For real estate photography, is lower distortion more important than higher lens sharpness?
Asked 5/8/2015
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I'm comparing ultra-wide lenses for real estate work and trying to decide what matters more in practice: low native distortion or higher sharpness/resolution. For example, one lens may have relatively low barrel/mustache distortion but only average resolution, while another may be much sharper but show more pronounced distortion that would need correction in post.
Since real estate images are often delivered for web or brochure use, is it usually better to prioritize the lens with lower distortion to reduce workflow and preserve straight lines, or to choose the sharper lens and rely on software correction?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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You can correct lens distortion in post, but you do so at the expense of some of that higher resolution. Roger Cicala of LensRentals.com says in a blog post where he tests the uncorrected and post corrected resolution of an EF 24-105mm f/4 L lens at 24mm:
But when someone wants to argue that they buy a lens with high distortion because it has higher resolution and distortion is easy to fix in post . . . well, it had better be a lot higher, or it's a fool's argument.
He goes on to say that it is fairly well established knowledge among lens designers that correcting for distortion in the lens also reduces resolution versus leaving the distortion uncorrected. In the past the distortion correction was deemed to be worth the loss of resolution. The current trend is to leave the distortion uncorrected to gain the resolution.
There is a lot of good additional info in the comments to Roger's blog post referenced above.
With that taken into consideration, in terms of your final results the additional workflow to correct the distortion from the high resolution/high distortion lens may not give you any significant gain in resolution versus a lower resolution lens with low enough distortion that it does not require correction.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
In real estate, distortion usually matters more than absolute resolution.
Software can correct barrel or mustache distortion, and tools like Lightroom/Photoshop often do it automatically if a lens profile exists. But correction stretches parts of the image, which reduces some of the sharpness/resolution advantage you started with. So a highly distorted lens needs to be noticeably sharper before that tradeoff really pays off.
Also, for real estate delivery, final images are often used at modest sizes, so extreme resolution is less critical than keeping lines believable and clean. Even after correction, distortion can still be visible, especially with very wide lenses.
A practical takeaway: if two lenses are close, prefer the one with lower distortion for real estate. If the sharper lens also distorts more, the benefit may shrink once corrected in post. Another useful approach is to avoid going ultra-wide unless necessary; a slightly longer focal length often gives more natural-looking rooms and fewer distortion problems overall.
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