I take your point, Dawid, but what (philosophically) is the difference
compared to, let's say, choosing to use Velvia instead of Kodachrome (for
characteristic colour rendition), or using a compensating developer to
enhance edge contrast (and thereby increasing apparent definition), or
raising one edge of the easel to correct for perspective distortion on the
negative? None of these are generating information from nothing, but all are
exploiting such information as is available to the utmost, to produce a
result beyond what came out of the camera. Isn't it what we have been doing
for decades? Of course, we choose to do the manipulation - as opposed to
the system manufacturer deciding what manipulation to incorporate! Is that
the difference?
--
Piers
-----Original Message-----
From: Dawid Loubser [mailto:dawidl@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 23 September 2009 12:47
To: Olympus Camera Discussion
Subject: Re: [OM] MFT (and FT) tests back on Photozone
I for one applaud Photozone's approach, they are testing the lenses, and not
the "system". I can't stand sneaky, hidden tricks to try and raise the
apparent level of performance of a product. If I recall samples, the
Panasonic kit lens(es) for M4/3 are optically quite bad performers. You
can't generate information from nothing, so either way, you can't correct
most kinds of problems, you can only try and mask their impact on the final
image.
I quote, from the site:
The initial test of the lens produced invalid results - less so because of
the lens but because Panasonic asked Adobe to apply automatic corrections to
RAW images (under the hood that is). These modifications corrected most of
the problems with respect to distortions, CAs as well as vignetting but they
also caused a reduction of the field-of-view and a deterioration of the
resolution figures (because the image is stretched here). However, the PZ
tests are about the principal lens performance and not the performance after
(excessive) post-processing thus we'll be using RawTherapee for these tests.
Finally it is not guaranteed that these corrections are also performed on
other/future micro-4/3 bodies and users could also prefer RAW-converters
other than ACR/Silkypix.
On 23 Sep 2009, at 1:22 AM, usher99@xxxxxxx wrote:
> They were all pulled several months ago for unclear reasons--now back.
> Not sure MFT tests mean much--Raw converter used does not correct the
> aberrations as intended in their design. May as well test them used
> as intended by the designers. Where else are they to be mounted and
> used?
> Raw optical performance seems increasingly less relevant these days.
> Mike
>
> http://www.photozone.de/olympus--four-thirds-lens-tests
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