Mystery in the rain.
This image was taken on a rainy day in downtown Albany, NY during a college visit with my son.
I used my UWA lens correction profile to remove distortion from the ultrawide lens in the iPhone 11 Pro. Cars were parked in the roadway and the sidewalk was narrow, dictating the use of the ultrawide optic. Rain? Not a problem with the iPhone’s waterproof design.
Here’s the uncorrected image:
Pizzeria – straight out of camera.
No more mustaches.
Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.
Here’s an index of the iPhone 11 Pro pieces:
Part I – The revolution realized
Part II – Upgrading
Part III – The ultrawide lens
Part IV – The Normal lens
Part V – The Telephoto lens
Part VI – The Focos app
Part VII – Quirks and anomalies
Part VIII – HDR and the Night Mode
Part IX – The digital zoom function
Part X – A lens correction profile for the ultrawide optic
It’s common when correcting distortions in ultrawide lenses to end up with a ‘mustache’ effect in originally straight lines. You can see it in my corrected images taken with the otherwise excellent 20mm f/3.5 UD Nikkor.
The 1.54mm (13mm equivalent on FFE) ultrawide (UWA) lens in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro suffers from this malady. Use the distortion correction slider in LR and you get the mustache.
Here’s the uncorrected original image – Apple applies no distortion correction to images taken with the UWA:
You can correct the distortion using this setting in the LR Develop module, and get the mustache distortion:
Or you can manually invoke my newly created lens correction profile for the UWA thus, using the Develop module, for truly straight lines at the edges:
Here is the comparison of the LR corrected image, left, with that corrected using my lens correction profile, on the right:
Now you can use that wild UWA lens in the iPhone 11/11 Pro for architectural images.
Go to my Lens Profiles page to download the profile – jump to the end. That page includes installation instructions which must be followed carefully if the profile is to show up in the LR Develop module.
This profile works with JPGs only, not with RAW files unlike the other profiles in that linked page.
Re-purposed.
Diverse.
‘Re-purposed’ is hardly the most elegant of English words, but this building in old Albany, the NY state capital, has indeed suffered this fate.
Back in the day it served as home to a diverse collection of businesses, as the fascinating signage indicates.
iPhone 11 Pro, verticals corrected in Photoshop.
Even better second time around.
We previously toured Union College in May, 2017 and loved its compact and high quality feel. Since then my son Winston has interviewed with the school and decided to visit it for a second tour, which we took yesterday. This time we were guided by a sophomore student.
Union College clearly reinvests its ample cash flow in facilities and there’s not a tired building to be found. The new Science Center, a $100 million capital investment, opened in late 2018 and will be completed come the fall of 2020. It is magnificent, as you should expect for that sort of money.
Our tour, conducted by the enthusiastic Sophia Anderson, commences.
Fall colors frame a unified architectural style.
Inide the Philip R. Beuth ’54 atrium which bridges common areas and the library.
These students are studying the Microscopic Characteristics of Catalytic Aerogels.
That’s fire retardants in English.
The new Science Center cost $100 million and is almost finished. A wonder to behold.
Bad leg spotted in one of the many student common areas.
The F. W. Olin Center, funded by the arms manufacturer’s foundation.
Two symmetrical wings flank a central circular rotunda, which rises through
the three above-grade floors of the building. Science is studied here.
“Formulating strong theses”. One of the mandatory classes – the other is on
how to conduct professional research – at Union College. English as she is wrote.
The Henle Dance Pavilion, one of two Theater facilities.
Part of the 8 acres of formal garden is visible.
The color of the architecture is conformed throughout the many campus buildings.
The Minerva concept sees freshmen grouped into dorms with
discretionary funding to do their own thing.
This was a great experience complemented by an excellent tour guide.
We dined at Johnny’s Italian Restaurant in nearby Schenectady, a short walk away, expecting the Sopranos to enter at any moment.
iPhone 11 Pro snaps.
Computational photography at its best.
Nikon just reintroduced its Noct Nikkor which boasts an aperture of f/0.95 and is about the size of a Mack truck. At $8,000 the price is comparably huge. Leica has long had its f/0.95 Noctilux at a scant $11,000+. Neither could have done a good job, fully open, of this snap, taken last night in near darkness at The Olde English Pub in Albany:
Winston contemplates the annual cod harvest.
You see, the depth of field of those gargantuan optics is less than the distance from my son’s eyes to the tip of his nose, at f/0.95. And if you do not use these lenses fully open, why use them at all? Further, everything but the eyes would be blurred, and I really wanted that Union Jack to be clearly discernible. Third, both are manual focus and while the Nikon’s finder comes with a focus confirmation light, the Leica’s rangefinder can barely do its job at f/1.4. F/0.95? Be prepared to work that focus collar and take multiple snaps. Finally, dynamic range would be shot, the highlights hopelessly burned out.
Then again, the iPhone used to take this snap has 8.5 billion transistors in its CPU to do all the magic, which includes taking 9 images in Night Mode, picking the best bits and doing all sorts of things I will never understand to deliver broad dynamic range. The Leica and Nikon? 8.5 billion fewer transistors.
The recorded exposure? 1/4 second at f/1.8, ISO 800. The result? Stunningly sharp, with a quick pass through Focos to add a touch of background blur. The blur lens of choice? Why, none other than the 50mm f/2.8 Elmar which came with my Leica M3 in 1971.
The result? A picture of a young man on top of his game, with straight As at mid-semester in his Senior year at prep scool, and looking forward to four years at college.
My beer? Served 10F too cold. What else would you expect of a former colony?