product for 2 weeks @ 50 EUR.

In case you are happy - and wish to purchase the LensTRUE System - then we will balance the 50 EUR with your purchase price of LensTRUE m version.