Leica M-E and lightroom lens profiles

[haikos]

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Hi everyone, I just returned from my first trip with my newly acquired ME and made a few mistakes.

First mistake I made is that I took 3 lenses for 2 bodies (M4), (2 ZM lenses and a CV lens, none of which are coded)

Second mistake I made is that I initially forgot to tell the camera which lens was mounted.

Once I realized my second mistake, the third mistake I made was that I sometimes forgot to change the lens profiles when I changed lenses.

I use lightroom 6 and luckily it has lens profiles where I can select the ones I have and apply them to the photos as long as I can pick out which photo was shot on which lens. Thankfully I don't rapid fire and come back with hundreds of photos from trips otherwise I would have been buried with corrections.

Onto my question: In the photos where I actually used an in-camera lens profile which are technically developed for use with Leica's lenses, should I go ahead and change them to the actual lens that was used instead? And, if so, should I check both Remove chromatic aberration and Enable profile corrections? (I couldn't see a difference when I check and uncheck the remove chromatic aberration box with the few files I tried this on)

Thanks, from a digital M noob!

 

 

[haikos]

As an update to my own post, on the photos that I correctly entered a lens profile to the closest similar option ie. leica 11310 for my biogon 2/35 (since both are non-aspherical, 35mm and f2) things look alright out of the gate in lightroom. When I go and enter the exact lens profile in the Lens Corrections option, the Enable Profile corrections seem to alter the image very very slightly but I can't describe in what way precisely. That's fine but at the same time there is heavy over-correcting of vignette, so I have to turn it all the way down. Basically, everything looks fine to me without applying any lens profile. 

Oddly enough, the same is true for photos where I forgot to apply any in-camera lens profile at all. That's to say, in photos where I didn't set a profile in camera, when I apply the correct lens' profile in lightroom, it again over-corrects the vignette aspect of the photo making the surrounding areas much brighter than the center of the image.

Hopefully this is useful to someone who doesn't use coded lenses on a digital M. I can't say what would happen for wider than 35mm though.

Cheers!

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[jaapv]

On 8/19/2020 at 12:42 AM, haikos said:

Hi everyone, I just returned from my first trip with my newly acquired ME and made a few mistakes.

First mistake I made is that I took 3 lenses for 2 bodies (M4), (2 ZM lenses and a CV lens, none of which are coded)

Second mistake I made is that I initially forgot to tell the camera which lens was mounted.

Once I realized my second mistake, the third mistake I made was that I sometimes forgot to change the lens profiles when I changed lenses.

I use lightroom 6 and luckily it has lens profiles where I can select the ones I have and apply them to the photos as long as I can pick out which photo was shot on which lens. Thankfully I don't rapid fire and come back with hundreds of photos from trips otherwise I would have been buried with corrections.

Onto my question: In the photos where I actually used an in-camera lens profile which are technically developed for use with Leica's lenses, should I go ahead and change them to the actual lens that was used instead? And, if so, should I check both Remove chromatic aberration and Enable profile corrections? (I couldn't see a difference when I check and uncheck the remove chromatic aberration box with the few files I tried this on)

Thanks, from a digital M noob!

 

 

The lens corrections for M lenses are so minimal that it really does not matter much whether you use them or not, except in extremely critical work - and even then, they are easily replicated in postprocessing, except for some more difficult distortion corrections on some wideangles. Mostly it is some vignetting correction, sometimes a slight colour shift to the edges.So basically: don't fret about it, use them if it makes you feel better, forget about them if you see no difference anyway (the normal state of affairs) and get some nice coded Leica lenses.

[Ray Vonn]

7 hours ago, jaapv said:

The lens corrections for M lenses are so minimal that it really does not matter much whether you use them or not, except in extremely critical work - and even then, they are easily replicated in postprocessing, except for some more difficult distortion corrections on some wideangles. Mostly it is some vignetting correction, sometimes a slight colour shift to the edges.So basically: don't fret about it, use them if it makes you feel better, forget about them if you see no difference anyway (the normal state of affairs) and get some nice coded Leica lenses.

I sometimes use a Super Elmar 21mm profile for my Biogon 21mm - no need to worry in that regard with a lens that wide either?

[jaapv]

No need at all, just look at the images taken with and without profile. Do you see a difference?

If no - forget about profiles

If yes - do you find the difference an improvement?

If no - forget about profiles.

If yes - use profiles.

I bet that the only benefit you will see is to get the focal length in EXIF.

[haikos]

Thanks for the tip. I guess it’s nice to have it in the exif but now I’m even less worried about the profiles.

cheers!

[John Robinson]

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If, as Jaap suggests, the effect of the camera's profile is negligible (and this is also my observation with the possible exception of some of the wider angles), it is most useful if the Exif data says the correct name of the lens in order to be able to assess how different lenses draw, or apply external profiles (e.g. in Lightroom or Capture One).  Lightroom for example can filter by metadata to show all the images taken with a particular lens, or particular camera, or combination.  This doesn't work if the Exif data is wrong or not present.

I had a project to test old lenses on mirrorless cameras but forgot to record which lens was which at the time, and later could not remember, hence making the results unreliable.

This led me to look at Exiftool.  I find the command-line version (PC or Mac) is the most effective and you can create a batch file or script to rewrite the Exif data. 

For example, to rewrite the Exif data on a file taken with a Rollei Planar lens (when the camera did not have a profile, or perhaps had a Leica profile applied), I use the following command:

ExifTool -LensModel="Rollei Planar 1,8/50" -Lens="Rollei Planar 1,8/50" -LensMake=Rollei -LensInfo="50mm f/1.8" -FocalLength=50 -overwrite_original_in_place <filename>

You can also use wildcards eg *.dng, *.jpg, *,tif *.* 

If you say Exiftool -g <filename> you can see all the writeable fields.  Description is useful.

[haikos]

John, that’s interesting because I noticed that even when I applied a lens profile in Lightroom, it doesn’t edit or add that lens profile to the exif data. Thanks for that input!