Does the SL lens use digital correction?

[earleygallery]

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I haven't seen anything mentioned yet as to whether the SL applies digital correction to the images for lens distortion etc., when using the SL zoom.

 

As it also takes the T lenses - which do rely on digital correction - I'm assuming the SL must have the necessary firmware to correct when using those T lenses, so does it follow that the SL lens is also corrected in firmware?

[ramarren]

The SL certainly applies software corrections to any M or R lens used with a lens code. I see nothing to imply that the Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90 does not include lens code information, optimized per focal length setting, automatically transferred to the body since it is a fully dedicated lens (like the T lenses). Just like with M and R lenses, I would assume that the corrections are applied to both raw and JPEG files. 

 

I think the operating sensibility here is that this is a fully modern Leica system taking advantage of everything currently available in hardware, optical design, and image rendering software in order to achieve the best possible results. 

[earleygallery]

Question has already been answered, yes the SL zoom relies on digital correction for optical distortion, similarly to the T lenses.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Digital correction comes in two stages, and Leica uses both.  In camera is the best place to do vignetting correction and to correct for small color shifts at the edges, since at that point each pixel has a specific Bayer filter color associated with it.  Out of the camera, after the image is demosaiced and rendered, so that each pixel has all three colors present, is the easiest place to correct for radial distortion (make lines straight near the edges).  The corrections for that, if needed (and they typically are needed at the wide end of a zoom lens) are embedded in the DNG file in a standard format.  The radial corrections are expressed for each color, R, G and B, so tiny differences in the shifts for each color also allow correcting lateral chromatic aberrations. These out of the camera corrections are optional in raw file development programs like CaptureOne.  There is a slight gain in resolution if you don't have any straight lines at the edges of the picture.

 

scott

[Erik Gunst Lund]

In this shot It's very easy to see the curved banding where the shadows has been lifted several stops, the curved shape is identical in the DNG when processed and in the JPG.

 

SL ISO 125  Vario Elmarit

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[IkarusJohn]

I would expect Leica uses every opportunity to make corrections in the camera, and I would be very disappointed if they didn't.

 

Last night, one of the more interesting images which Kristian Dowling shared with us was a backlit image of two women - headshots with a flat white background of 100% cloud cover - taken wide open with the 0.95 Noctilux.  This is the sort of shot which would have purple fringing all over it if I'd taken it with my M60 - there wasn't a trace ...