Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/03/21

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Subject: [Leica] Vignetting in FF digital Ms
From: hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson)
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:40:40 +1000
References: <07856C10-1788-4FF9-8E79-E985BBE9578A@bex.net>

Well now Howard that is quite a topic you have broached ;-) Before Dr Ted
reminds me that only content matters ultimately (as is true of course) I
shall dive in.

For some attempt at clarity (post brevity not being my strength!) I will
just talk about the specific hardware you mentioned, although the
principles are more generally relevant.
Wide open the lens you mentioned has 2.5 stops of vignetting. How much of
that do you consider ought to be corrected out? There's no wrong answer of
course just preference.That is what you got with positive film previously
though.
The camera corrections are also non-aperture dependent. That is to say that
a single (compromise aperture value I guess)  (less vignetting when stopped
down) is corrected for because neither the  M9 nor the M (typ 240) can
reliably determine the exact aperture used due to the legacy designs. A new
system (S & X for example) and I guess T? is not so limited. By brightness
sensor value comparison estimate the M full frames might be within say a
stop/stop and a half or two at worst. If the (single) correction value per
lens was set at that for the worst case (wide open) you would get
over-correction at smaller apertures. Actually odd lighter corners and at
the expense of increased noise/ more loss of dynamic range there to do so.
All correction is a compromise with some loss of quality in those corners.
That may or not matter at all or be noticed.

The camera is also making significant correction for every image for basic
homogeneity because the 1954 fundamentals were just never designed for
optimum use with a sensor.That includes asymmetric colour shift which is an
optical reality with all systems more or less (Italian Flag) as well as so
called red edge syndrome. That fundamental is why M digital sensors have
their unique microlens arrangements in the first place and why the legacy
wides in particular are compromised when adapted to other systems' sensor
(Sony being the current prominent example).

Phew, that ought to kick the discussion off, or get filtered out because my
name is on the top!  ;-)






Cheers
Geoff
http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman


On 21 March 2014 21:50, Howard Ritter <hlritter at bex.net> wrote:

> In doing some preliminary exploratory shooting with my new M240 and the
> previous-generation 35mm Summilux ASPH, I encountered the inevitable severe
> fall-off of illumination at the corners, as I expected. What I did not
> expect was that the M's built-in lens correction feature would reduce this
> by only a subjective 50% or so, leaving a prominent and very disappointing
> degree of vignetting still to be seen.
>
> I realize that this can be easily corrected in post-processing, e.g.
> Lightroom, PS, and DxO, but my question is WHY? Why would Leica engineers,
> after recognizing the problem, creating a software correction to it, and
> deciding to incorporate that correction into the FF M digital camera, then
> proceed to implement it in such a half-assed fashion? Clearly a full
> correction is straightforwardly implementable in post-processing, so why
> not write the firmware to accomplish it rather than hobble it to perform a
> half-correction?
>
> Anybody know the reasoning behind this? Or am I missing some feature that
> would actually give full correction? And when correcting for this in
> Lightroom etc., what do most of you do? Let the camera do its bit and then
> finish it, or simply dispense with the built-in correction and do
> everything in LR? Will LR and the other software suites with built-in
> corrections for various lens and body combinations even perform properly
> with the M's built-in correction applied?
>
> Thanks for any suggestions.
>
> --howard
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>


Replies: Reply from tedgrant at shaw.ca (tedgrant at shaw.ca) ([Leica] Vignetting in FF digital Ms)
In reply to: Message from hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter) ([Leica] Vignetting in FF digital Ms)