New to digital and CL

[Harrydog]

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Hi, I have just obtained a new “to me” CL and rushed out and bought an 18-56. I have been using an old Canon F1 with 35 f2 and 85 1.8. 
Reading all I can but a bit puzzled about the talk of lens profiles and corrections. How the heck, remember I am a film user, can distortion and vignetting be removed after the shot?

love the forum and the camera!

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[jaapv]

Digitally. Basically the camera is helping you by applying a number of corrections that you could do yourself in postprocessing I would advise you to start reading up on ON1 postprocessing software, they have good tutorials on their site, and in the meantime set the camera to DNG+JPG fine and limit yourself to JPGs until you have grasped the basics of processing your images. Feel free to ask in the Forum. We are here to help and we all were beginners once. 

[tommonego@gmail.com]

Welcome to LOF and digital. Make sure lens profiles is on in your menu, unless you use off beat lenses like I do, it may help. Try on and off see which you like. I would work with RAW files, they are the closest to film. But you need a RAW editor, I like Photoshop and ACR but go through the threads and try others, everyone has their preferred editor. Jpg is OK but you lose a lot of the image file, especially with the CL. Most important is to use it and enjoy the experience. 

[SoCalLeicanator]

Welcome!  Agree with above, you won't see much of the magic of the camera with the JPEG.

[Harrydog]

Thanks for the welcome and advice. I am so looking forward to fiddling around with an lmage in daylight not in a cupboard under red lights!

[ruskkyle]

Welcome! If you use Adobe Lightroom to process your raw images then you needn’t concern yourself with lens profiles at all – they will be automatically applied. With a TL lens the image as you see it will essentially be distortion and vignette free.

As this is your first digital camera you may be a bit perplexed by the sheer number of options and features on the CL. My advice would be to read up on this forum the various threads about user profiles. Cheers!

[Harrydog]

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Thanks, having read loads I am having to re write my rule book! Starting with three variables now that the iso (I still call it ASA!) is also in the game every shot. SO much to get to grips with.

[jaapv]

10 hours ago, SoCalLeicanator said:

Welcome!  Agree with above, you won't see much of the magic of the camera with the JPEG.

But starting out with JPG and progressing to full editing (and having DNGs of those first shots) will ease a newbie into the digital workflow without the disappointment we often see with users that jump into the deep unprepared. 

[jaapv]

4 hours ago, Harrydog said:

Thanks, having read loads I am having to re write my rule book! Starting with three variables now that the iso (I still call it ASA!) is also in the game every shot. SO much to get to grips with.

As I said, we've all been there.  

[rob_w]

22 hours ago, Harrydog said:

Thanks, having read loads I am having to re write my rule book! Starting with three variables now that the iso (I still call it ASA!) is also in the game every shot. SO much to get to grips with.

I came to the CL from the M rangefinder direction - film then digital.  There's still too much complexity in the CL (let alone most competitors) for me.  Set the AF to one value - AF is the biggest pain for providing more head-scratching than reward, and robbing you of control.  Of course, film cameras had AF as well so it's not strictly new to digital, but there are so many variations today it is a subject all by itself.

Set the ISO to one value for each session, set the aperture you want and let the camera choose shutter speed.  Then you only have the aperture to consider in most situations, just like a film camera, and that has the biggest impact on the result you want to achieve.  Unless you want to change shutter speed in specific circumstances such as, say, fast moving subjects.

Agree with Jaap.  Start with JPEGs.  Post processing ('PP') is another whole area of complexity, best left to the next stage of learning.  That said, PP is the BEST improvement over film - you can do magical things easily in Lightroom, that were impossible in the darkroom. 😉

Edited June 12, 2021 by rob_w

[jaapv]

32 minutes ago, rob_w said:

AF is the biggest pain for providing more head-scratching than reward, and robbing you of control.

Tip: if you half-depress the shutter, you can tweak focus manually by the focus ring on the lens. Don't lift your finger before releasing the shutter, obviously.