vignetting with 18-55 AL

Greetings,

Here's a picture taken with my K-x and the 18-55 mm AL lens that came with it. It shows a lot of vignetting in the top right and left corners. Would the 18-55 mm AL WR do the same? Is there a better lens I should consider for general use (given a budget of around 500 US$)




Best regards

The WR version is the same (optically). The DA16-45mm is noted for its low vignetting (and distortion) compared to similar zoom lenses. My experience with the two lenses backs this up.

It's available second hand for a fraction of your budget, or you could try the DA17-70mm which I think has similar characteristics - slightly more distortion at the wide end, but more 'reach'.

I believe the K-X has lens correction, if you set that on that should polish the defect away.

Strange, I have no problem with the older 18-5 5MkII on my K200d.

If the in camera software doesn't solve the problem then, yes, the 16-45 is definately a good upgrade.

Personally I wouldn't consider that too bad, esp considering it's a late evening (7:13pm) sunset scenario. The deepened blue top corners altough far from excessive actually give the pic a realistic framing, with no clouds in those positions for the diminishing sunlight to reflect off sky naturally darkens at the outer circle around the point of the sun dropping down over the horizon.

Make sense? I guess the point I'm making is to try and remember that vignetting is a valid artistic effect as well.
Your pic is no way bad. A case of harsh self-critic?

The simple solution could be to just inch the zoom a tad off minimum, say 20mm, on occasions like that.
Does the vignetting bother you equally on fuller daylight pictures?

The other option I'd suggest is, if you do a fair bit of land~water sun rise~set scapes like that, and are serious about another lens, then you might benefit in a UWA (Ultra Wide Angle).

Both Sigma 10-20, and Tamron 10-24 are very popular and in your price bracket. Then you wouldn't have to worry about possible vignetting until hovering down around the 10mm range.
http://www.adorama.com/SG1020PXAFG.html
http://www.adorama.com/TM1024PXAF.html

In fact with my Sigma 10-20 at low end I still use a Slim CPL (Polariser filter) on it with no hesitation.
Pedantic technical purity will never over ride artistic creative beauty in my mind.
Depends on which one values I guess.

But you're always free to ask the non-photog-geek 'ordinary' folk in the street if the vignetting is evil and spoils your pic. I bet they laugh.

And isn't that what your tagline is all about?

.R.

False dichotomy, perhaps?

Thanks very much everyone, there's a lot to think about. I will be on the lookout for the 16-45 for sure. Going through the K-x manual I see corection for distorsion and chromatic aberration but nothing on vignetting. Also I love the scenery in the hour before sunrise and after sunset so that is why I would prefer as much control as possible on vignetting.

Thanks to you all, it's all very helpful

On reading back I ack that it surely could be construed that way by some but it certainly wasn't meant that way.
The second sentence I'd put there for that reason.

And the post was Gestalt context anyway, not intended for selective dissection and definitely not compliant to the Twitter/SMS attention-span audience needs. (if you know what I mean)

.R.

thought it also corrected vignetting these options, my mistake.

vignetting is easy to remove on the pc, i wouldn't worry too much.

No you're right, there's zilch built into the K-x to manage that at in-camera PP level.

I see you use one of the same photo software as I do though, Corel PSP Pro. I run the latest version V3_3.2 and thought it might have a vignette fix feature - but can't see any in Help I'm afraid.

So that's unfortunately a non-solution just in case you might have wanted to fix some precious existing photos.

However I also run Photoshop Express 8 and that does have 2 controls under its Correct Camera Distortion section;
"Vignette Amount" and "Vignette Midpoint".

Sorry, never used that part myself so can't vouch to what level it might work, but there might be other softwares out there too for the purpose.
If not, why not? Vignette is not an uncommon problem.

Others here who are more into post processing might be able to advise what they know.

.R.

Well it just so happens I got a copy of PS Elements 7.0 with my Epson scanner a few months ago. I just gave it a try and it works! Though it's going to take some work to get the correct adjustment.

Many thanks

Great. Hope it works for you, and that it's not too laborious a job because I might need to attack the problem myself one day. (I hate PP)

Another thing I noted with your pic that ?might? be worth looking into in future, you took that one at ISO800 1/400th f/7.1 ...

So I wonder if the aperture had been stopped down to say; f/13 -- and corresponding shutter speed would slow to about hmm... 1/125th 1/60th ? maybe, still comfortable for handhold -- might that have eliminated or at least reduced the vignetting?
Speculating here, how much would it need?

Again those here with more experience with the lens might be able to call on that.

I shall experiment when time permits.

.R.