Just tid bits from work for a prom event. Theme: "Diamonds are Forever". Messing around with material and compositing nodes
Rendered in Blender 3.6
#blender3d #rendernodes #lensdistortion #compositingnodes #3Dart #diamonds #blendercycles #deaf #happywaterbear
I have been lucky enough to get hold of a new #CameraLens, a 10-18mm #Canon EF-S. Even on a #CropSensor it's pretty wide compared to what I am used to, making me think about #LensDistortion much more. A new #LearningCurve.
Camera Lens Makes Carters Look Tiny Next to Joe and Jill Biden
Picking the wrong camera lens can lead to unintended consequences in your resulting photos. Case in point: this new photo of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden meeting with former president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter.
As soon as The Carter Center published the photo yesterday of the meeting at the Carter home in Georgia last week, people began pointing out how tiny Mr. and Mrs. Carter looked next to the Bidens, who looked like giants in a miniature house by comparison.
Why do The Carter’s look like miniatures?! They are amazing wonderful people 👍🏼The proportions here are off somehow. Who else agrees?!
-- Penny Lane (@pennyLane4earth) May 4, 2021
Adorable! But am I the only one who thinks this looks like a tiny doll museum, and Joe and Jill are giants?
-- The Real Beth (@BethyBeeez) May 4, 2021
No, the photo wasn't Photoshopped. Instead, the strange look is due to an optical illusion caused by the wide lens' distortion.
Both Joe and Jill Biden are closer to their camera than Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who are further back in the armchairs. And because of how wide-angle the shot was, objects closer to the camera appear to be much larger than objects (even slightly) further away.
You can see how dramatic the distortion effect is by looking at Jimmy Carter's feet, which are on the same plane as the Bidens -- they look enormous compared to the size of the rest of his body.
"When taking photos in a smaller space you often don’t have room to move far enough back to get everyone in the frame, so you use a lens that can take it all in," Guardian picture editor Carly Earl writes. "Unfortunately, if you use a lens that is really wide, while also standing very close to the subjects, it will distort the photo, making those close to the camera appear giant while shrinking those further away."
Here's a quick example of removing the extreme lens distortion. A wide angle lens causes everything on the outer edges of the image to expand, and center to contract — the small room made a wide angle lens necessary. pic.twitter.com/L9rVS5Xx0U
-- DemSwag (@DemSwag_com) May 4, 2021
The opposite happens when you use a telephoto lens on the other side of the spectrum: instead of making objects at different distances from the camera appear to be dramatically different sizes, it compresses space and makes faraway objects look much closer in size as nearer ones.
An example of this compression was that controversial news photo of a California beach published in mid-2020 that appeared to show beachgoers ignoring social distancing guidelines and packing close together -- other views of the beach shot from closer range and from a helicopter news camera told a very different story.
Sometimes the need for a wide angle lens cannot be avoided, especially when a photographer is shooting in a cramped space, but the optical illusion in this photo could likely have been avoided by moving the Bidens back to be on the same plane as the Carters.
#culture #educational #news #biden #distortion #humor #illusion #jimmycarter #joebiden #lensdistortion #opticalillusion #president #strange #wideangle #wideangledistortion
DxO PureRaw Review: Bring Old, Noisy Photos Back to Life
Today, DxO launched PureRaw, an application that uses "exclusive technology" to enhance and improve RAW images by removing digital noise and lens flaws, leaving you with a cleaner and more accurate image.
The intent of the program is to be used ahead of other editors such as Capture One Pro, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Photoshop so you start with a cleaner base raw file that already has the lens profile (should you choose) applied to the shot.
The technology used in denoising and RAW image conversion (called DeepPRIME) has been a project that DxO has been working on for nearly 20 years, using machine learning on millions of images to train and improve its digital noise reduction and demosaicing. Typically when cleaning up your images each of these steps is done individually which can lead to artifacts and defects introduced by each step. The company states that its new application uses a holistic approach that combines these two steps into one, leaving a much cleaner image with noise being visibly reduced and color details more accurately preserved as the end result.
Lightroom export made with DxO PureRAW file Lightroom only export
What is impressive to me is how the application automatically scrubs the RAW files of any residual defects like vignetting, chromatic aberrations, lens distortion, and even a lack of sharpness in some of the details that would have otherwise been lost in the noise.
Since its founding in 2003, DxO Labs has earned an international reputation for measuring and calibrating hundreds of cameras and thousands of lens using a protocol that is more precise than any other in the industry. DxO has measured the defects created by thousands of lens/camera combinations in RAW images with an extraordinary level of scientific precision for each piece of equipment and in every situation. This in-depth knowledge of the flaws and performance of each piece of photography equipment is compiled in a database of over 60,000 combinations and is the secret to why DxO PureRAW delivers the best corrections in the industry.
Now in some situations, you may not want to use the lens profiles, and if that's the case, you can simply go into the DxO Optics Modules and un-check the image and lens profile combinations you don't want to be applied and reprocess the image. You'll get the same fantastic noise reduction on your shot, but you'll miss out on some of the perks like the vignette and aberration removal.
Why Is This A Big Deal?
The company says that PureRAW will let users revisit old and previously unusable RAW files taken with equipment that may even be obsolete by today's standards. When such images are run through the application, you're left with images made to look like they were taken with the most recent cameras, effectively making limitations on ISO values a thing of the past. The company also states that "PureRAW richly and accurately reveals details in RAW files, resulting in crystal-clear images that capture every last texture. Photographers can enlarge images without worrying about decreasing the quality." I tested this application on several dozen old images and can confirm that the detail in these shots is wildly impressive even at 100% crop after running them through the app.
Lightroom Export Only DxO PureRaw and Lightroom Export
Using an old high ISO test image I shot several years ago on a D800, it was apparent the above statement is true. PureRAW removes the “parasitic” grain that can be produced in unfocused areas and solid backgrounds by processing every part of the image and using smart technology to differentiate between ultra-sharp areas and bokeh effects. The images below were shot at 25,000 ISO with lots of neon that created some interesting reflection and haloing in the shot. PureRAW was able to clean up the image significantly while maintaining the depth of field, glow, and sharpness around the edges. Something I wasn't able to do with the D800 file and Lightroom alone.
25,000 ISO Lightroom Export Only 25,000 ISO DxO PureRAW and Lightroom Export
Simple To Use: Just 4 Steps
The PureRAW application is fairly basic in its approach and interface. Working with both Mac and PC systems, it's meant to be used on your RAW files before loading them into Photoshop, Lightroom, or any other editing software you prefer.
Sample Images
Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export Lightroom Export Only DxO DeepRAW and Lightroom Export
Impressive, and Does What it Promises
It's always nice to see a list of promises a software says it can perform and find that through testing, it checks all those boxes. The app isn't perfect though: it is a bit of a resource hog.
When you start processing your files, it will chew up quite a bit of your available memory and processing power especially if you've selected a large number of images to process at once. So, it's not exactly a background process kind of application. Beyond that, if you have a lot of High ISO images in your library, it's definitely worth checking out.
Are There Alternatives?
Honestly, no. Not really. This app stands alone in what it promises and delivers. Additionally, it's not supposed to replace any of your current editing applications but instead wants to add itself to your workflow as a new step.
Should You Buy It?
If you often find yourself shooting in low-light scenarios, or have a lot of older images you'd like to try and save from the archives, yes. The program is a very impressive noise reduction engine that can actually work some magic into your old shots.
DxO PureRAW is now available for download on the DxO website for a special launch price of $89 instead of $129 until May 31, 2021. A free 30-day trial version is also available.
#postprocessing #reviews #application #chromaticaberration #correction #dxo #lensdistortion #noisereduction #postproduction #review #software #vignetting
