There was a comment on a forum about how m4/3 kit lenses perform better because they have in-camera lens corrections performed on them. This was in response to my recent posts on "Kit lenses - are they any good?"
I decided to look at this.
Knowing that Nikon lenses also do the same thing I compared the Panasonic 14-42mm kit lens on a G3 with the 16-85mm zoom on a Nikon D7000.
I compared the in-camera jpg. with a raw file processed in Rawker, a dcraw based programme, which includes none of the manufacturers "corrections"
Here is a file from the Nikon D7000 and 16-85mm zoom, with the file processed in raw from Rawker overlaid on top of the in-camera jpg. The two small inset boxes show the differences.
Here they are enlarged.
In terms of in-camera correction for CA here is the same file.
The white border shows the area I selected.
Here is the raw file processed in Rawker.
Here is the in-camera jpg.
So the CA reduced, but not the purple fringing.
It can be seen then that Nikon, via their in-camera jpg (and in programmes like Photoshop) do some "correcting".
So what of the 14-42mm lens on the Panasonic G3?
Well I would show you what the in-camera jpg. has corrected in terms of distortion, except for the fact that there wasn't any!! The in-camera jpg and the raw file processed in Rawker were identical.
In terms of CA - heres a blow up from the Rawker raw file (remember no manufacturers corrections)
And here's the in-camera jpg.
A very slight improvement in the purple fringing here.
So the next time somebody tells you that m4/3 lenses only produce such good results because they are "software corrected" (lets be polite here!) you can suggest that may be somewhat exaggerated.
So the next time somebody tells you that m4/3 lenses only produce such good results because they are "software corrected" (lets be polite here!) you can suggest that may be somewhat exaggerated.
