how to reduce vignetting for wide-angle lenses on Letus35?

Reese-015

Member
Here's my problem: we're a small group of people and we're doing a feature-length movie with the Letus35 (shot with a Sony PDX-10P though, I know this is a DVX forum but it seemed like the best place to ask).

To get decent shots in most locations, most of it will have to be shot with something like a 28mm lens. We have a very good Nikon 28mm f2 lens and it seems to be making for less vignetting than most... Still, the vignetting remains a serious problem as it can sometimes even reduce the 28mm angle to something that looks more like 40mm because we need to zoom.

Putting some macro's between the camera and the adapter seems to help a tiny bit and I also notice that the vignetting increases in low light so just decently lighting the set does wonders too.

However, we're still looking for ways to reduce it without zooming in (much) because it's very important to be able to use the wide angle the lens offers.

Any insightful suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
 
You should try different macro lenses between the camera and the letus. Or try a +10 straight away. It'll minimize your need for zoom and it'll give you a bit more elbow room to work with.
 
rawfa said:
You should try different macro lenses between the camera and the letus. Or try a +10 straight away. It'll minimize your need for zoom and it'll give you a bit more elbow room to work with.

Right now I have three macro lenses that I can put in between, 4+, 2+ and 1+. The 4+ improves it noticeably, adding the two others only has a very subtle effect.

Now considering we're doing a 'no-budget' production for important conceptual reasons, we can't go buying extra macro lenses etc so I'm looking for simple tips and very DIY solutions.
 
BTW right now I'm also experimenting with shooting at 1/25 shutter speed to get more light out as this seems to drastically reduce vignetting as well but I'm not sure if this would make for pleasing results.
 
I might be able to get a hold of a +10 macro lens, how big is the chance that this will get rid of most of the vignetting? If I stack up tha +4, +2 and +1 I already get noticeable vignetting reduction. Can I stack the +10 on top of this?
 
make sure your camera's "steady shot" is turned off. if it's on, any light vignetting will shake around. when it's off, there is also less vignetting
 
You could shoot a blank gray card and design a color correction in post that would counteract the vignetting. Not fun, I know.

-Stu
 
ProLost said:
You could shoot a blank gray card and design a color correction in post that would counteract the vignetting. Not fun, I know.

-Stu

Yup, that actually works but can only be used to do some minimal vignetting reduction, otherwise there is quality loss near the edges. But it's a good tip, I combine it with the macro lenses and a few other tricks and I can already get pretty far...
 
adoyle said:
make sure your camera's "steady shot" is turned off. if it's on, any light vignetting will shake around. when it's off, there is also less vignetting

Great, didn't know that yet, thanks for that one!
 
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