NIKON Z SERIES - 2 MINUTE TIPS #22 = distortion control in the nikon z6 & z7 for RAW, TIFF, & JPEG

#22 & a little over 2 mins - here we look at in camera distortion control to improve the image quality with the nikon z series mirrorless cameras, the nikon z6 and nikon z7.

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[AFImages]

This is obviously more important with some lenses than others but potentially a quick way of dealing in camera with something that you might also do in Lightroom or the like so may save you a few mouse clicks

[herculespsalidakis]

Nice video!! Should we use it also also in hdr ??

[jpdj]

Nice video again. I noticed that Lightroom has this tiny text in the Lens corrections section under Develop that says it uses the "Built-in lens correction." With the Z lenses, there is nothing else. This is not the end of the road, if you want to do your own thing. (1) You can (IMO should) still shoot a reference card (like X-Rite Color Passport) that gives you a neutral reference for location, light, lens and camera (settings) you use. With my old DSLR, I shot a family get together in a facility in the woods. Cloudy December winter day, all grey. Inside, windows along two outer walls and three kinds of artificial light. I measured light with my Sekonic. I shot during 3 hours and never changed the exposure on my camera set to manual - for exposure, all images fit perfectly with each other. At some point in time, I shot a couple reference shots with the different light sources and later created a profile file with that. This dual profile in one generated perfectly neutral images that also all matched. After that, artistic deviations are an easy process. (2) You can still make your own lens distortion profiles with an Adobe tool for this purpose. It is quite some work and IMO it is mainly targeted at barrel/pincushion distortion. Its added value may be limited.

[Camrographer]

I'm coming from a D810 to a ZII with an FTZ II adapter for my F-mount glass. I noticed that the distortion control in the camera is not doing as good a job as it would on the D810.

I've gone into lightroom to make add profile corrections. This has either minimized the bowing and vignetting or eliminated it alltogether.

I guess I'll have to do more testing. I wonder if stacking corrections on top of each other or if the ZII's corrections are nominal.

This is very problematic as real estate and interior design photography is my profession and having low distortion is essential to my work.

On the other hand, It's hard to justify the expense of moving from the F-mount 14-24 2.8 to the Z equivalent even though data shows it performs substantially better.

Consequently, this experience leads me to think that the FTZ adapter is not as perfect of a solution for bridging the gap between camera technologies. Or this may all be solved by a firmware update.

[joeydego]

Even if it’s off can’t the distortion tools in Lightroom correct this as well??

[allentram]

Do you know if it applies distortion control to video? specifically the 14-30mm?

[aussie]

Cynical me wonders whether it’s greyed out for the 24-70 f4 because Nikon don’t want anyone to know how poor it is without correction. I believe there is a way of seeing them with no correction applied if imported into a certain site. I think Tony N mentioned that.