Nikon Z Mirrorless Lenses
Nikon Z lens line has been almost entirely missing. The only profile available right now is the 24-70mm f/4. Here is the list of needed profiles for lenses at the retailers right now:
Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.2 S
Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S
Nikkor Z 24-50mm f/4.0-6.3
Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 S
Nikkor Z 24-200mm f/4.0-6.3 VR
Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S
Nikkor Z 58mm f/0.95 S NOCT
Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR
Nikkor Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR
Nikkor Z 24mm f/1.8 S
Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.8 S
Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S
Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S
Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.8 S
Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S
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Gary,
I'm pretty sure that the Capture One team probably know this list quite well.
Also how many of the lenses are actually used to a significant degree by C1 users.
No doubt they have also assessed the most commonly used lenses based on the Nikon Provided "Manufacturer Profile" supplied for the Lens/Body combination. For popular lenses where they might feel that their testing and adjustments can improve on Nikon's efforts they may well have created some profiles. However for any lenses where the Nikon efforts seem reasonably complete they might not bother. Especially if no one would notice the difference.
Maybe they should just duplicate the Nikon adjustments and add their own naming convention and a separate file. No on would know ...
However, I think the most important thing for people to consider is that the option to suggest lenses for Profiling is all very well but the output is constrained by the amount of effort and knowledgeable resource available to undertake the work.
So the concept of offering an opportunity for people to make suggestions is based on people asking for what they want that would really help them rather than just creating a list of lenses.
If people suggest lenses that they really want the total number of requests by lens can be used to prioritize which one to look at first. That will cover manufacturer lenses and third party lenses, although in the case of recent lenses and recent bodies the original issues about complete lack of lens adjustment digital support from previous eras has greatly reduced (via embedded data in lens and camera.)
Interestingly this seems to be less the case, currently, for Canon products. So in market coverage terms, based on equipment sold, it might make better commercial sense to cover all of the Canon lenses first.
Or maybe all of the mobile phone cameras and lenses - another group of products that people seem keen to use with C1. Drones too. Lots to do.
Out of interest, what are the most common short comings you are finding with all of the lenses on the list?
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No doubt all these lenses need to be a priority. The Holy Trinity of both Nikkor DSLR and Mirrorless lens lines are the 14-24mm f/2.8, 24-70mm f/2.8, and the 70-200mm f/2.8. Every pro, and a good number of prosumers, purchase those lenses first. These pivotal lenses are all missing from the list. You will probably also see these focal length to be just as popular for Canon as they are for Nikon.
The super wide angle lenses (Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S and Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S) exhibit a good deal of distortion at the wide end of the zoom range and would speed thing up considerably if there was an option for those profiles. Maybe the blame belongs to Nikon, since they have not shared their formula of optics and electronics with the third party lens makers like Tamron and Sigma. That's why you don't see those other brands making lenses for the Nikon Z format.
Both Adobe and Nikon's own post processors are already loaded with data on the Holy Trinity, and the Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S. In fact, some shooters are upset that there is no option to defeat the profiles because they are applied automatically. In the correction process, the edges of the frame are cropped out so those in the know are adding extra space in anticipation that it will not be seen in the image being worked. Capture One needn't be overly concerned that Nikon's post processors are applying the profiles, but should be aware that Adobe is already there.
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Gary,
What do you think that Adobe is doing that improves on the Nikon adjustments (as applied when you see "Manufacturer Profile" in the Lens Tool in Capture One)?
Do you think the apparent connection between Nikon and Capture One now that the are specific Nikon releases for Capture One may be influencing how things like Lens corrections as addressed?
Realistically if the Nikon corrections from the lens are as good as they should be - given modern lens design is very likely to rely on software correction of images as you point out - what would be the point of replicating that work already undertaken by Nikon?
Why would you (and the rest of us) want to pay for such duplication through the pricing of C1?
As a Canon user I certainly would not.
As far as I can tell from reading the forum over several years the majority of users (who engage here in the forum) are only interested in their own (current) hardware. Hence the introduction of the Manufacturer specific versions. (Or maybe because of the introduction of the Manufacturer specific versions?)
But in any case the issue for Capture one has, in the past, been about satisfying identified need based on real use and the volume of use combined with user specific requests.
Hiding specific requests (for lenses that one actually has an uses regularly) in a generic list of manufacturer lenses may not have much point. Perhaps if you have statistics to indicate that 1 million new users would sign up if all of the lenses were listed as supported (better still that you have 1 million orders to place right away in that situation) you would a great deal of attention immediately. Possibly to the detriment of the rest of the product for a short time.
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SFA,
The reality today is that lenses are more quickly designed using CAD, etc., but manufacturing costs are likely going up. Based upon a recent announcement, Nikon has moved all their lens manufacturing to Thailand which I'm sure was an economic decision. They started in Japan, moved it to China with some in Thailand, and now all there. Economics is the reason why few lens makers will go the extra mile to create lenses that avoid distortion issues. When was the last time you heard that a lens maker produced a true rectilinear, let alone one that was affordably priced? You're more likely to see flat field product from Leica or Zeiss, but not from the top 3 brands from Japan that have a tradition of producing great quality that more people can afford. We're going to see more manufacturers relying upon software to do the simple quick fixes. Canon and Nikon still offer shift lenses, but the market is very small and the prices are very high. Most shooters, save for the guys doing architecture and special perspective work, won't be springing for that kind of product.
I watched a YouTube review of the Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S showing the untouched image versus the same image opened with Lightroom and Nikon NX-D RAW. With the uncorrected image, pincushion distortion was what I consider extreme, and keystone was a problem any time the lens was tilted up or down, even just a little. The natively processed image in Lightroom and NX-D was automatically improved. Not everyone would be happy with that, but I'm guessing that there's just as big a group happy to have the help. In Wisconsin, I shot for many historical societies, taking interiors of their landmark buildings, mostly shot with the Nikkor 16-35mm f/4G and 14-24mm f/2.8G. It was not unusual to come back from one location with hundreds of frames to process in a day. I never liked spending hours in front of the computer just doing the repetitive stuff, so I set up my own routines to speed up the workflow.
We agree that economics drives the software people as well. There's no such thing as unlimited resources, so they have to be judging what features to work on and which ones will take the back burner. I was just so surprised to only find the Capture One had just a single Nikkor Z lens listed. They are just a little less stingy with Canon's RF series (19 models in all), by listing only 4 models.
It's interesting to note that Capture One has more Sony lens models listed than they do Canon. Until very recently, Sony was the #3 camera manufacturer (all mirrorless), while Canon and Nikon held the first two spots. Obviously, popularity wasn't the only logic Capture One used to determine which models they would spend their resources listing.
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Gary,
I think the software correction approach really took off for lens manufacturers around the time that Micro 4/3rds arrived. The processing power required had become possible with the ability to match user speed expectation well enough. The small cameras required small lenses to be successful and the "lens speed" requirements traditionally meant large lens with a lot of glass. So a different approach was required to produce small, light lenses.
Obviously as things have progressed in the past decade or so and smartphone cameras have steadily improved we now have got to the point where the "traditional" camera market is in decline and anyone operating in what remains of the digital era boom in camera and lens sales for the non-niche parts of the market needs to be attempting to produce lenses more cheaply and at a higher profit margin.
I am slightly surprised at the the current level of market activity in new camera introductions and the lens activity along side that. (Given the current economic situation - but then these products will have been in development for a while so I guess holding them back offers no benefit.)
Now camera tech developments that succeed tended to have a life span of about 20 to 30 years before another change came about. Think lens fitting engineering and the need to completely replace lens system when upgrading. If a manufacturer can deliver the right product and sell it in enough volume they will sell both cameras and a new set of lenses. Anything they can to to force a complete system change when times get tough will be to their financial benefit - especially in the case of lenses where the potential to "fix" design and manufacturing "limitations" in software post sale must be extremely attractive.
As for the Sony list of lenses. Sony have the longest track record of Manufacturer partnership with Capture One and have over the year produced a huge number of lenses. As the C1 lens correction process has historically required a lens to be assessed in house and is quite a resource intensive task (we have been advised in the past) I would guess they worked mainly with the most used lenses from all manufacturers, but maybe most lenses from some other premium sources and then whatever a partner agreement made possible or, perhaps, dictated.
It would certainly be interesting to know what drives the lens correction support decisions although I suspect that most new lenses these days are pretty well digitally corrected by the manufacturers (if they are doing themselves any favours) and trying to add recognisable benefit to them independently may offer a very poor return on the investment with little or no visible difference in the end result. It may even be that manufacturers have automated batch by batch analysis and correction values for lenses. That would aid agile manufacturing concepts but make independent lens correction analysis a completely uneconomic activity. (Note that I am just speculating but it would be surprising if such things were not happening - even if only "because they can".)
Since the recent Nikkor Z lenses seem to have "Manufacturer profile" Profiles showing in C1 presumably they can be considered acceptable on the basis that "if they are good enough for Nikon they should be as good as they can get consistently across production runs."
Other manufacturers may be doing the same thing. We have in the forum seen Fuji users bemoaning the fact that a C1 profile for a Fuji lens (where such exists) is, in their opinion, not as "good" as the Fuji profile but is selected by default. They wish to be able to always select the Manufacturer Profile as the default default. I would guess that a manufacturer might also want to "encourage" the purchase of new "better" lenses rather than the supply of profiles offering improvements for older lenses.
For some of the most recent extremely high resolution sensors a change of glass and some very specific profiling if that glass may be the only way to obtain the benefits the sensor and the body that surrounds it can promise. As a Canon user I am well aware that, for example, optimum focusing performance in high end bodies has only been available (with certainty) when using specific lenses and sometimes limited settings ranges.
If it is necessary to deal with all sort of special associated requirements in a profile if it is to fully support the data in a RAW image things could quickly become overly complicated and costly in terms of time needed to try to complete the work.
Maybe it's time for some explanations about strategy. My guess is that the marketing people would need some time to adjust things before any statements on lens adjustments could be allowed to go public - not matter what information those statements might contain.
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SFA,
I like your perspective on things.
Being firmly ensconced in the DSLR environment, I didn't pay attention to the rise of the Micro 4/3rds development. I did work with APS-C when I used a small kit centered around the Canon M5. It is quite an impressive line, even without full support from Canon. Word is that 2021 will be the last year of production, with maybe a product or two introduced in the next few months. As a "walk around" camera, I mostly used their 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3. My sample was amazingly devoid of pincushion at the widest setting. That isn't to say that sharpness on the edges was as good as in the center, but that's true of many mass produced lenses. At that time, I was mostly using On1 for post. There was no auto correction turned on.
The big lie that marketers continue to use to get us to buy the next generation of camera/format is that we will take much better pictures due to their new product. I'm sure you know that it's not the equipment but the shooter that makes the biggest difference. It's not all fake tonic, though. For me, life got a lot easier when Nikon automated taking HDR and focus stacked images. Both were possible manually, but having it dialed in automatically was like graduating from a car with crank windows to one with power. Our parents lived during a time when affordable air conditioning was only a dream. Now, we take it for granted for the most part.
Nikon introduced the F mount in 1959, some 61 years ago. That was way back before computer design was available. With credit given to computer design, they were able to support that format for such a long time. An interesting question is whether Nikon would have evolved toward the new Z format if it wasn't for the competition presented to it by Sony? Did they have board room battles decades before regarding the need/desire to leave the F mount in favor of something else? Did they know, even back then, that making the mount wider would solve lens design limitations that kept them from producing better results and lower production costs (save for material costs i.e. brass, aluminum, poly-carbonate, and of course glass).
Wasn't there some dust up regarding Canon making a mount change, maybe 20 years ago? As a Canon shooter, you might know about that.
You're correct regarding the Sony and C1 connection. I briefly owned a Sony A6400 but was ultimately unhappy with their color profile. For me, it was like the comparison I had to make between Kodak E100VS (on the way out) and Fujichrome's Velvia (on the way in). With the purchase of the A6400, you got a slimmed down version of C1 for free. It was a good post processor but not as feature rich as Lightroom 4 or 5 at that time. I didn't try the pro version of C1 because I was a power user of Lightroom. Anyway, perhaps it wasn't until very early last year that Phase One/Capture One 20 added profiles for common exposure and lens corrections. Were there profiles earlier than that? I've only been using C1 seriously for maybe 4 months now. There's much that I still need to learn.
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You should probably read this:
https://learn.captureone.com/blog-posts/lens-correction-in-capture-one-the-essentials/
I own a Z7 II (two of them), including the trinity and a couple of 1.8 lenses. As well as some F mount lenses over the adapter.
I understand that one want's to see the name of your lens show up directly, but my results here with the "manufactures profile" are actually quiet good. What is it that you are observing that you believe a custom profile would be able to solve? The distortion wide open on the wideangle? I don't believe that this would get fixed per se. When you read the above mentioned article, you see how little additonal work is done in an individual profile on top of the manufactures one.
The interesting aspect of using a manufactures profile is, that, in theory, this can be customized per individual lens. In theory, i am not sure if that is happening. But the data does come from the lens, not the body, if i am not mistaken, and hence a lens could in general provide individual correction data.
Not sure exactly when CaptureOne added profiles, but it's been a while. The post talks about improvements being made in v8 vs v7... And then with the success of more and more electronic lenses, it became less and less of an issue, as the lenses provided their own data.
Anyhow, if sony, canon and nikon etc provide good enough manufactures data, not sure what i want individual lens correction for. I want more lenses :)
Frank
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Hi Frank,
Thanks for the link to CaptureOne's article on lens profiles. It was helpful in understanding what kinds of resources are applied to adding lens profiles, both from the manufacturer supply side and the possible extra work that they themselves might do. As with any explanation, I look at what is being said and what is not.
No doubt the most important thing that needs to happen in the Z environment is more lenses. In the short term, I'd like to see the 105mm micro is on the list for this year, just for starters. I understand the logic behind the decisions made at Nikon in choosing to develop the lenses that they have already. The speed at which they are working through the list is admirable.
Nikon feels the pressure to broaden their Z lens line quickly, with an eye to need and price point. I purchased the Z 14-30mm f/4 S with full knowledge of the wicked pincushion distortion, assuming that I would have to do a lot of correction before anything else. The 14-24mm f/2.8 does a better job at the wide end, but it costs a lot more and isn't needed by me since I mainly shoot the interiors of homes of the 18th and 19th centuries using a tripod at base ISO. Long exposures are not an issue in my work. It isn't likely that Nikon plans to market a true rectilinear wide, and if they did it would be prohibitively expensive and way down the road. My kit right now includes a Z7II, Z5 backup body, the aforementioned 14-30mm, 24-70mm f/2.8 S, and 70-200mm f/2.8 S. I'll be in the market for a macro in the short run, and might consider a longer telephoto similar to the F 200-500mm f/5.6E.
While you could establish a routine to deal with pincushion distortion, it seems like extra work when both Nikon and Adobe have the standard corrections already baked into their post processing software. This is the first time that I've been active in the forums, so I'll apologize in advance if this question has been covered before. Is it from user's or manufacturer's (or both) requests that CaptureOne agrees to put resources behind creating lens profiles? Is there a reason why CaptureOne hasn't just loaded Nikon's manufacturer supplied profile if it truly is a quick and inexpensive process to do so?
No doubt, Sony executed a brilliant marketing strategy that included having the bulk of their line (mirrorless lenses, of course) added to CaptureOne software. I'm guessing here, but perhaps because Sony was early in the mirrorless category, CaptureOne saw it as a way to differentiate themselves from other processors, at least in the short term. Does CaptureOne ask manufacturers to finance their development of profiles? As I mentioned in an earlier posting, CaptureOne is only offering 4 Canon RF lenses out of the 19 currently in the line, or about 21%. For Nikon, it's 1 Z lens out of 16, or just over 5%. Again, just wondering, but is the secret sauce for adding a lens profile a combination of user requests, manufacturer requests, available CaptureOne resources, and of course, money?
Gary
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I am looking also for much more Z-Lens Support.
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I am also looking for a full support of Z-lenses. At least, 24-70 mm f 2.8, 70-200 mm f 2.8, the 50 mm f 1.2, all the f1.8 primes and the wide-angle zooms f 2.8 and f 4.
Even Photolab 4 now have support for thoses lenses.0
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