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Field Illumination (Vignetting) and Off-Center Color Balance
Apparent light fall-off is a combination of optical characteristics, aperture used, and sensor technology. Both brightness and color are at play.
One way to assess field illumination is comparing the lens to itself: stopping it down to see more uniform coverage over the aperture range. Another approach is to compare to another lens of the same focal length. Both approaches will be used here.
See also Vignetting at diglloyd.com as well as the Artistic Considerations section for the 18/3.5 Distagon.
Setup and processing
The target for this test was an off-white posterboard. Testing against a Macbeth Color Checker showed that the poster board is very close to perfectly neutral.
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Want a preview? Click on any page below to see an excerpt. And see Lloyd’s articles for Lenspire.Zeiss.com.
