Peter Branch Posted September 23, 2015 Share #1 Posted September 23, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) Some while ago I posted a picture, see below, taken with my 18mm SEM to illustrate the use of an Ultra Wide lens with people. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Significant "distortion" is clearly visible particularly of the lady's face top left. This was a picture from a "first cut" edit as I needed to get a lot of pictures processed quickly. I subsequently edited some of the pictures more carefully - see next post. Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Significant "distortion" is clearly visible particularly of the lady's face top left. This was a picture from a "first cut" edit as I needed to get a lot of pictures processed quickly. I subsequently edited some of the pictures more carefully - see next post. ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/250442-correcting-distortion-from-the-18mm-sem/?do=findComment&comment=2892781'>More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 23, 2015 Posted September 23, 2015 Hi Peter Branch, Take a look here Correcting "Distortion" from the 18mm SEM. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted September 23, 2015 Share #2 Posted September 23, 2015 Yes- but most of the distortion you see here is from tilting the camera, it exaggerates the perspective distortion you will see on 3D objects in the corners of wideangle lenses (and the scarf does not help either. Turkish ladies have a habit of filling it out ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Branch Posted September 23, 2015 Author Share #3 Posted September 23, 2015 This is the revised edit using the perspective sliders in ACR. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! I don't claim any merit for the picture, the family group simply came and sat down next to me, but it does illustrate that post processing can be a very powerful aid to improving pictures, in this instance removing a form of "distortion", common when using ultra-wide angle lenses, that most people find objectionable. Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! I don't claim any merit for the picture, the family group simply came and sat down next to me, but it does illustrate that post processing can be a very powerful aid to improving pictures, in this instance removing a form of "distortion", common when using ultra-wide angle lenses, that most people find objectionable. ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/250442-correcting-distortion-from-the-18mm-sem/?do=findComment&comment=2892784'>More sharing options...
Peter Branch Posted September 23, 2015 Author Share #4 Posted September 23, 2015 Yes- but most of the distortion you see here is from tilting the camera, it exaggerates the perspective distortion you will see on 3D object in the corners of wideangle lenses (and the scarf does not help either. Turkish ladies have a habit of filling it out ) Absolutely, the family by the way are Uzbek, but I had no choice but to point the camera downwards. The point I'm making is that it is perfectly possible to significantly improve the resulting image by careful use of the controls available in ACR. In this instance it required both the "Vertical" slider and a significant correction using the "Rotation" slider Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 23, 2015 Share #5 Posted September 23, 2015 Indeed. I think you need to stretch it slightly in a vertical sense still. I will even use warp commands like pinch or puppet warp locally in cases like this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted September 23, 2015 Share #6 Posted September 23, 2015 Yes, the lens correction tools in Photoshop and ACR are very powerful and useful (I use them a great deal) but your photograph illustrates the basic problem of photographing people with a superwide lens, particularly if you aim to fill the frame in the way you have done. IMO the 'distortion' of the left woman is much more acceptable in the original photograph. In the second, both women look unacceptably squashed vertically (look at the size relationship between the older woman's hand and her head in both photographs). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 23, 2015 Share #7 Posted September 23, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) As I said (but we cross-posted I think) this can be corrected as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted September 23, 2015 Share #8 Posted September 23, 2015 As I said (but we cross-posted I think) this can be corrected as well. It can but there comes a point when you have stretched the pixels in so many ways that the optical qualities of the original (quite expensive) lens seem no longer relevant. Might as well pop one of those wide-angle lens attachments onto an iPhone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Gunst Lund Posted September 23, 2015 Share #9 Posted September 23, 2015 Sorry but just refrain from shooting people up close with anything wider than a 28mm or don't have them in the corner area or shoot with a 16mm Full frame fisheye and live with the distorted lines. The above eidt is funny looking espc the baby! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted September 23, 2015 Share #10 Posted September 23, 2015 Nice pic indeed. Can be improved easily. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkP Posted September 23, 2015 Share #11 Posted September 23, 2015 Sorry but just refrain from shooting people up close with anything wider than a 28mm or don't have them in the corner area or shoot with a 16mm Full frame fisheye and live with the distorted lines. The above eidt is funny looking espc the baby! My thoughts exactly. Peter, you fixed the background nicely but at the expense of both women (the woman in red now looks fat and distorted whilst before just her head was stretched, the hand of the woman in the middle looks even more like she has serious lymphedema) and the baby (which now looks grossly obese). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted September 23, 2015 Share #12 Posted September 23, 2015 The distortion tool of Photoshop can fix this in a snap. Just avoid tight framing as P'shop will crop a bit. https://lctphot.smugmug.com/photos/4376332833_sfKxjJM-D.jpg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotoism Posted September 23, 2015 Share #13 Posted September 23, 2015 The distortion tool of Photoshop can fix this in a snap. Just avoid tight framing as P'shop will crop a bit. https://lctphot.smugmug.com/photos/4376332833_sfKxjJM-D.jpg Nice job. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted September 23, 2015 Share #14 Posted September 23, 2015 Thks but a 10 y/o newbie could do it as well with Photoshop. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Branch Posted September 23, 2015 Author Share #15 Posted September 23, 2015 Thank you to all who have contributed. The picture below is a third edit making use of the distortion slider. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! It is clear, to me at least, that there is no perfect solution. Something that I think is an improvement seems quite the opposite to others. When in Uzbekistan I fell into conversation with a member of our tour group who posed the question: " Would you discard a picture because it was not technically perfect?" He remarked that he had observed that I seemed to be taking great care over what he perceived were matters relating to technical quality. We had quite a debate, he being a retired professor of mathematics, and came to no real conclusion as to how to define what was worth preserving / discarding. One of my points was that using modern Leica equipment it seemed appropriate to try to achieve the quality of which it was capable - yes but........... BTW I totally agree with the point that image quality can quite easily be demonstrated to deteriorate if too many PS functions are used. I can't demonstrate it on the forum because of the picture size limitations etc., but it can be seen on my monitor using *.Tiff files formatted to A3 at 120ppcm. I can best describe it as a deterioration in the quality of edges. Easy to correct using sharpening, some might say, but that brings its own set of issues. Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! It is clear, to me at least, that there is no perfect solution. Something that I think is an improvement seems quite the opposite to others. When in Uzbekistan I fell into conversation with a member of our tour group who posed the question: " Would you discard a picture because it was not technically perfect?" He remarked that he had observed that I seemed to be taking great care over what he perceived were matters relating to technical quality. We had quite a debate, he being a retired professor of mathematics, and came to no real conclusion as to how to define what was worth preserving / discarding. One of my points was that using modern Leica equipment it seemed appropriate to try to achieve the quality of which it was capable - yes but........... BTW I totally agree with the point that image quality can quite easily be demonstrated to deteriorate if too many PS functions are used. I can't demonstrate it on the forum because of the picture size limitations etc., but it can be seen on my monitor using *.Tiff files formatted to A3 at 120ppcm. I can best describe it as a deterioration in the quality of edges. Easy to correct using sharpening, some might say, but that brings its own set of issues. ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/250442-correcting-distortion-from-the-18mm-sem/?do=findComment&comment=2892996'>More sharing options...
flyalf Posted September 23, 2015 Share #16 Posted September 23, 2015 Very nice photo. However whats corrected is not distortion as far as I can see, but perspective. This is inherent when one use wides and tranfer 3-D reality onto 2-D. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted September 23, 2015 Share #17 Posted September 23, 2015 The distortion tool of ACR does not seem to work the same way as my old one (CS3) here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted September 24, 2015 Share #18 Posted September 24, 2015 I prefer the original distortion to the attempts to correct it, which just get uglier and uglier. This is how an 18mm lens sees the world - if one doesn't like it, don't use an 18mm. Personally, I don't have any problem with the 18mm rendering, and really like the picture "as was." Except... I'm very troubled by the degraded contrast and tonality, which has turned three attractive people, dramatically lit, wearing beautifully textured and patterned clothing, into dull, pasty cardboard cutouts. The skin tones are gray, the black embroidery is gray, the wonderful red satin becomes dull cotton, and the headscarves (especially that of the older woman) look like a (semi-successful) attempt at solarization. (See - "solarization": http://joefaraceblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/solar.color_1.jpg ) Peter, you saw a brilliant situation and captured it beautifully (distortion be d**ned). Then you took your Cordon Bleu image and turned it into weak tea and day-old sausage roll, by destroying the contrast, textures and colors that brought out what was best in the picture. I can't call the posted images "technically perfect" - rather the opposite. There is a much better picture in there - and I can show it to you if it is OK to repost your image, modified. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luele Posted September 24, 2015 Share #19 Posted September 24, 2015 Peter, you saw a brilliant situation and captured it beautifully (distortion be d**ned). Then you took your Cordon Bleu image and turned it into weak tea and day-old sausage roll, by destroying the contrast, textures and colors that brought out what was best in the picture. I can't call the posted images "technically perfect" - rather the opposite. There is a much better picture in there - and I can show it to you if it is OK to repost your image, modified. I totally agree with adan. In the Original you see, that the photo was taken near to the group of persons. It is mot a portrait from the studio - it is live on street. Look at so many street photos from people with the 21mm in old issues in LFI (former Leica Fotografie) - nobody want's to "correct" it and the were and are beautiful. I often use the 18mm in landscape photography an had never the wish to correct distorsion. Yes, the perspective is (let's say) "strange" compared to normal wide angles but therefore yo use it. The problem is also that you look at "normal" distances to the picture. To get an "original" look you had to blow up the photo to A2 an watch it from 30cm to see the perspective like the SEM. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkP Posted September 24, 2015 Share #20 Posted September 24, 2015 Nice job. Indeed! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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