It’s time to revisit the subject of LCC’s (Lens Cast Calibration) within Capture One and how they benefit various photographic needs, within the typical use cases of photography, technical camera photography as well as within the world of art reproduction. The primary and original use for the LCC was to equalize color and tone variability of technical camera lenses when captured digitally. With any lens there is a natural amount of vignette that can manifest from the center of the capture to the edges, and most of the time this isn’t an issue for image making, in fact I typically like the natural subtle vignette of optics. When capturing with traditional view cameras or technical cameras however, heaver artifacts and asymmetric vignettes can present that need mitigation, especially when pushing out the edges of the optical projection to the sensor. The process of creating a LCC to remove lens cast is simple and straightforward: • At the time of shooting your practical shots, and again for any new & unique configuration of camera movements, place a piece of milky plexiglass (like the Pocket LCC Lens Cast Correction Tool) at the lens and make a proper exposure for the LCC process which typically about +2 stops of time increase over your practical exposure so that the rise of your mid-tone to highlight histogram bubble is in the right 2/3rds, making sure not to clip the edge of it off the overexposed side. • Import your practical images and your raw LCC files into Capture One • Identify the LCC ‘characterization image’ within the thumbnails, right-click on it and ‘Create LCC’, making sure that ‘Color Cast’ and ‘Enable Uniform Light’ boxes are both checked. • Select the LCC and any images you want to augment with the LCC, right click and ‘Apply LCC’ Viola! The color cast and vignette are removed. The LCC essentially identifies the color cast & light fall off and Capture One basically applies a reverse curve to the custom color/tone mask that the LCC has identified, removing them from the RAW source image. (You must shoot RAW to take advantage of this tool!) It is important that the image to serve as the LCC is properly exposed to the brightest portion approaching the limits of the sensor, typically in 8-bit exposure numbers you want to see ~245 as your brightest value as this brings up the number of shades of change in the lower color numbers where it’s pivotal to have more rather than less shades of grey to gracefully reverse vignette shadows and color pollution. Related to this subject is the use of a portion of this same LCC process for uses within Art Reproduction in order to equalize out light on set for an added level of precision, discussed in The Reproduction Lighting Trick that will save you HOURS. For More Resources from Brad Kaye and the Medium Format Experts Follow Us, & Subscribe to Our Newsletter! Recent Blogs from Brad Kaye

It’s time to revisit the subject of LCC’s (Lens Cast Calibration) within Capture One and how they benefit various photographic needs, within the typical use cases of photography, technical camera photography and less known within the world of art reproduction.   The primary and original use for the LCC was to equalize color and tone variability of technical camera lenses when captured digitally.  With any lens there is a natural amount of vignette that can manifest from the center of the capture to the edges, and most of the time this isn’t an issue for image making, in fact I typically like the natural subtle vignette of optics.  When capturing with traditional view cameras or technical cameras however, heavier artifacts and asymmetric vignettes can present that require mitigation.   Within the realm of art reproduction, not only will the lens require some subtle vignette removal, but if your lighting isn’t perfectly uniform, the LCC process can be of massive benefit and a time saver for precisely equalizing light values across your set. In the case below and in the video that accompanies this post, I’ve purposely set the lights at different distances from the art reproduction set and also varied the light output side to side to a truly unreasonable level to demonstrate this point. (58 points of light variation) The process of creating a LCC to equalize out light on set slightly different than the lens-only method, but remains a simple process: For More Resources from Brad Kaye and the Medium Format Experts Follow Us, & Subscribe to Our Newsletter! Recent Blogs from Brad Kaye

Having been a Hasselblad Phocus user for many, many years, going back to the very early development stages, and before that even with Hasselblad/Imacon Flexcolor software, I’ve had a close relationship with the evolution of this software platform, both as a user, a hands-on specialist of the Hasselblad camera platform, and the recipient of a substantial amount of client feedback. Probably the most common complaint I’ve encountered has been the lack of speed of the Phocus software. Reports that range from “lack of zippiness” to just plain un-responsive, what I call the Corona Beer Effect (spinning beach ball – get it?). But the reports have always been on the inconsistent side, hard to reproduce and verify, and so it has been assumed that the program is just very demanding in terms of the computing power desired to function efficiently, maxing out RAM and GPU, with a fast processor and a fast, uncluttered, hard drive. But still, even presuming that, and using more powerful hardware, some reports would persist. And then the other day, this happened. Notice in this screen recording, I am first clicking on raw file, raw file, raw file, 3 times in a row, and the response is almost instant. These are 100mp X2D files. Now, notice what happens if I click on the associated tiff files of those raw files. Corona Effect. To the point of un-responsiveness. When you see my blue curser just sitting there, sort of moving, that’s me clicking and clicking and nothing is happening. Even after the image finally displays, if I try to do anything else, use the zoom tool, try to crop it, it is completely locked into the spinning beach ball that you cannot see in a Screen Recording (see below). Even if I try to ignore the tiff files and click on raws and work on them, the damage is done, it struggles to recover from the spinning beach ball caused from clicking on the tiff file and I can’t even effectively work on the raw file. I have reported this to Hasselblad. It took several rounds of back and forth for them to see and understand what I was describing (and their continuing attention was and is appreciated). I have also requested from clients that they attempt to reproduce this to make sure there isn’t something unique about the combination of my computer hardware (16′ Macbook Pro 16 Core M1/32GB RAM) and my software (Mac OS 14.6.1, Phocus version 3.8.4 and then 3.8.5). And in every case, my clients replicated the issue. I don’t know if this is also present on the Windows platform. That would be a good test to run for any Windows users out there. I don’t know much about coding, but it feels to me like a memory allocation issue. The 100mp raw files in this case are around 165mb, the 100% tiff files are 305mb. However, both Capture One and Adobe handle these files with ease, with near instant response and no Corona Effect. In Capture One, even simultaneously viewing and working on three 700mb stitched pano tiffs results in no lag. But even a single standard 305mb tiff export from an X2D file – their own camera, mind you – ties things up in Phocus. Now, naturally, Hasselblad does not invest the software resources into Phocus at the level of say, a Capture One. But this feels like their memory allocation is still stuck in the code from 20mb – 40mb raw file capture from 15 years ago and hasn’t been paid enough attention to with the newer, higher resolution cameras. Note that I see this less with reduced (sub 100%) tiff files, but I still see it with scaled up jpg files at the full size tiff file sizes, so the file size, not the type of file, clearly seems to be the issue. What To Do In any event, because I do receive complaints about the lack of zippiness with Phocus, this is a message to check your folders, and make sure you’re not viewing tiff files in Phocus. Note that I see this less with reduced (sub 100%) tiff files, so the files size, not the type of file clearly seems to be the issue. Don’t mix your tiff files with your raw files. For More Steve Hendrix Blogs For More Resources from the Medium Format Experts Follow Us, & Subscribe to Our Newsletter!

Leica SL3 / SL3-S Firmware Update Version: 3.1.1 Download for SL3-S Download for SL3 IMPROVEMENTS Click to see improvements Access to the function Headphone Volume is now additionally available via the menu “Audio” in the Video section, and via the FN button. The function “Magnification” can now be activated and deactivated by pressing the joystick. When making changes to the icon assignments in the Control Center, the function assignment list will open with the currently assigned option presented in the list as the starting position. The former menus “Film Style” and “Video Style” (accessible via JPG Settings) were integrated into the “Leica Looks” menu, and their menu items will now be accessible via the Main Menu. The firmware update process was optimized. Following a firmware update, all previous settings will remain unchanged, and the dialogue “Do you want to save profiles on SD card?” will no longer be displayed. A battery charge level of around 25% will now suffice for starting the update process. Electronic shutter speed 1/16000 s will now be available for P/A mode. The function AF-ON can now be combined with the functions Eye/Face/Body Detection and Animal Detection. ERROR CORRECTION Click to see error corrections An icon with an asterisk will be displayed alongside the User Profiles icon in the Control Center and the sidebar if settings were modified after profile activation. In case of a joystick assignment, the function AF-ON will now be saved to the user profile. Leica Q3 / Q3 43 Firmware Update Version: 3.1.1 Download for Q3 Download for Q3 43 IMPROVEMENTS Click to see improvements New menu section “AF Settings”, where AF Sensitivity and AF Speed can be adjusted individually. New setting option for continuous shooting with autofocus: 5 fps, 12 bit, AF. The function Toggle Focus Point is now accessible via the FN button. Electronic shutter speed 1/16000s will now be available for P/A mode. The menu item “AF Tracking” Start Position was moved to the menu area AF Settings. The requirements of Lot6/Lot26, Regulation (EU) 2023/826 on eco-design are supported. This new update aligns with the power consumption standards and displayed UI elements requirements enacted by the European Union, for when the camera is on standby or off. ERROR CORRECTION Click to see error corrections No error corrections Leica M11-Family Firmware Update Version: 2.2.2 Download for M11 Download for M11 Mono Download for M11-D Download for M11-P IMPROVEMENTS Click to see improvements The requirements of Lot6/Lot26, Regulation (EU) 2023/826 on eco-design are supported. This new update aligns with the power consumption standards and displayed UI elements requirements enacted by the European Union, for when the camera is on standby or off. ERROR CORRECTION Click to see error corrections No error corrections Leica SL2 / SL2-S Firmware Update Version: 6.2.0 Download for SL2 Download for SL2-S IMPROVEMENTS Click to see improvements The requirements of Lot6/Lot26, Regulation (EU) 2023/826 on eco-design are supported. This new update aligns with the power consumption standards and displayed UI elements requirements enacted by the European Union, for when the camera is on standby or off. ERROR CORRECTION Click to see error corrections No error corrections Leica D-Lux 8 Firmware Update Version: 1.5.0 Download for D-Lux IMPROVEMENTS Click to see improvements The requirements of Lot6/Lot26, Regulation (EU) 2023/826 on eco-design are supported. This new update aligns with the power consumption standards and displayed UI elements requirements enacted by the European Union, for when the camera is on standby or off. ERROR CORRECTION Click to see error corrections Bugfixes in the firmware SHOP NOW Get Yours from the Experts Your purchase comes with dedicated technical support and premier customer service. Let us earn your business. For More Resources Follow Us, & Subscribe to Our Newsletter Mailing List! Browse Technical Resources