Horizons not straight

[All bar one]

I just got a (nearly new) 18-55 IS for my 400d and noted that my horizons seem a bit bevelled. Is it my imagination, or is it the lens (and if it is the lens then thats not good is it)?

 

[puddleduck]

That is barrel distortion.

You could fix it fairly easily with PTLens et al if needed.

 

[Janice]

Your focal length was 18mm... this often happens with wide angles. As just mentioned there are various tools to corrrect this in PP.

 

[hashcake]

Have a look at this: www.dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro
I've been playing with it recently and now purchased it as it does a very good at fixing lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective.

 

[DiddyDave]

I run all my Wedding shots through DxO Elite now - it does a great job

Here's a funny though... I shot a Wedding last year with a mate with a 5D and 24-105L lens and my relatively cheap 18-70 Nikon had far less distortion correction than that L glass

Made me smile - made it's owner get rid of it

DD

 

[hashcake]

I run all my Wedding shots through DxO Elite now - it does a great job
DD

It's a cracking piece of software for the price and the preset automatic setting works very well for me.

 

[lukewoodford]

Yeah in scenes like this your best without it but in other scenarios I quite like the effect.

 

[DiddyDave]

Yeah in scenes like this your best without it but in other scenarios I quite like the effect.

Eh ???

There are scenes where you like to see lens distortion?

(Note - that's not the same as distortion due to converging verticals etc. which are a feature of a lens not due to a minor defect in it)

DD

 

[Amp34]

Eh ???

There are scenes where you like to see lens distortion?

(Note - that's not the same as distortion due to converging verticals etc. which are a feature of a lens not due to a minor defect in it)

DD

Some more extreme wide angel shots (say with a 10-22 or 12-24mm lens) look good with the distrotion visible.

 

[DiddyDave]

Some more extreme wide angel shots (say with a 10-22 or 12-24mm lens) look good with the distrotion visible.

Are we talking about the same distortion though?

Distortion due to the lens not being perfectly made is very different to the distortion seen in extreme wide-angles

Perhaps that's just splitting hairs a bit too much - so forget it



DD

 

[Amp34]

I was talking about pincushion and the opposite (can't remember) distortion, which appears to be the cause of the curvature in the OP. It's more extreme in wide angle lenses but it's the same sort of thing?

But yes, small amounts of distortion are a pain.

 

[jerry12953]

It's barrel distortion as identified above.

You can download a tiny piece of software called PTLens, which will sort this for you. It's dirt cheap (well it was at $2 =£1) and does a good job. Google it.

It will identify your lens (and the focal length) automatically and apply the correction when you ask it to.

It annoys me to see wandering horizons like this.

 

[jaffamuffin]

Does photoshop elements (as the OP has used) not support lens correction? My copy of C2 has it built in.

 

[HoppyUK]

Canon users have custom distortion correction (also CA and vignetting sorted) which is lens specific, from Canon's supplied DPP software. Version 3.5 has data for every Canon lens made, free to download. Works better than anything else, and just a single mouse click. Only works with Raw though

Edit: Problem with regular distortion correction is that it's not lens specific and doesn't deal perfectly with 'moustashe' shaped distortion curves common in wide zooms.