Does chromatic aberration get worse as subject distance increases?
Asked 5/24/2021
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I saw a review claiming: “Chromatic aberrations after 10 meters become significant. After 15–20 meters the picture becomes unusable.” Is there any real basis for this? Does chromatic aberration increase when the subject is farther from the camera, or is that misunderstanding some other issue?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
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There are two different variables in play here: focusing distance and object distance. Chromatic aberration correction is with some priority employed to stop colored fringes to appear when focusing on infinity: when everything is in the "default" out-of-focus situation, colorful fringes are really undesirable. A similar reverse "default" situation is the bokeh of "infinite" objects when focusing at a finite distance. A 35mm prime with fuzzy rainbow bokeh would be undesirable in most cases. But there are lots of other combinations as well.
When the review states "Chromatic aberrations after 10 meters become significant. After 15-20 meters the picture becomes unusable." it is not clear whether the stated distance is supposed to be the object distance or the focusing distance or both (namely describing only the behavior of image elements strictly in-focus).
Originally by user98068. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user98068
5y ago
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Not in any simple, general way. Chromatic aberration is mainly a lens design issue: different wavelengths focus at slightly different positions, which can create colored fringes. That behavior does not normally suddenly become severe just because a subject is 10–20 meters away.
What can change with focus distance is how visible certain aberrations are, and lenses may be optimized to perform best at some distances more than others. But the review’s claim that images become “unusable” beyond a specific distance is not generally true physics.
Also, “distance” is ambiguous: it could mean subject distance or focus setting, and those are not always the same practical issue. For most lenses, distant subjects send nearly parallel rays into the lens, so increasing subject distance alone should not dramatically worsen chromatic aberration. If anything, the claim sounds confused or may be describing a problem with a particular lens sample, another aberration, or a very specific shooting situation rather than a universal rule.
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