I am evaluating the Venus Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens for Micro Four Thirds on an OM-1 II body; if it fails my evaluation, I shall return it for a full refund. The lens is fully manual and produces a circular fisheye image. I am attempting to “de-fish” the ORF raw files and to compare the results with images taken with a wide angle rectilinear lens after post using PL9 Elite Complete current production. As the lens has no electronic contacts, the body does not identify the lens in the EXIF of the image file. Is there any method to make PL recognise the lens? Will PL9 Elite complete that has a “fisheye distortion” correction be able to de-fish raw images files with this lens?
PL reads file metadata in order to assign a DxO module.
No metadata = No find, moreover, there seems to be no module either.
A workaround would be to check supported fisheyes and edit the RAW files with ExifTool to make PL select the respective module. Whether the results will fit your imagination remains to be seen.
Laowa’s 4mm fish isn’t supported by DxO, but there are a few lenses you could try to mimic.
I already have the OM 8mm 1.8 Fisheye. PL has more or less worked for that diagonal fisheye. I wanted something wider for applications in which I either could not or did not want to use a tripod, panohead, and stitch images to make a pano or ultrawide angle view (such as under a tree canopy). BH had the Venus Laowa 4mm on deal of the day, and thus there was no time to research the lens – as it turns out even on MFT format, it is a circular fisheye (I have a Sigma circular fisheye in EF mount for which I use an EF to Z adapter, and it works perfectly on my Z8/Z9, much better than than the Nikon 8-15 zoom fisheye). My plan was to use the 4mm circular fisheye in OM-1 II handheld high resolution (producing a raw – ORF – image file of comparable resolution to a Nikon Z8/Z9) and then de-fish. After de-fishing, I planned to use the PL loupe to compare image quality to various other lenses and verify that the lens would be adequate for my work. However, if I cannot de-fish then the lens must be returned to BH. Are there other applications that might de-fish “better”?
Possibly, but why get a fishlens if it’s going to be defished anyway?
(Rhetoric question, no answer expected.)
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@platypus
Because you can get wider, better images than from the widest rectilinear lenses
Doesn’t make sense for the OP, who wanted to defish …
Wider, not necessarily “better” depending upon the MTF of the lens, the sensor resolution, and the intended use. I use a fisheye – defished in workflow – for under tree canopy images and for panoramics . The latter use avoids the use of a pano head and stitching; the former use is enabled as PL Elite complete does an excellent job of correcting the exposure dynamic range. I have tried fill flash for tree canopy images, but no portable flash has sufficient light output over an adequate angle of illumination to provide much good (the massive field setups, with porters, are not practical for me as I do not have a Nat Geo, etc, crew). But, for now, the Venus Laowa MFT circular fisheye is of no use to me and probably will be returned for refund.
@wildlifephoto
I don’t think you will get what you are looking for with the Laowa 4mm. It is spec’d at 210° (actual circle closer to 207°). Rectilinear scenes state to fall apart at 100°, with the maximum around 120° (depends of elements in scene). That is why the widest rectilinear lenses are 6mm MFT (Laowa 6mm 2.0…which has electronics…@100°) and 12mm FF. Even at 100, there will be stretching at edges…and increasing in the outer 15-25% as the FOV increases.
I had the Laowa 4mm, but sold it. The 210°FOV makes it very difficult to shoot with. I found any grip (like on G9) blocked image, so I could only use a rangefinder-like GX9…..plus my feet often were in image.
Your 8mm 1.8, using DxO should give you between 110° and 115° (depending if you select ‘maximum rectangle’…this is based on my use of PureRAW 4)….which is wider than the Laowa 6mm. DxO works well, but I have found that often the outer edges are unacceptably stretch, with no adjustment, other than cropping, available.
You can get wider FOV by using software such as PTgui. With the 8mm 1.8, I can make a rectilinear projection up to almost 131°FOV, with compression adjustments to reduce stretching artifacts (yes with tradeoffs) or other projections available base of scene. Said differently, DxO will give you about a 5mm rectilinear equivalent, PTgui about 4.3mm.
If you want slightly wider, the Panasonic 8mm 3.5 is actually 7.8mm and gives a rectilinear projection of a little more than 135° (3.6mm equivalent).
I tested an old Laowa 4mm in PTgui (in their database). It handles it well for many things, such as 360° projections, but any rectilinear projections needed to be severely cropped. I could not compare to like 8mm images.
A further note, if you want really wide, combining multiple images is the way to go. I’ve done this with both rectilinear and fisheye lenses. Again, PTgui is a great way to do it. If PTgui is a bit pricey for you, you might look into ‘Hugin’, though I have not used it.
John,
From your reply, I am guessing that (1) you use MFT bodies, and (2) you are either a working photographer or a well practiced and studied prosumer. I have the Laowa zero-d 6 mm manual focus electronic contacts MFT rectilinear that, save for manual focus and is 12 mm equivalent in 35 mm format, is very similar to my Laowa 10 mm full automation full frame Z mount lens. (ManuaI focus with red speckle focus assist is fine for the static subjects for which I use the lens.) I also have PTgui for panos (not that user friendly). For defishing, I had Imadio Hemi plugin (I used with Affinity that accepts that type of PS plugin) and have used it both for circular and diagonal fisheyes, but for supported diagonal fisheyes, PL Elite complete typically has been adequate. (Adequate: the image after workflow is accepted by a client, not “winning a prize”, not Ansel Adams gallery work.) Note that Imadio seems to be “gone” – I cannot find a working website nor will the software activate (in the past, I had to contact Imadio support when the licensed copy I had would not activate). I was hoping that the Laowa 4 mm would be good for panos and under tree canopy. Both of these situations can have (very) high contrast ratios within the image for which PL Elite complete typically does an adequate job on raw images – images created without bracketing exposures using modern “matrix” metering (the Z8/Z9 has a bit better matrix metering than the OM-1 II, but not that much better). I rarely use Affinity (currently Canva Affinity 3 as Serif Affinity 2 appears to be obsolete) as my production workflow now is almost exclusively DxO PL Elite complete. I do not rent the Adobe suite (and will NOT rent PL if DxO decides to go to the rental model).