Perspective distortion

[tvphotog]

I've shot a lot of years with a Coolpix 8800, with a built-in 10x zoom, a prosumer camera with which I've gotten professional quality shots.

My biggest complaint is the perspective distortion which I see on many shots. I can correct it many times in Photoshop, but there are times when adjusting one vertical pulls another out of alignment.

I'm planning to buy the Canon 5D or its next iteration in the next few months. Will I see less of this distortion using a full-sized sensor, or is this distortion a problem of all digital cameras?

Thanks.

 

[Big Mike]

It's got to do with the lens...irregardless if it's used on digital or not.

 

[tvphotog]

Will better, more expensive lenses cut down on the problem?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

no. For complete distortion correction without any loss in quality, you would need a tilt-shift lens at minimum or a view camera.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Only if you're buying one with Tilt & Shift capabilities built into them.


He beat me to it. This link has a better set of info on perspective correction lens options

 

[tvphotog]

Thank you, gents.

 

[Alex_B]

first of all, i am not sure what you mean by "perspective distortion".

A) are you referring to converging lines due to your point of view / perspective? This is not a distortion.

B) or dou you refer to straight lines which got curvature
in your image? This is not related to perspective.

Those two are totally unrelated problems

A) is a problem of your point of view, and can only be "corrected"
if you change your point of view or if you use a lens or camera which has a possibility for tilting. However, those are rather special purpose lenses, mostly operated purely manual.

Some post processing software allows to correct converging lines. PS2 is quite good at it... however at some expense in image quality.

B) This is a problem of the lens. higher quality lenses will show less of this distortion than lower quality lenses. And generally speaking, prime lenses will usuall have by far less problems with this than zoom lenses used at their shortest or longest focal length.

Many of today's RAW converters have options to correct for such projection problems of lenses. Some even do it automatically. I think even the latest version of Canon's RAW software does it for a couple of Canon lenses.