Lightroom Classic lens correction for Nikon Z lenses

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

H

hrv

Well-known member
Member's gallery
Hi everyone,

Just came back from a holiday in Bergen in Norway and as I have been photographing not just wildlife, but also buildings, I notice some distortion with my Z 24-120 lens.
Looking at Lightroom Classic, it seems it only has lens correction profiles for the AF-S lenses and none of the newer Z lenses.

Seems a bit strange, given how long they have been on the market already.

Can anyone confirm they also do not see lens profiles for the newer Z lenses?
 
Member's gallery
Using Lightroom 12.4, i have a huge list of Z lens profiles.

If you send the image to Topaz, once it comes back the lens profiles are very limited, like 6 or 8 total from f Mount. Make sure you set the profile before sending as a tiff to Topaz
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
1690135197983.png


Yes, everything up to date.

I think I solved my mystery....

I inadvertently had all photos in the folder selected and somehow hit the enable profile correction checkbox (why, I have no clue)
What it resulted in was that Adobe was overwriting the built in lens profile.

Now, I still do not see Z lenses when I look at the profiles in LRC, or on my file system, but apparently there is a profile built into the RAW file by Nikon already.

1690137556689.png

Now that I removed the checkbox to explicitly apply a profile, it looks much better.
 
Member's gallery
EricKlees said:
Using Lightroom 12.4, i have a huge list of Z lens profiles.

If you send the funds to Topaz, one it comes back the lens profiles are very limited, like 6 or 8 total from f Mount. Make sure your set the profile before sending as a tiff to Topaz
Click to expand...
I am on 12.4 as well. Camera RAW 15.4

Could you show me where you see the Z lens profiles? Other then the built-in ones (assume added by the Z9 itself) I cannot see any Z lens profiles in Adobe itself.
 
Member's gallery
hrv said:
I am on 12.4 as well. Camera RAW 15.4

Could you show me where you see the Z lens profiles? Other then the built-in ones (assume added by the Z9 itself) I cannot see any Z lens profiles in Adobe itself.
Click to expand...
I'm not home right now but they are in the drop down list in lens profiles
 
Some profiles in lrc are specific to raw files. If working on tiffs returned from another program or jpegs there may or may not be a profile for that.
 
Member's gallery
Butlerkid said:
They are in the Optics tab.....................
Click to expand...
On a Mac they're under the Lens Corrections tab.
There is not one Z lens listed in the pull down on my machine.
But each Z lens automatically invokes the profile Camera Setting [for correct Z lens model] save but one.
For some inexplicable reason it does not work with my 24-120 Z lens. If enabled the profile LR chooses is for the 14-24G which is obviously way off. And as mentioned, there is not one Z lense in the pulldown menu.

EDIT: My other 24-120 Z lens files behave differently. When Enable Profile Correction is checked the make is Built In (the file I looked at earlier was a stacked image). I need to figure out why I need to check this...
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
I was told the correction is applied in the Z cameras and corrected on the images stored on the cards for some lens. I see correction on my Z 100-400 in LR. But on th Z 24-200 LR shows "Built In" .
 
Member's gallery
Thanks for all the reactions.

Want to get to the bottom of this. I was in a blind today with the 400 TC and the 100-400.

The Z 100-400 images show this in Develop:
1690220024150.png


The Z 400 TC images show this:
1690220069217.png


So both look like they are automatically applied and recognised correctly.

However... for all photos for the Z 24-120, the checkbox is not selected.
Funny enough, when enabling that checkbox yesterday it showed me "Built in", now it shows me "Unable to locate a matching profile automatically"

1690220591620.png


When I change it from Setup Default to Setup Custom, it automatically "detects" the AF-S 24-120.

Very weird. I have no clue why I get different results now. Even when I "reset" an image to ensure no prior changes are applied, I no longer see the "Built in" message in the lesn correction. Going slightly mad.... o_O
 

Attachments

  • 1690220177479.png
    1690220177479.png
    171.3 KB · Views: 65
Member's gallery
The issue seems to be with the Z 24-120 lens. BTW, think the AF-S 24-120 profile is for the older f-mount lens.

I do not own the Z 24-120, but a friend who does is having the same issue as hrv.
 
Member's gallery
Another option, if needed, might be the Transform panel and the icon that allows you to correct distortion. I only have two medium range Z lens and have not had distortion with those as I have not photo-ed any buildings, etc.
Screenshot 2023-07-25 at 7.21.29 AM.png
 
Member's gallery
In general, I do use the Nikon lens corrections embedded in the RAW file. Nikon designs the lenses with the expectation correction will be applied. In some cases it can be hard to correct manually. In other cases it's very easy or the lens needs little correction. The Z 24-70 f/4 and 24-120 f/4 need a good bit of correction compared to the Z 24-70 f/2.8.

There is a lot of variation in terms of how Adobe recognizes the correction. Sometimes you do need to manually find the camera and lens. I suspect the issue is the lens name is not matching in Adobe's lens database. Some of the Z lenses can have odd names.

There is a need to use caution with lens corrections. Sometimes they can correct distortion and what looked fine through the EVF is to close to the frame edge. If you have a lens that needs significant distortion correction, it's better to shoot slightly looser and leave room at the edges of the frame. That's also true for the level adjustment when cropping.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top