Mark Gowin
Member
Absolutely, in a heartbeat. And, without hesitation this time. (I struggled with the decision first time around.) The S2 suits me perfectly.Mark,
....would you buy it again?
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Absolutely, in a heartbeat. And, without hesitation this time. (I struggled with the decision first time around.) The S2 suits me perfectly.Mark,
....would you buy it again?
LR3 does not remove it completely, but using the Chromatic Aberration sliders under the Lens Correction pane does help.Mark, LR3 cannot deal with it at all- in my experience. Peter
You're very welcome. Thank you for providing your opinion, based on extended use. It is a fine paradox – on one hand you acknowledge the deficiencies (lens, software, or maybe a combination), but you are still so unreserved in your support. Is there a 'killer app' which makes it right for your subject matter or shooting style?Thank you for the link to the Puts article NotXorc. That is an interesting read. In fact, he says the same thing as Peter - "...none of the raw developers can handle this effect..."
Thank you for the link. I had no idea the 70mm lens had such poor axial color correction. Best to not use it wide open in bright sunlight to avoid poisoning by the uncorrected deep violet light.Although he has not posted here to my knowledge, it seems that Erwin Puts has been mulling CA in the S2 system very recently too.
http://www.imx.nl/photo/optics/optics/chromatic.html
Good for you Mark. And I mean that.Absolutely, in a heartbeat. And, without hesitation this time. (I struggled with the decision first time around.) The S2 suits me perfectly.
marc,Good for you Mark. And I mean that.
I think the S2 system is a lightening rod for critique for a few major reasons:
The manner that Leica has touted its lens making ability as super-superior with no need for any assistance from software .... (calling it a waste of time and money, for example). IMO, this is sort of turning a blind eye to the digital age that Leica is trying to be major player in now. It's a stubborn retro mindset that is partially the cause of the second reason below ...
The staggering pricing that even locked out many of those used to Leica's jaw-dropping prices.
This camera will remain on my radar because it would also suit me well, and suit the shift in the type of work that has taken place for me in the past two years.
If (in my example) Hasselblad had not advanced toward better fulfilling my needs with the H4D, and the economy had recovered better than it has (if at all), the S2 would have been more of a contender ... despite the critiques, most of which I think I could over-come with more experience with the camera ... and those that I couldn't overcome, I could live with because of the other unique attributes.
However, Hasselblad DID waste time and money in improving its computer based corrections, and the lenses I already paid for got even better. These improvements did not cost me one single penny extra ... meanwhile, the new camera itself cost $8K less than a basic S2 body.
So, it isn't just the previous investment in a MFD system that keeps me here, it's also that the company keeps investing in improving what I already bought from them. I don't have to deal with the shortcomings because they did.
-Marc
Bear in mind that the aberration discussed here - longitudinal chromatic aberration - cannot really be corrected in software. Its something that has to be fully corrected in the lens itself.marc,
you hit the point precisely. the disturbing issue is leica's arrogance: best optics, no software correction needed, the other MF companies are far behind, they do ugly software corrections.....etc....etc...and fanboy reports to follow, confirming the leica advertisement campaign without or after only very limited testing. then when the serious tests start, all turns around and the truth is revealed in no time. suddenly the campaign shifts from 'best MF system around' to 'most ergonomic and rugged almost-MF system around'.
benchmark comparisms shift from Hasselblad and Phaseone to canon/nikon.
i do believe that the leica engineers are serious and hardworking people but the still need a lot of help in the software domain. surely phase could have done it and adobe is apparently not interested in doing something specific for leica.
peter
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however dedicated tools in a raw software (e.g. C1) do a great job. From a practical standpoint it simply works!Bear in mind that the aberration discussed here - longitudinal chromatic aberration - cannot really be corrected in software. Its something that has to be fully corrected in the lens itself.
No worries, we like the external referencesLooks like I am becoming this thread's link jockey. Someone stop me before I am, you know . . . :deadhorse:
Unless you're selling women's handbags, e.g Hermes' Birkin Bag... up to $10k and a long waiting period for delivery. Even heard they were screening potential buyers to make sure they were of the right "sort"No worries, we like the external references
~~~
Newsflash for Leica, from Jack's "Binniss" and Marketing 101 class:
1) Arrogance does not sell well internationally, and this is especially true in the US market.
then let us hope that leica is not after the hermes-type clients only.Unless you're selling women's handbags, e.g Hermes' Birkin Bag... up to $10k and a long waiting period for delivery. Even heard they were screening potential buyers to make sure they were of the right "sort"
Purple fringing is a form of chromatic aberration, and it can't be fixed in software - only masked by some sort of localized desaturation technique.I shoot near wide open a lot - so lots of CA and fringing. Purple fringing is easier to fix, CA is very difficult. OOF objects have broad green bands one side of them, red the other.
what is the point of a beautiful f2.5 lens if you cant use it below f4.0 on a sunny day?
Let's clarify this a bit further:Purple fringing is a form of chromatic aberration, and it can't be fixed in software - only masked by some sort of localized desaturation technique.
Imbeciles, perhaps?Even heard they were screening potential buyers to make sure they were of the right "sort"
Jack, thanks for this explanation, I actually think I'm beginning to understand it now.Let's clarify this a bit further:
1) CA is a LENS aberration caused by an inability to bring all three primary colors (or secondary colors) of the visible light spectrum into precisely the same focus point on the imaging medium. Moreover, the effect is usually spread laterally, and software is exceptionally good at being able to re-align the three separate visible primary color channels and bring them into one common point -- and why it is thus "relatively easy to correct for."
2) Purple fringing is primarily a lens aberration, however it is accentuated by a digital SENSOR's excessive UV and IR sensitivity. It is caused by the lens' inability to bring the short UV and long IR bands outside the visible spectrum to the same focus point as above. The distinction is that these bands are outside normal visible spectrum and it's virtually impossible to correct for them in lens design as the spread of wavelengths is far wider than the total visible spectrum to begin with. Thus, internal camera IR/UV cut filtration is probably the best approach to attenuate these; external filtration probably the second best approach. IOW, if a camera exhibits this trait, the lens is probably not the place to place the blame, rather the design of the sensor's filtration is the more relevant culprit.
3) Sensor bloom is, or rather can be, another form of fringing and can be perceived as green, red, cyan or magenta (purple) depending on the sensor design. It is caused primarily by a pixel getting over-saturated and bleeding off to adjacent pixels. The resultant aberration can vary from spots to ghosting to streaks to edge fringing. Moreover, it's primarily a CCD issue as most CMOS sensors have anti-blooming gates by design. Though many CCD's do use anti-blooming gates in their design, the attenuation isn't as efficient as with CMOS, thus we tend to see it more commonly in cameras using CCDs. Fortunately, good software will attenuate this anomaly too, the key being its ability to isolate it before the desaturation process as a global desaturation is not a viable method.
I've wondered about this for quite a few years now. I suspect that its not true UV (<400nm) and IR (>700nm) light that causes alot of the problems, but rather plain old visible light at the violet and red extremes of the waveband. For instance, most lenses are pretty terrible from 400nm to 435nm, but that is definitely visible light, and alot of it will leak through the Bayer array. Similarly with light from 660nm to 700nm. Some true IR might be getting through since there is typically alot of it in the scene and sensors are very sensitive to it. I doubt that true UV is playing much of a role in the purple fringing phenemenon.Let's clarify this a bit further:
2) Purple fringing is primarily a lens aberration, however it is accentuated by a digital SENSOR's excessive UV and IR sensitivity. It is caused by the lens' inability to bring the short UV and long IR bands outside the visible spectrum to the same focus point as above. The distinction is that these bands are outside normal visible spectrum and it's virtually impossible to correct for them in lens design as the spread of wavelengths is far wider than the total visible spectrum to begin with. Thus, internal camera IR/UV cut filtration is probably the best approach to attenuate these; external filtration probably the second best approach. IOW, if a camera exhibits this trait, the lens is probably not the place to place the blame, rather the design of the sensor's filtration is the more relevant culprit.
My pleasure David.Jack, thanks for this explanation, I actually think I'm beginning to understand it now.
On behalf of Coastal Optics / Jenoptic - or on behalf of Caldwell Photographic Inc ?(...) BTW, if you're interested in a true medium format UV-VIS-IR apochromat with zero focus shift from 330nm out to 1100nm I'm planning to show one at Photokina. It will be 120mm f/4.5, Copal-0 mounted, 100mm image circle, and will have a manually adjustable floating element for infinity down to 1:1.