Vignetting Shminetting - What's The Big Deal?

[dcsang]

Ya know.. I don't get it.

The Internet is a wild woolly playground that has so much information out there if you just go searching for it.

I decided to perform a search on "vignetting" via Google.
There were a bunch of links that came back from the search with all sorts of information but mostly, on an initial perusal, I found the information pertained to removing vignetting or avoiding vignetting or which lenses produced the most pronounced vignetting wide open and so on.

I don't know about the rest of you but I LIKE vignetting in images; specifically images with people in them. I find it draws my attention to the centre of the image. Now, I know, I know; sometimes you don't always want the primary subject at the centre of the image - so.. then stop down a notch or two - but really, I honestly like when an image has some vignetting in it.

I think there is an aesthetic quality to the image that seems to be added when vignetting is present versus not being present or removed. Perhaps I'm the only one on here that feels this way but I would think there must be others.

What say you??
Do you like vignetting?
Hate it?
Want to rid the world of it and its ilk?
:D

Cheers
Dave

[kbg32]

I have no problems with vignetting Dave.

[GeneW]

Dave, for certain subjects I agree that vignetting can enhance the image. And remember how our darkroom instructors told us how to 'burn in the corners' to make the centre of the image stand out? I still do this with certain images in Photoshop CS3, using the vignetting tool not to take away vignetting but to add some.

Gene

[ferider]

half a stop or so is OK. But more - no, I hate it. Much easier to introduce
vignetting than to correct it in PS.

[lic4]

I always liked how my M-Rokkor 40 had vignetting with some of my b+w images. Is it light fall-off?
I thought it created a real emotional quality to some of the images, although it's hard to describe why.

[projectbluebird]

The only lens I have that vignettes (noticeably, anyway) is my VC 15mm. I like it. Like Dave said, it helps draw the attention back into the photo. Very handy on a super-wide, almost too-wide sometimes. It does give a certain feel that is lacking in a print without it, not that either one is better than the other.

I knew a guy back in school that added very slight vignetting (less than 1/2 stop, I recall) to all of his prints in Photoshop. He was shooting and scanning color slides, and printing at Costco. The amazing thing was, it gave the image some "pop" it didn't have before. You could compare prints with and without, and it was very hard to see what made them different, unless you were looking. The ones with vignetting almost always looked better.

[RML]

Vignet never hurt or disadvantaged me, so I don't hate him. :p

[Jamie Pillers]

Ah... Dave, you've reminded me! Gotta take the Holga out for a walk. :-)

[jan normandale]

Dave are you rationalizing all your crummy lenses that vignette?

;D joke/humour

[jbf]

I agree... too many people i've seen get all huffed and puffed up over a little lens vignetting...

i mean seriously... almost all of the modern lenses and vignetting is nothing compared to some of the vignettings you would get in some of the oooollllddd crummy cheap lenses.

I dont think it hurts or detracts to be honest....

As others have mentioned I was taught just as most others have to burn in your corners to bring the eye inward a bit. I do this all the time. It is always a subtle effect that works wonders.

I think people get too caught up into things like this, when there is nothing wrong with vignetting at all.

I think the whole 'holga phenomenon' frightened a lot of people into thinking that "OMG. VIGNETTING.... what do i do? what do i do??? people are going to think i took it with a holga, and all of my friends who hate holgas will think that i haven o skill and im only using a gimmicky camera."

;)

[pvdhaar]

Vignetting, isn't that where the hood intrudes into the corners of the pictures? I really really hate that.. :D


Now, light fall off away from the center, that's an easthetic trait.. ;)

[laky]

Vignetting I like. Flare I don't.

Good pictures with Holga I like. Bad pictures with Holga I don't.

[tritiated]

I like vignetting the majority of the time, although I can't quite put into words how I feel it relates to the philosophy of photographs. Considering it appears mostly in my indoor pictures, with subject matter generally being people, I quite like the effect, usually complimenting OOF effects to direct the eye.
However, (unrelated to rangefinder photography) I don't like the extreme vignetting that they put on some sections of the television program: Top Gear
- that just drives me mental.

[Brian Sweeney]

It looks nice for a portrait. Very Subjective...

[Krosya]

half a stop or so is OK. But more - no, I hate it. Much easier to introduce
vignetting than to correct it in PS.


Exactly!!!!!!!!

[rogue_designer]

I like it in small doses. I guess with a lens that doesn't exhibit much, you can always add it if you wish. But harder to correct it back out if you don't.

So if I had to choose between two otherwise identical lenses - one with a slight vignette, and one without. I'd choose the one without because it gives me more options and control.

That said. The amount of vignette a lens shows has never been a deciding factor.

[shadowfox]

I love vignetting! except that time I use the wrong rubber hood on my Zuiko 28/2.8. Man I was kicking myself because of the dark corners. Don't do this folks, it's not pretty :)

[Tuolumne]

There's also "natural" vignetting when the center of the image naturally brighter, esp' with wide lenses and sunsets.
54814

Pitxu.

I love this and have always wondered how to capture lightening. How did u do it?

/T

[Tuolumne]

What F stop do you set the lens at and how long can you hold the shutter open until the film/sensor starts to fog?

/T

[jan normandale]

Dave, I see you on line. Are you stirring things up and now lurking around your post? C'mon out like a man.. and about those crummy vignetting lenses.. "pix or it didn't happen"

j/k/h

[ferider]

They just raised the charge of the Nocti, didnt they:)

They could just release a "fake Noctilux" code that could be used to create
the right signature with any 50, digitally.

Roland.:)

[photogdave]

Many technical camera and lens testers, ie DPReview, PhotoDo etc, do specific vignetting tests that show virtually every lens on the planet vignettes wide open.
This gives the armchair amateur photographer ammunition when they go into the camera store. "I hear this lens has vignetting problems etc."
I think that these types of tests do a certain disservice to customers and manufacturers. Some shadowy corners on a completely white background rarely translate to visible vignetting in real world photographs. So now vignetting is an unfortunate buzzword like "bokeh" or "chromatic aberration". People who do not know what these words mean use them as basis points for determining lens quality for no good reason.
I've met people who will not buy a lens unless PhotoDo gives it a good rating. Ridiculous!

[RML]

So now vignetting is an unfortunate buzzword like "bokeh" or "chromatic aberration".

Hey! What did bokeh ever do to you?! :p

But you're right. Every lens can be used to take pictures/make photos. If only one knew how to use it properly.

[Brian Sweeney]

We'll see how the I-69 28/2.8 half-frame lens does with a full-frame camera. test roll is in.

If you want to use a lens wide-open that does not vignette, the image-circle "essentially' has to be designed for a larger format camera. The Perspective-Control lens is like that. Essentially take a Medium Format lens and put it on a 35mm camera. That way when you shift it, the image circle still fills the frame. So virtually no vignetting when used wide-open. I've got a 51mm F1.5 Raptar designed for a TLR that would do great on an 35mm RF. Just have to figure out how to make a mount for it.

[Roger Hicks]

Vignetting is bad news if you only ever shoot test charts and neutral tones, preferably at full aperture, instead of real pictures. I totally agree with photogdave.

Cheers,

R.

[shadowfox]

I've met people who will not buy a lens unless PhotoDo gives it a good rating. Ridiculous!

I've acquired lenses that came with cameras that I purchased as a kit and some of them are excellent lenses. Names like Promaster Spectrum 7 or CPC. These won't even make it to the test-chart-shooter's schedule to be "examined" :D

[charjohncarter]

If you want to automate your vignetting use PhotoScape. It is a freeware editing program, go to filters then to vignette, start at #1 and work down using the UNDO button. Examples:

[williams473]

Sally Mann is one of my favorite photographers, and she has used vignetting extensively in her work - espeically landscape. As I understand it she using an 8 x 10 camera with older lenses that are not capable of covering the full sheet of film, so the vignette is created by being able to see the edge of the image circle on the film in places. I think she uses this technique to great effect, with masterful control. I don't shoot large format, but I believe the same effect can be acheived by inverting the lens on the camera. Here is a link to an example from her latest book...

http://www.kpbs.org/blogs2/images/uploads/whatremains.photo03.jpg

I believe images like this connect to viewers on an very subjective and base level - it is a way of admitting the precision-less-ness of life - the partly grasped perceptions we all have of things, and how ordinary objects can be imbued with meaning through manipulation.

Matt

[benlees]

I love vignetting! except that time I use the wrong rubber hood on my Zuiko 28/2.8. Man I was kicking myself because of the dark corners. Don't do this folks, it's not pretty :)

Haha! I did exactly the same thing! Except I did it with a Vivitar 28mm2.8- thought I had the 50mm on there. My wife saw the pictures and thought I did it on purpose to make them look 'cool'! 'Of course I did...'

[gnashings]

If only one knew how to use it properly.

One doesn't have to - that's what photoshop and those little lcd's on the back of the picture computers are for. Just keep whacking at it until all your internet buddies tell you its great.... (not you personally)

[georgef]

I like vignetting...come to think of it, I dont think I have ever printed a picture I took with an RF that I remove it !?!!

Plus, removing it from my pics is a single step action in photoshop: I callibrated a dodge and burn command tree once for each lens that vignettes, so its the push of a single button: F2, F3 or F4. I sold my Canon 50 1.2, so F5 is no longer required LOL.