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Field Curvature Analysis (Nikon D810, Mosaic)
Shot at ISO 64 with 36-megapixel Nikon D810 (mid-2014).
See Field Curvature and its case studies in Making Sharp Images for in-depth discussion of field curvature.
Few if any lenses are entirely free of field curvature; it’s only a matter of degree and “shape”. Understanding field curvature is key to getting the best out of any and every lens, because often focus can be tweaked slightly to achieve superior results for a particular subject. But for that, one has to understand the shape of the curvature relative to the subject.
What does MTF tell us?
The Otus 85/1.4 APO-Planar tightly controls field curvature as the MTF chart shows us with a relatively uniform MTF across the frame. However, it is not flat and has some undulation to the curves (here we are mainly concerned with the bottom curve, which is 40 line pairs/mm which corresponds to micro contrast of very fine details).
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Diglloyd Guide to Zeiss offers comprehensive integrated coverage of Zeiss DSLR lenses for Canon and Nikon. Nearly a decade in the making, it covers everything you need to know for every lens in the ZF.2, ZE, Milvus and Otus lines. Guide to Mirrorless and Zeiss ZM rangefinder lenses in Guide to Leica.
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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.
