Lens corrections applied or not?

[seanmatheny]

I have followed RAW Photos for the last few years and really love the concept, and Nik’s vision. Although I’ve got some really nice lenses and gear, my post processing needs are typically fairly modest, and I like the idea of having everything in one Apple Photos iCloud library (DSLR and phone). For the handful of 5-stars I take in a year, I’ll use Photoshop or similar to do more intensive work for printing. I really want to have one (relatively) immutable photo library in the cloud, but there’s always been a few key features missing from Photos, some of which you have somehow addressed with v3.0, such as batch edits and star ratings/flags.

One thing that I’m not sure about is whether the Apple RAW engine is adding lens corrections to my RAW files or not. I’ve searched for this online, and it seems Apple is vague about which cameras and lenses are supported.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8117790
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7367716

I have very typical/mainstream Canon OEM lenses, and for images from each and every lens I use, I see “Lens Correction not supported by this file” in the edit pane of RAW Photos. Yet, when I view images from my Canon 50mm f/1.8, notorious for a few stops of vignette wide-open, they look corrected for this, or at least about the same as in Lightroom after a lens correction profile has been applied. (I could be viewing wishfully, of course.)

Is there any clarity around whether lens corrections are applied or not? Can I trust the RAW Power notice that Lens Corrections haven’t been applied by the Apple RAW engine?

Thanks in advance,
Sean

[Nik Bhatt]

Hi Sean,

These are good questions. Apple’s RAW engine is quite limited in its lens correction. Mostly it works for fixed lens cameras (e.g Sony RX 100), micro 4/3rd and newer cameras like the Nikon Z series (I think). They don’t list which ones they support for this.

It’s unlikely that lens correction is being applied for your 50mm 1.8 but it might depend on the camera body. Perhaps there is a crop being applied – I cannot say without looking at the RAW myself.

Yes, RAW Power will detect if lens corrections are being applied. I hope to do more with lens correction in the future, but I do not know for sure what my plans are.

[Author]

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