light falloff, vignetting

Andy

lots of debate on those "other" fora, about whether to call it "light falloff" or "vignetting." either way, it's when you get dark corners in your shots. can be caused by a filter, hood, other obstruction on the front end of your lens, or, as full-frame sensor camera owners (and those who remember shooting 35mm film) know, it can happen in the camera, too. has to do with the ability of the sensor to grab that light at the far reaches of the nether regions (the corners!)... many folks see it and wonder - oh! something's wrong with my (lens..camera...filter...hood...pic one)! not true! it's totally normal and natural, and climb down off of that ledge now, ok? :lol3

this is easily fixed in the following ways:

crop factor bodies: use slim filters if you're getting this. easily corrected in adobe camera raw (acr) if you use ps cs.

full frame bodies: stop down a tad if you can. the attached graphic shows the difference in just a little bit of stopping down.

any camera: remember, it's easily dealt with in post-processing!

(animated gif - rutt, davidto, you guys will have to allow animations in your browser to see it :evil)



finally - please remember one thing: vignetting will always look worse in a test situation than in normal shooting! many times, depending on scene, you may not even notice it.

docbell

Vignetting, how about ghosting??
Thanx for the info on vignetting, Andy. I also hear about 'ghosting' quite a bit. I recently took these moon shots, and was wondering if the extra refelection of the moon is ghosting.
If so: 1) is there anything i can do to avoid/limit it?
2) is this a reflection on the quality of hte lens? (these were shot with the new sigma 80-400 OS, which has the new DG feature, which is suppose to help with ghosting).
Thanx for the info, Kevin.

Andy

docbell wrote:

Thanx for the info on vignetting, Andy. I also hear about 'ghosting' quite a bit. I recently took these moon shots, and was wondering if the extra refelection of the moon is ghosting.
If so: 1) is there anything i can do to avoid/limit it?
2) is this a reflection on the quality of hte lens? (these were shot with the new sigma 80-400 OS, which has the new DG feature, which is suppose to help with ghosting).
Thanx for the info, Kevin.

quite possibly - yeah - ghosting - it's that time of year

were you using a filter of any kind?

Bodley

Andy wrote:

this is easily fixed in the following ways:

crop factor bodies: use slim filters if you're getting this. easily corrected in adobe camera raw (acr) if you use ps cs.

full frame bodies: stop down a tad if you can. the attached graphic shows the difference in just a little bit of stopping down.

any camera: remember, it's easily dealt with in post-processing!

I get vignetting on occasion when I'm pushing my 200mm/f1.8 to its limits, and past, in dark sporting environments which require me to keep the shutter speed up to stop action. Stopping down is not possible. My thinking is it's b/c of the mammoth hood. However I keep the hood on to protect the lens (I'd rather have the occational dark edged photo than a baseball inside my lens).

Anyway - I'm shooting jpeg's, because of the volume of shots, and process in PSCS. Could you describe your processing technique to remove vignetting for both raw and jpeg's?

Andy

Bodley wrote:

I
Anyway - I'm shooting jpeg's, because of the volume of shots, and process in PSCS. Could you describe your processing technique to remove vignetting for both raw and jpeg's?

In Raw it's a cinch, ACR has a vignetting slider, it's just a matter of moving it. Takes about 5 seconds. A bit harder for a jpg, let me investigate. Stay tuned.

In PS CS2, for a jpeg:
Filter>Distort>Lens Correction>Vignetting

flyingdutchie

Bodley wrote:

I get vignetting on occasion when I'm pushing my 200mm/f1.8 to its limits, and past, in dark sporting environments which require me to keep the shutter speed up to stop action. Stopping down is not possible. My thinking is it's b/c of the mammoth hood. However I keep the hood on to protect the lens (I'd rather have the occational dark edged photo than a baseball inside my lens).

Anyway - I'm shooting jpeg's, because of the volume of shots, and process in PSCS. Could you describe your processing technique to remove vignetting for both raw and jpeg's?

If you're using Nikon Capture, it can automatically fix the vignetting for you. I think it reads the lens used and your camera model (and maybe some other data) from the EXIF and fixes it.

Bodley

flyingdutchie wrote:

If you're using Nikon Capture, it can automatically fix the vignetting for you. I think it reads the lens used and your camera model (and maybe some other data) from the EXIF and fixes it.

That sounds great but I'm in the Canon world.

Thanks for the reply.

Scott_Quier

Bodley wrote:

Could you describe your processing technique to remove vignetting for both raw and jpeg's?

There is a discussion a technique in the Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, Scott Kelby, pg231

Andy

Scott_Quier wrote:

There is a discussion a technique in the Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, Scott Kelby, pg231

Which is on our review site!

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1093805

Bodley

Scott_Quier wrote:

There is a discussion a technique in the Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, Scott Kelby, pg231

Any hints about the technique?

Bodley

Scott_Quier wrote:

There is a discussion a technique in the Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, Scott Kelby, pg231

I have the Kelby cs book and the vignette topic is for adding it to photos not removal. Is this the same in the cs2 book?

Andy

Bodley wrote:

I have the Kelby cs book and the vignette topic is for adding it to photos not removal. Is this the same in the cs2 book?

Bod, I use ACR will automagically fixy the vignetting for you... have you tried that?

Scott_Quier

Bodley wrote:

I have the Kelby cs book and the vignette topic is for adding it to photos not removal. Is this the same in the cs2 book?

It must me different. In the CS2 book, the problem description is "Problem Three: Lens Vignetting". At the bottom of the page, there is the before image with dark corners. In the after, the dark corners are GONE

CS2 has a new filter. You get to it through Filter | Distort | Lens Correction.

It seem to work on only in files w/o layers.

Bodley

Andy wrote:

Bod, I use ACR will automagically fixy the vignetting for you... have you tried that?

Doesn't that only apply to raw images?
I'm looking at jpeg's now.

Bodley

Scott_Quier wrote:

It must me different. In the CS2 book, the problem description is "Problem Three: Lens Vignetting". At the bottom of the page, there is the before image with dark corners. In the after, the dark corners are GONE

CS2 has a new filter. You get to it through Filter | Distort | Lens Correction.

It seem to work on only in files w/o layers.

Thanks for looking, I may need to upgrage books.

I've just upgraded to PSCS2 so I'll check that out.

Scott_Quier

Bodley wrote:

Thanks for looking, I may need to upgrage books.

I've just upgraded to PSCS2 so I'll check that out.

Not a problem. When I saw your response to my post, I almost had a heart attack. I don't like to put out gross errors. So, when I saw your post, I quickly grabbed the book and looked it up again. Then, I spun up CS2 and verified what the book said. Yep, all there. Made me feel better too.:):

Jamoke

Newbie Realization
Hey - Awesome Tips/Comments/Example!!!

I've been taking some pictures on my 5D, and have experienced Crazy Vignetting/Fall off and have had a nightmare in post processing. But Seeing that example made me realize what i hadn't had to deal with before.

(Admitting you have a problem is the first step) - I was doing everything wrong. I had a fatty circular polarizer on the end of the lens, and was shooting at 2.8 (Max for the lens). And then I was complaining in post processinig because I thought the lens/body combo was screwy. Thanx though, you saved my lens from a pre-mature sell.