Does incamera distortion correction soften images? Yes, I think so.

I'm new to this forum but have just received my NEX6 + 1650 lens.  As readers of the forum know Lightroom is not correcting the distortion on the RAW image so when I shoot RAW+JPEG I can certainly see what the incamera distortion correction has done to the incamera JJPEG.

So... at 24mm-e wide angle, I use the distortion control in LR at +50, then crop and Voila the RAW now looks exactly like the JPEG.

But.... after the LR correction to the RAW is completed it now measures only 12 mp.  This does not surprise me because you absolute have to throw away pixels as the RAW image uncorrected has a wider view than the incamera JPEG

So, why does the incamera JPEG come out at 16mp?

My conclusion is that incamera correction must throw away pixels (this is obvious because the corrected image is less wide angle than the uncorrected) and then UPSIZE back to 16mp.  If true this is too bad, as for any web or internet use or smallish prints you would then have to DOWNSIZE the UPSIZED file....

I appologize from mentioning this if either (1) I am wrong or (2) everybody already knows this.

Peter F.

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