Lens contrast & post-processing

[thompsonkirk]

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Sean Reid has written a helpfully expanded section on lens contrast for his website article on lens testing. The gist of it is that older/lower contrast lenses, because of greater flare, compress the dynamic range of digital files. He's said this before, but he explains it more thoroughly, managing to get hard stuff into non-technical language. (So much easier than reading Erwin Puts!)

 

He mentions post-processing in just a couple of paragraphs, but IMO the connection is worth keeping in mind because a lower contrast lens & its more compressed files mesh so well with post-processing tools.

 

1. With a more compressed file, ACR/LR Recovery or C1 Highlights is going to return more modulation of the highlights.

 

2. You can always reset your black point & white point, so that a flatter or more compressed file is easy to turn into a full 'Zone System' spectrum from dark to light (which applies to the luminance range of color images, not just BW).

 

3. The Curves function allows you to bring out more shadow detail from a more compressed file - as he mentions, both globally & locally. It's as if we have innumerable paper grades or endless resources for what was called split-filter printing, in the days of the darkroom.

 

 

My point is that if/when you read Sean's text about lens contrast, think at the same time about the interface between lens contrast & post-processing possibilities (especially with Curves!).

 

Kirk