Can anyone explain my error in this photo?

gibson12

gibson12

Active Member
Original Poster
In this photo, you can see the tile line on the left seems to bend slightly. I have noticed this problem when I was using a cheaper camera, but I recently bought a Canon S110, which several experienced users have told me is decent. In addition, I used a setting that let me record RAW and JPEG at the same time, and the curve is even more pronounced in the raw file. So I feel like my photos are coming out distorted around the edges with this bending effect. Does anyone know if the camera just does this because it is what it is, or is there something I can do?
 
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ddbowdoin

ddbowdoin

Well-Known Member
That barrel distortion is not that evident! Now this is some barrel distortion.

12258242264_105c5c69fd_b.jpg
 
gsrjedi

gsrjedi

Well-Known Member
It might be more pronounced in the RAW file since some cameras will try to automatically fix stuff like that in the JPEGs. Not sure if the S110 does that or not though.
 
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thomas998

Well-Known Member
gibson12 said:
In this photo, you can see the tile line on the left seems to bend slightly. I have noticed this problem when I was using a cheaper camera, but I recently bought a Canon S110, which several experienced users have told me is decent. In addition, I used a setting that let me record RAW and JPEG at the same time, and the curve is even more pronounced in the raw file. So I feel like my photos are coming out distorted around the edges with this bending effect. Does anyone know if the camera just does this because it is what it is, or is there something I can do?
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with the software they ship with Canon cameras, but in most of the software from other makers I've found that if a camera shoots RAW that the manufacturers will have some software packaged with the camera that can open those files and options to make adjustments to the image. Most will have some control to counter the distortion that you are seeing. I suspect that if you take some photos of the same tile floor using different amount of zoom you will find that their is a point where you will see much less distortion. Most every P&S camera I have ever used will have a sweat spot where the distortion is almost non-existent and an other point where it is much more noticeable.

But your software should all but eliminate that, if the camera had no software with then you might want to invest in an inexpensive photo editing software. Most will have options to eliminate the problem.
 
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thomas998

Well-Known Member
gibson12 said:
Would you recommend any freeware editing programs?
Click to expand...
There aren't many to choose from especially since you are apparently shooting RAW. You can use GIMP to manipulate photos but it is technically an 8 bit processor and your RAW files are probably 12 bit so you would lose something using it. If you want to use a freeware software to manipulate your RAW files you can use UFRaw. It works, but the user interface is primitive at best, think what you would see in Window 2.0 or very early Windows 95 type interface. But it will handle most RAW files and do what you are looking for in terms of lens distortion. But it isn't very userfriendly, so be warned. On the off chance you do decide to try it, when you open a file you will see a lot of rather cryptic icons on the left side of the photo you open. You need to click on the third one from the left right below the slider near the +/- button. It looks like a 3d black ball... if you hover your mouse over it it will say lens correction... click on that and it opens more options below... Now click the third icon from the left of the new ones that just opened it will look like a light blue green star, and if you just hover over it it will say lens distortion.... At that point you have several options to use for correcting distortion... They are all probably going to be very confusing to you and will require some trial and error to get the results you want. I would suggest you might start with the PanoTools lens model option and just tweak the "b" slider. I anyone else has any more experience with UFRaw they might want to chime in. I personally would say look for an older version on Paintshop Pro on Ebay and spend maybe 10 or 20 bucks for an older version maybe Paintshop pro X2 and you can save yourself a lot of headaches... It should have the options you need in a much more user friendly layout.
 

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