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Should Lightroom have lens correction profiles for m43 lenses?

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Dave Lively

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Lightroom uses the distortion data in the EXIF to correct for linear distortion without the need for a lens profile. But lens correction profiles do more than that. They also correct for vignetting based on aperture and focal length (zooms only). I am not 100% sure but I believe they also fine tune CA correction based on focal length.

It seems like I spend more time manually correcting for lens characteristics with my m43 camera than I did with cameras that had lens profiles. When shot wide some m43 lenses have noticeable vignetting unless I correct for it. For most pictures I do not find the vignetting distracting enough to bother correcting but with a profile it would never be an issue. And with zooms set to wide angles it seems like there is still a little barrel distortion left in the images with just the automatic correction from the EXIF.
 
Dave Lively said:
Lightroom uses the distortion data in the EXIF to correct for linear distortion without the need for a lens profile. But lens correction profiles do more than that. They also correct for vignetting based on aperture and focal length (zooms only). I am not 100% sure but I believe they also fine tune CA correction based on focal length.

It seems like I spend more time manually correcting for lens characteristics with my m43 camera than I did with cameras that had lens profiles. When shot wide some m43 lenses have noticeable vignetting unless I correct for it. For most pictures I do not find the vignetting distracting enough to bother correcting but with a profile it would never be an issue. And with zooms set to wide angles it seems like there is still a little barrel distortion left in the images with just the automatic correction from the EXIF.
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Yes ... when the correction data is not present (shot with the other manufacturer's body for example), it would be nice to have correction profiles.
 
Lightroom does a pretty good job without profiles. But yes, of course, it would be better to have them.

One of the main reasons that I use DxO Optics Pro 9 for so many of my conversions is that DxO has camera + lens profiles for my E-M1 and all but one of my lenses. (The exception is the Rokinon 85 f1.4.)

Are there any user-created profiles for micro four thirds lenses? I haven't gone looking for them yet.

Will
 
Kim Letkeman said:
Yes ... when the correction data is not present (shot with the other manufacturer's body for example), it would be nice to have correction profiles.
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The only correction data where the manufacturer's body makes a difference is CA measurement, and only on the older bodies (newer bodies it is present for both). Since Lightroom can automatically correct CA quite effectively without a profile, I'm not seeing the advantage in that case.

The places where profiles would help is where the data is either not recorded at all (vignetting) or not provided completely (distortion is only partially corrected).
 
Sierra Dave said:
Kim Letkeman said:
Yes ... when the correction data is not present (shot with the other manufacturer's body for example), it would be nice to have correction profiles.
Click to expand...
The only correction data where the manufacturer's body makes a difference is CA measurement, and only on the older bodies (newer bodies it is present for both). Since Lightroom can automatically correct CA quite effectively without a profile, I'm not seeing the advantage in that case.

The places where profiles would help is where the data is either not recorded at all (vignetting) or not provided completely (distortion is only partially corrected).
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Is the EM-5 a "newer body" & does it have lens correction data for Panny lenses?
 
As far as I know the corrections are automatically written into the raw files, some raw software can read this data and make use of it while others can`t.

As an example LR will and Capture One will not.
 
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Dave Lively said:
Lightroom uses the distortion data in the EXIF to correct for linear distortion without the need for a lens profile. But lens correction profiles do more than that. They also correct for vignetting based on aperture and focal length (zooms only). I am not 100% sure but I believe they also fine tune CA correction based on focal length.

It seems like I spend more time manually correcting for lens characteristics with my m43 camera than I did with cameras that had lens profiles. When shot wide some m43 lenses have noticeable vignetting unless I correct for it. For most pictures I do not find the vignetting distracting enough to bother correcting but with a profile it would never be an issue. And with zooms set to wide angles it seems like there is still a little barrel distortion left in the images with just the automatic correction from the EXIF.
Click to expand...
I stopped using this all that much after transitioning to Lightroom because of the need for the TIFF intermediary ... but since that is often needed now anyway to use tools like Nik or Perfect Suite, throwing in a little run through CSx an PTLens or just PTLens would handle a lot of lenses (more than Lightroom alone) with minimal fuss ... and it works on both JPEG and RAW ...

Here's a video demonstrating just how good it can be ... and getting new profiles done is pretty easily accomplished ... you shoot a series of images and send them away to epaperpress and a new set of profiles is released ... pretty quickly in my experience ...

 
So go get a copy of DXO...
 
They've have a lens profile creator for a number of years that anyone can use, and a downloader to browse through the selection. Last time I downloaded a profile for my E5 I noticed some profiles for m4/3 lenses. I think these only correct for distortion and vignetting, not CA, but that's easy enough to do. Find a lens profile with a decent rating. The body doesn't seem to matter (I use my 12-60 E5 profile with my EM1 and it works great).

Mostly the M43 lenses are corrected in Lightroom, but some people like to take them a step farther.

--
John Krumm
Juneau, AK
 
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