In an attempt to understand why the images from my new Sony NEX-7 w/18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens are soft, I ran some basic tests earlier today. I wasn’t satisfied with the results for a variety of reasons (wrong ISO, not enough variables and general sloppiness) so this afternoon I repeated and expanded the tests. The results are shown below. All exposures were at ISO 100. Click to see the image in full-res.

Conclusions:

• On the Sony NEX-7 body, the Nikon 35mm f/2D prime (via an adaptor) is sharper than the Sony 18-55mm, both at f/5.6. No surprise on this one.
• The Sony 18-55mm has less chromatic aberration at 35mm than the Nikon 35mm prime (both at f/5.6).
• The Nikon 35mm prime is equally sharp on the NEX-7 (24mp) and the Nikon D7000 (16mp). (The Sony’s extra megapixels don’t help, but it’s just as good as the D7000 in this regard.)
• None of my tests at 35mm explain my soft images from Saturday’s shoot. So I tested at 55mm…
• The Sony 18-55mm is noticeably soft at 55mm wide open (f/5.6), but stopped down one f-stop (f/8) it looks quite a bit better.
• Not shown here, it gets soft again at f/11 and beyond. At 55mm, the Sony 18-55mm is a “keep it at f/8” lens.
• Also not shown here is the fact that the NEX-7 underexposed this test one full f-stop. This was corrected in Lightroom 4. No other corrections (sharpness, noise reduction, CA removal) have been applied to any of these images.

To see the full test charts, click on the images below. Mouse over to see which is which. These high-res JPEGs were made 1:1 from the original RAW files using quality 80/100.

        

I’m curious to know if it’s just my copy of the Sony 18-55mm that’s soft or is it common to all copies. I’m also curious to see if the Sony 18-200mm zoom is much better. I’ll have copies to test this coming weekend.

[See Update/Part 2]

In early May I managed to get my hands on a Sony NEX-7 camera with a couple of lenses. On May 15 I recorded a video review with Frederick Van Johnson on This Week in Photo. Ultimately, I decided this would be a great small, mirrorless camera to complement my huge Nikon D3s and its lenses, so last week I ordered one from Sony. I spent half of this past Saturday shooting with the NEX-7 and its kit lens, an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (about 28-85mm full-frame equivalent). But when I got home and transfered the images, I was disappointed in their sharpness, pretty much uniformly. Did I get a bad copy of the lens? Was the camera just not as good as I though when I had a review copy? I decided to run some tests.

I’m just getting started, but here are the initial results. I started with the kit lens set to 35mm and f/5.6. (Wide open at 35mm is f/4 on this lens.) For comparison, I used an adaptor to mount a Nikon prime lens to the Sony body — an AF Nikkor 35mm f/2 D. Finally, I used the same lens on my Nikon D7000, which has an APS-C sensor, the same size as in the NEX-7. I used the lowest  “normal” ISO on each body: 100 for the NEX-7 and 200 for the D7000. The results are below. Click the image to see it full-sized, 1:1.

My interpretation? The Nikon 35mm on the Sony NEX-7 body is sharper than Sony’s 18-55mm. No real surprise there. But both lenses are sharper on the NEX-7 than the prime on the Nikon D7000. Well, maybe that’s not really a surprise after all, since the D7000 is a 2+ year-old camera and uses an older Sony sensor that’s the same size as the NEX-7’s.

As for the final decision about the NEX-7, we’re not there. I still don’t have an explanation as to why this weekend’s images are so soft. Perhaps it’s because most were shot at 55mm. Or maybe it’s that I used ISO 200 most of the day. In any case, further tests are required to determine what’s going on here. Stay tuned.

 

I was honored to be the featured guest on TWiT Photo, which normally features only the very best professional photographers. The on-demand video (and audio-only version) are now live. While the usual hosts +Leo Laporte and +Catherine Hall were in Norway, I had a terrific time with stand-in co-hosts +Trey Ratcliff and +Sarah Lane. And thanks to +Tony Wang for putting the show together. Hope you enjoy.

[I was particularly impressed with the skills of the TWiT team. I’ve always appreciated Sarah’s on-screen talents, but it’s not until you sit down on a set with her that you realize how good she is at listening and keeping the show moving. And Tony not only runs the show, but has the uncanny ability to switch in web pages and images almost before they’re mentioned, even when he doesn’t know what’s coming. True professionals.]

http://twit.tv/embed/11001

This is the fifth in a series of articles abut passing images between Lightroom, Photoshop and various plugins:

• Are You Wasting Dynamic Range?
• The Lightroom “Edit in…” Problem
• RAW File Processing: Photomatix Pro vs. ACR/Lightroom
• HDR Tools Comparison
• Aligning Images for HDR

One step in the process of creating an HDR image is the alignment of the bracketed originals. If you’re working with a single RAW image (possibly extracting extended highlight or shadow detail using Klaus Hermann’s Five TIFFs method) this isn’t a problem as you’ll only have one image or the pixels in your extra images will be perfectly registered. If you’re using multiple exposures and a tripod, you won’t have perfectly aligned pixels, but they’ll be close. However, if you’re shooting bracketed exposures handheld, aligning your source images presents an interesting software challenge.

For this article is used two bracketed images (to keep things simple) that were shot handheld. The images below show how well four different applications were able to align the images.

• Photomatrix Pro (upper left) doesn’t appear to have a particularly good alignment algorithm, although we might be seeing some other artifact of that apps’ processing. It’s hard to tell
• LR/Enfuse (upper right) does such a bad job of aligning the two images (using default settings) the offset is almost the entire width of these 200% scale images.
• NIK’s HDR Efex Pro (lower right) looks a little better than Photomatix Pro but still not as good as Photoshop (next).
• From Lightroom, Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop CS5 (lower left) appears to do the best job of aligning the images.

   

   

But while Photoshop may be the best tool for aligning images, we also know that it’s one of the weakest HDR applications for other reasons. How then can we take advantage of Photoshop’s alignment feature while using one of the other superior HDR apps?

For my more critical HDR images, my workflow now includes the following steps:

• Select all the images (including any extended-EV TIFFs) in Lightroom.
• In the Lightroom menu: Photo > Edit in > Open as Layers in Photoshop…
• In Photoshop, select all layers.
• From the Photoshop menu: Edit > Auto-Align Layers > Auto.
• Crop the image (all layers) to eliminate areas that aren’t present in all layers.
• Save each layer as a 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF.
• Use these derivative TIFFs as the input to my HDR application of choice.

To see the results of this portion of the workflow, consider the following images, each produced in this way.

   

   

 

It’s important to remember that this test was performed with just one class of image. As you use images with different parameters (or take advantage of the various adjustments available within each app) your mileage may vary greatly. For example, LR/Enfuse offers relatively few parametric options and it’s not an interactive program, whereas the other three are WYSIWYG apps.

However there are a few observations that I see consistently. First, Nik’s HDR Efex Pro and Adobe Photoshop’s HDR Pro are generally inferior to the other two applications. Second, LR/Enfuse and Photomatix Pro are remarkably similar other than the latter’s obvious color shift, which is easily correctible. HDR Expose looks equally as good although the default settings appear to over-saturate some portions of the image. Because it’s quite fast and simple, I find I use LR/Enfuse more and more, particularly when my goal is to create a realistic (rather than stylized, grungy, etc.) final image. LR/Enfuse is inexpensive donationware based on the open-source Enfuse application. [I learned about HDR Expose after this article was originally posted. I have not evaluated it other than to perform these tests, but my initial impression is that it’s quite good at least as for as these tests are concerned.]

[Please use Google+ for comments: http://goo.gl/d45YK]

We’re only trying to evaluate these workflows and the quality of the two different RAW converters, so to keep things simple we’ll start with a single RAW file. The first/left image below is a low-dynamic range (LDR) JPEG exported from that RAW image in Lightroom with no corrections or adjustments. It’s generally overexposed, but there are substantial areas that appear entirely blown out. However, because the original is a RAW image, we can possibly recover some detail from those highlights that don’t appear in a 0EV LDR JPEG.

      

The second image was made by selecting Plug-in Extras…Export to Photomatix Pro… in Lightroom. This creates a single TIFF image which is then opened by Photomatix Pro. I used Photomatix Pro’s default settings and returned a 16-bit sRGB TIFF to Lightroom, which I then exported as the JPEG above. There is virtually no recovery of any burned-out highlights in the resulting image.

The third image is the result of opening the original RAW file directly in Photomatix Pro, using its default processing, saving the results as a 16-bit sRGB TIFF from which the above JPEG was made. You can see that some of the details in the blown-out areas have been recovered.

I then used the technique which I recommend in order to save/recover as much dynamic range as possible when working with Lightroom and Photomatix Pro to create the image below.

The steps to create the above image are a bit more complex that the other workflows. The first step was to export three different 16-bit ProPhoto TIFF files from Lightroom. All three were from the same original RAW file as was used for the first two images, but the Exposure slider in Lightroom’s Develop module was set to 0.00, -2.00 and -4.00 respectively. I then opened all three TIFFs in Photomatix Pro as a set of bracketed originals. As you can see, this process recovered far more detail in what at first appeared to be the blown-out areas. (Don’t worry about what appears to be a shift in color. This is a separate issue and is easily resolved.)

These tests support the general understanding of many experienced HDR photographers that the Lightroom/ACR RAW file processor is dramatically superior to the one built into Photomatix Pro and that Lightroom’s Export to Photomatix Pro should be avoided in all cases. To take advantage of this workflow in realistic situations (eg, when you have bracketed originals instead of just one) I recommend following Klaus Hermann’s Five TIFFs method.

Update: Based on a friend’s suggestion, I decided to compare Unified Color’s HDR Expose to Photomatix Pro. Below are two images from HDR Expose. The first was made using the application’s own RAW processor. The second was made from the same three bracketed TIFFs as used for the last Photomatix Pro test.

If you ignore the differences in saturation, which are fairly easily corrected, these two images are quite similar to one another and to the three-TIFF Photomatix Pro output. When you consider that the left image was made without the hassle of first exporting three different TIFF variations, it appears that HDR Expose would be a better choice for this test case. This is even more so when you further consider that the left image above requires less color hue and saturation correction.

[Please use my Google+ page for comments. There are a lot more photographers there!]

This is the second in a series of articles abut passing images between Lightroom, Photoshop and various plugins. The other posts include:

• Are You Wasting Dynamic Range?
• The Lightroom “Edit in…” Problem
• RAW File Processing: Photomatix Pro vs. ACR/Lightroom
• HDR Tools Comparison
• Aligning Images for HDR

[See Update at the end of the post. 4:20pm PST on 1/10/12.]

Yesterday I posted the first in this series of articles (Are You Wasting Dynamic Range?) about problems passing images between Lightroom and Photoshop, plugins, etc. Today I want to look at just one such situation, the use of the Edit in… menu option in Lightroom 3. An hour ago I saw the announcement of Lightroom 4 beta. I wonder if this is something Adobe would consider fixing for version 4.

The Challenge

We start with the image below of the Golden Gate Bridge at night. Not only is the image generally overexposed, the highlights are completely blown out. Can we rescue this image? It’s easy to darken it overall, but what about those highlights?

Luckily it was shot in RAW so there’s a lot of data in the highlights and (to a lesser extent) the shadows that we can’t see in this uncorrected version. Just to be clear, what you see below is not a RAW image. There’s no way to display a RAW image in a browser or on your screen. The dynamic range of the image is just too great. Instead, what you see here is a JPEG derived from the RAW file using the default Lightroom settings. [Note: You can click on any image to see a larger version.]

Correcting in Lightroom’s Develop Module

Below is an example of what we can do in Lightroom (or pretty much any other RAW file processing application) to recover the highlights and reduce the overall exposure. (For the curious, the settings are Exposure=-2.55, Recovery=65.) Additional corrections could certainly be made, but this illustrates what we’re trying to show. We’ve recovered a lot of detail in the highlights in both the moon’s reflection on the water and the city lights in the distance.

Passing the Image to Photoshop

Now suppose you use Lightroom to organize your images, but you want to make your corrections in Photoshop rather than in Lightroom’s Develop module. Select Edit in…Photoshop CS5 from the Photo menu or right/ctrl-click on the image in the grid. Photoshop starts up and shows you pretty much the same thing as the first image at the top of this post.

But if you now try to recover the highlights, the image below is pretty much the best you can get. (Exposure adjustment layer with Exposure=0.38, Gamma Correction=0.37.)

This looks a little better than the original, but not as good as the image corrected in Lightroom. Why? It’s because of how Lightroom passed the image to Photoshop. Rather than passing the original RAW file with all it’s wide-ranging data, Lightroom created a TIFF file, which is inherently low-dynamic range) and passed that to Photoshop instead.

From the Lightroom…Preferences…External Editing menu you can select the format and colorspace of the intermediate images passed to Photoshop, but a 16-bit TIFF using the ProPhoto RGB colorspace is the best option available. You cannot pass a DNG or other RAW-file image with high dynamic range.

What to Do?

Does this really make a difference to you? It all depends on whether you need to recover highlight or shadow details in your images. If not, then go ahead and use the Edit in…Photoshop CS5 feature. But if you want to recover any such data, there are two choices. First, you can do your recovery using the Lightroom Develop module and then Edit in…Photoshop CS5, in which case your corrections will be baked into the intermediate image. Alternatively, you can open the original RAW file in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) or in Adobe Bridge, which will start ACR for you. This will allow you to make the same corrections as you can in Lightroom’s Develop module since it uses the same RAW file processor engine as ACR.

And if you shoot in JPEG instead of RAW, you don’t have to worry about any of this. Those highlights are burned out and gone for good. There is nothing to recover from a JPEG, which is already an LDR image. You can go from high-dynamic range (HDR) to LDR, but there’s no poing in going the other direction. Once you’re in the LDR world, the extended data is forever lost.

Edit in…(something else)

What about all those other options under the Edit in… menu? If you have some plugins installed, you might see them listed there. Passing an LDR intermediate image to these plugins is the only option. Therefore, if you want to recover highlights or shadows, you must do that in the Lightroom Develop module before invoking the plugin. My suggestion is that you also perform certain other Develop-module tasks before invoking the plugins such as Lens Correction — the plugin may delete the lens’ EXIF data — and preliminary sharpening and noise reduction.

[If you have any comments or questions related to this post, please make them on my Google+ page. There are a lot more photographers reading g+ than reading my blog!]

Update!

I’ve discussed this issue and my idea that Edit in… might support DNG intermediates in LR4 with Eric Chan, one of Adobe’s ACR gurus on the Adobe Labs Forum. Eric made a good case for why this might not be an appropriate feature. You can read the discussion here.

But over on Google+, Marko Haatanen provided a solution. In LR you can Photo…Edit in…Open as SmartObject in Photoshop… It won’t appear as though you’ve successfully moved the RAW file into PhotoShop, but if you double-click on the SmartObject in the Layers panel Photoshop will open the image in ACR. And if you’ve previously made adjustments in Lightroom’s Develop module, you’ll see them there, slider-for-slider. (Remember LR’s Develop module is virtually the same as ACR.) Very cool.

If you select two or more images in LR and go for Photo…Edit in…Open as SmartObject in Photoshop…, you’ll get the same number of images in Photoshop. But if your goals are either HDR or you just want to mask-in selections from multiple selections, what you really want is a single image with a SmartObject layer for each original. Again on Google+, Tarun Bhushan showed me how to do this. “In PS, click on a Smart Object layer in one open document and use Duplicate Layer. In the dialog that comes up, choose the destination document as the one where you want the Smart Object to be as a layer. Now you will have the two Smart Objects as layers in one document that you can then manipulate independently.”

I’ll have more to say about this as I continue to explore some of the best options for HDR in particular.

[Update 1/15/12: Added tests for Unified Color’s HDR Expose 2]

This is the first in a series of articles abut passing images between Lightroom, Photoshop and various plugins. The other posts include:

• Are You Wasting Dynamic Range?
• The Lightroom “Edit in…” Problem
• RAW File Processing: Photomatix Pro vs. ACR/Lightroom
• HDR Tools Comparison
• Aligning Images for HDR

The other night at the meeting of our local photo club’s HDR Special Interest Group, we began a discussion about the preservation of the full dynamic range of RAW images when you use plugins, exports and scripts in Lightroom and Photoshop. I made the statement that, for example, when you Export from Lightroom to Photomatix Pro, the default is to pass the source images as TIFF files, which inherently reduces the dynamic range and looses data. A few people challenged that assertion, so I’ve set out to research it in some detail. This post represents the first round of my test results.

Note that this discussion does not apply only to HDR. The principles apply equally to exporting any RAW images to Photoshop or any plugin. [Spoiler: I’m going to demonstrate why you should use Adobe’s Digital Negative (DNG) file format when exporting images to Photoshop or Photomatix Pro.]

Buzzword Backgrounder

Let’s make sure we understand the classes of image-file formats. Only the RAW file formats (.NEF, .DNG, .CR2, etc.) can preserve the full dynamic range of data captured from your camera’s sensor. Once you convert to any other format (.TIFF, .JPEG, etc.) you will lose dynamic range. It doesn’t matter what colorspace you use (sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto). It doesn’t matter whether you use 8- or 16-bit encoding. And it doesn’t matter whether you select compressed or uncompressed options. All file formats other than RAW (or true HDR, which is rarely used) are designed for viewing or printing and are therefore inherently low dynamic range (LDR) to match the LDR-only capabilities of our displays and printers. If you add bit depth (switching from 8-bit to 16-bit) you’re just increasing the number of colors that can be represented and therefore minimizing banding. You are not significantly increasing the dynamic range of what can be represented.

RAW, HDR and LDR

It’s also important to understand that we don’t have the tools (hardware or software) to view the full dynamic range of a RAW or HDR image. Even if you shoot in RAW format, the image you see on your camera’s display is an LDR derivative. If you open your RAW images in Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), you’re again looking at an LDR derivative. And when you merge images in Nik’s HDR Efex Pro, HDRSoft’s Photomatix Pro and Unified Color’s HDR Expose the output is an LDR image. (We often look at an image and say, “It’s an HDR” or “It looks like HDR.” In fact, these are LDR images created from one or more originals or HDR intermediates. The data are only truly HDR while you’re within the HDR apps.)

The RAW File Converters

There’s a class of applications called “RAW file converters” which includes Lightroom, ACR, Phase One’s Capture One Pro, Nikon’s Capture NX2, etc. These apps have one goal: to create an LDR image from a RAW file. In doing so, the dynamic rage of the image will necessarily be reduced and data will be lost. The adjustments (sliders, curves, etc.) within these apps allow you to decide which data are removed and which are preserved, but “preserve all” is not an option. You have to lose something in order to create an image that can be viewed or printed. (Note that Photoshop cannot directly process a RAW image. If you try, Photoshop will first launch ACR and require you to create an LDR image that is then passed into Photoshop.)

The images below help to explain this point. I started with a RAW file that’s just one of a bracketed set. This is the -4EV (ie, most underexposed) of the set of five. I loaded this RAW file into Lightroom and then created the two images shown below. [Click on any image in this post to see a higher-resolution version.]

   

Yes, both of the above JPEG (ie, LDR) images were created from the same RAW file original. The left one used the default settings in Lightroom’s Develop module. For the right, I used Exposure=+4.00, Fill=70, Recovery=100 and Brightness=0. I could have used Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) instead of Lightroom and achieved the same results because the RAW processing engine of both apps are identical. Note that in order to bring out the detail in the shadows, I had to compromise and let the highlights burn out.

Using LDR file formats it takes multiple images to represent the full dynamic range of even one RAW image. You can’t squeeze all this information into a single TIFF or JPEG even by just reducing the contrast. If you try, you’ll lose too much tonal distinction. That is, levels of brightness will clump together and you’ll end up with tonal banding.

As you can see, there’s a lot more information in the shadows of the original RAW image than you might think if you only saw the first image. The goal I want to explore is how to ensure that all of that information is available within Photoshop or the various plugins and HDR applications.

Some popular HDR tools such as HDRSoft’s Photomatix Pro also can accept and fully exploit RAW images, but if you pass those RAW images to these applications from Photoshop, Lightroom, etc., you may unknowingly be first converting your RAW files into an LDR format and throwing away substantial detail that you cannot ever recover. Lightroom’s export to Unified Color’s HDR Expose is unique in that the default is to pass the full RAW image to the plugin. Because NIK’s HDR Efex Pro apparently cannot process RAW files directly, this is exactly what will happen if you use that plugin.

Exporting from Lightroom

What happens instead if you export the RAW image from Lightroom to Photoshop using the default settings (16-bit Adobe RGB TIFF). This is what you’ll see. It looks pretty much like the default JPEG from Lightroom.

But suppose you then want to use Photoshop to recover that shadow detail? The image below shows what happens when you add an Exposure adjustment layer.

It’s clear that some detail in the dark areas can be recovered, but the image is very contrasty and saturated and the highlights are now even more blown out. Certainly a lot of information has been lost by using a 16-bit TIFF as an intermediate format.

Could the problem be with the choice of the colorspace in the intermediate TIFF image? The images below were created in the same manner as the above image except that I used the sRGB (left) and ProPhoto (right) colorspaces.

   

None of these images comes close to the JPEG I was able to create directly from Lightroom. Specifically, none of the images made using an intermediate TIFF and Photoshop were as good in recovering shadow details. (Check the area under the statues at the very center/bottom of the image.)

Using DNG as an Intermediate Format

If you want to export images from Lightroom to Photoshop, how can you avoid this loss of data? The simplest solution I know of is to use Adobe’s DNG format for intermediate files. The image below shows that result. When Photoshop opens the DNG, it first launches Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). This gives you the opportunity to extract the extended-range data before creating the LDR image used in Photoshop.

As you can see, this is quite similar to the JPEG created directly in Lightroom. Again, that’s because Lightroom’s Develop module is based on ACR. Like Lightroom, ACR is also a RAW-file converter, which means it generates an LDR image from a RAW file. It’s that LDR image that is passed to Photoshop when you Open a RAW file from ACR. And as with Lightroom, that means there’s the potential for losing even more data.

Exporting for HDR Processing

If DNG is the best intermediate format between Lightroom and Photoshop, what about getting images into our HDR tools such as Photomatix Pro and HDR Efex Pro?

Starting with the same single unmodified RAW file in Lightroom, I ran an Export to Photomatix Pro. Here’s the result using Photomatix Pro’s default settings and three different intermediate options: (1) 16-bit Adobe RGB TIFF (Lightroom’s default); (2) 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF; and (3) DNG.

      

The DNG version is again quite superior to the TIFFs.

What about exports from Lightroom to HDR Efex Pro Pro? The images below were exported from Lightroom to HDR Efex Pro using: (1) 16-bit Adobe RGB TIFF; and (2) 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF. I had to use some rather extreme settings in HDR Efex Pro to make the images look even this good: Exposure=+1.7EV, Contrast=+25%, Saturation=-45%, Blacks=+85%. As far as I can tell, there is no way to pass an image from Lightroom to HDR Efex Pro as a DNG or other type of RAW file.

   

And what about the newcomer, Unified Color’s HDR Expose 2? The default export to this plugin apparently passes the RAW file, and the RAW converter is quite good. The image below is the result of the default export from a single RAW image to HDR Expose 2.

Conclusions

I’m going to run a few more tests. In particular, I want to demonstrate how it is possible to use extended-EV TIFF files created from RAW files as intermediates. I first learned this technique from Klaus Herrmann in the section in his excellent online HDR Cookbook entitled Creating HDR Images the Right Way. (Look for the Five TIFFs method.) I also want to get some feedback from other photographers who have studied this. I expect I’ll have to make a few corrections to this post even as far as I’ve gotten so far.

It seems DNG is the best format for a simple export from Lightroom to Photoshop or Photomatix. Unfortunately, HDR Efex Pro doesn’t support this. For that application, you should use Klaus’ Five TIFF method, which is a lot more time consuming. If you’re using HDR Expose, you don’t have to worry — the default work well. More to come.

[See also the next post in this series: The “Edit in…” Problem in Lightroom.]

I only brought one lens to the #MarinPhotowalk on Sunday: a Nikkor 135mm f/2 AF DC, which I bought used a few weeks ago. I shot everything wide open at f/2. But when I uploaded the images, it seemed as though every one of them was a little soft. In fact, the in-focus point was just a bit farther than where I intended, usually someone’s closest eye.

So today I dragged out my MTP LensAlign and checked that lens on my D700, which I also bought used about a year ago. Sure enough the tests were back-focused about 1/2″ at f/2 and a distance of six feet. That may not sound like much, but with that configuration the depth-of-field is only +/-0.36″.

I assumed the problem was just for my 135mm f/2 lens, but no. It’s off the same amount for all my lenses. The good news is (a) it’s adjustable in my D700, and (b) instead of changing it for each lens, there’s a Default setting that applies to all lenses. The range of correction is +/-20. (I don’t know what the units represent.) It took -13 to get it right.

I mentioned this to Scott Loftesness, who wasn’t aware that you can also do this on a Canon 5DMkII. I know it’s also adjustable on my cropped-sensor Nikon D7000.

The Lens Align MkII is way overpriced at $79.95, but it does work quite well. I haven’t seen discount prices anywhere. I recommend borrowing one if you can. BorrowLenses.com rents the Pro version for only $11 for three days. The difference among the models is relatively insignificant.

I previously bought the Spyder LensCal which is a few dollars cheaper, but I sent it back to Amazon because the construction quality was so poor.