Chromatic Aberration when switching from DSLR (Canon 60D) to Mirrorless (Canon R10)

[BehindTheLens]

After I was unable to find any answers from Canon or Tokina support and searching this forum, I thought I'd start a dedicated thread in the hopes that the gurus out there might be able to help.

I've used my Tokina AT-X Pro SD 11-16mm f/2.8 (IF) DX II for 7 years on my Canon 60D DSLR without any issues, but after upgrading to the Canon R10 mirrorless (FW 1.5.0) with the Canon EF-EOS R adapter I now experience some pretty severe chromatic aberration (CA). Samples uploaded to https://photos.app.goo.gl/tUqadN9B21GrXhcF8 and it's very noticeable in the astrophotography (5702). I don't always want to shoot in RAW and be burdened with the post-processing. Thoughts from the community on the root cause and corrective action?

More details:

1. I did not see any CA issues with the Canon 60D DSLR and I only shot in JPG.
2. My first trip with the R10 was to Antarctica with lots of high contrast white scenery and fortunately I didn't detect any CA (shot in RAW+JPG), but it has since started to appear and increase in severity.
3. CA is present in the on-camera generated JPG. This is true if saving as JPG directly (5363, 5364, 5367, 5609) or on-camera conversion to JPG (5702).
4. CA appears in unprocessed RAW, but then fortunately it will process out (Windows Photo or Canon Digital Photo Professional). Why can't the on-camera conversion correct this?

I'm also new to post-processing and wasn't able to find any lens correction data for the Tokina in Canon Digital Photo Professional. Could that possibly fix the CA better?

I appreciate Tronhard's post in https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/EF-RF-Lenses/Lens-recommendation-for-Iceland-travel-aurora-photog... about Sigma lens, so I'm eyeing the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN to replace my beloved Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 if I can sell that for a reasonable cost to justify the upgrade.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Tronhard]

Ah... back in front of a real keyboard again! 🙂

OK, if we stick to the APS-C crop sensor, then I would suggest doing some research on the Sigma 10-18 lens. To get you going here are some reviews from trusted reviewers, Gordon Liang, who compares it to Canon's native cheaper lens.

Certainly, the Canon is significantly cheaper, but comes with a bunch of compromises: 
It is not as well built, especially having a plastic rather than the Sigma's metal mount
It has between 1 and two stops slower aperture.
The Sigma is generally sharper across the range.

Really the question is whether you need the better resolution and faster aperture of the Sigma or can get along with the cheaper, but inferior native Canon lens.  That is the question.

Investing in a lens is a longer term one compared to a camera body, and you get what you pay for, but again I don't know your budget because you have not given a $ value. If your purchase is not urgent it is worth waiting and saving if you value those features.

[Peter]

Nothing wrong with the raw file. I have added a tone curve and applied colour NR.

From your JPEG I got:

So perhaps your camera applies CA correction for a different lens.

[BehindTheLens]

Thanks again Trevor for the tips. It's been a long time since I've done any lens shopping, so the recommendations on trusted reviewers is helpful. The Sigma's 659USD price tag is within reason. I'm also curious how the Tamron 11-20mm f/2.8 (https://www.tamron.com/global/consumer/news/detail/b060rf_20240423.html) will compare. I'm hopeful that there will be some Black Friday deals. Sadly, the Canon 15-35mm f/2.8 is out of my budget (do you know how much sushi you can buy with the difference?!?), especially if I need to buy a full frame body (I just got my R10 in 2022 and had my 60D since 2010).

I feel Canon used to dominate the SLR, then DSLR market (I started out with Nikon, but then committed to Canon back in 2010 when I finally bought the 70-200mm f/2.8), but now get the sense that other platforms (Fuji, Sony) are more popular with the mirrorless platform and no one seems to be continuing with the DSLR.

[BehindTheLens]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the sanity check. As Trevor was saying, maybe the more advanced sensor in my R10 mirrorless is revealing the flaws in my Tokina lens that my 60D DSLR did not. In the camera settings, it says that "correction data available" for the following, so I left those on: peripheral illum corr, distortion correction, & chromatic aberr corr. "Correction data not available" for the following, so I left those off: digital lens optimizer & diffraction correction.

It looks like I'll just have to shoot in raw and post-process out the chromatic aberration in my photos, which is better than not being able to fix this at all.

Thank you again Peter and Trevor for all the help, advice, and guidance!
Willy  

settings were available so I left those on and turned off any that were not (e.g., Digital Photo Optimizer

[Peter]

"post-process out the chromatic aberration in my photos"

Your lens is normal. I didn't apply any CA removal in darktable at all and it looks fine. Just turn off all correction data in camera.

[Tronhard · Accepted solution]

Apologies to all for not catching up on this.  If the camera is applying lens correction data and it is not aware of the lens (given that EF 3rd-party lenses are not supported) it is possible it is applying the wrong corrections.  So, give the advice from my colleague Peter a try.
I still stick with my suggestion of going to a native RF lens.  According to Sigma their lenses will have appropriate lens correction data applied - I would assume that is a benefit of signing a license agreement with an OEM.

[BehindTheLens]

Hey All, I thought I'd give an update. In the R10 menu, disabling "Chromatic aberration correction" fixed the CA issues present on the in-camera JPG and it looks similar to my post-processed RAW (I believe it ignores the correction data in camera).

If I had also read the R10 manually, it states "When using a non-Canon lens, setting the corrections to [Disable] is recommended even if [Correction data available] is displayed." just as Peter had suggested.

Thank you again Peter and Trevor for all the help and my apologizes for wasting your time because I didn't read the manual 😞

[BehindTheLens]

Be aware that

1. you CANNOT adjust the Lens aberration correction settings if you are in  A+ (Scene Intelligent Auto) or SCN (Special Scene) modes (they are set to ENABLE) because there just isn't a menu option like there is for Fv, P, Tv, Av, M, B.
2. Lens aberration correction settings persist in the camera and are not associated to the lens. For example, when I disabled all with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, then swapped to my Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8, they still remained disabled.

Background: I was having issues with my Speedlite 430EX II and R10 and was taking some test shots in different modes and noticed that my CA appears in my A+ and SCN modes. For whatever reason when I was using the Speedlite back in May, it was only TTL flash metering and everything was overexposed. Now it seems to work (i.e., E-TTL flash metering). Possibly because I did a recent firmware update to v1.6.0?

FYI, I did not see any CA with my Canon EF-S 17-55mm at 17mm with lens aberration correction enabled or disabled. CA with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at 16mm was less severe which makes sense to me because the ultra-wide angle (e.g., 11mm) has light bending more thru the lens to the sensor. Still the same advice remains, disable all lens corrections! CA goes away at both 11 and 16mm for me with it disable and reviewing the JPGs. Sorry I don't know how to look at the RAW unprocessed because sometimes the CA appears initially, then disappears as DPP processes the image for my viewing.

[Peter]

Both darktable (auto-apply pixel workflow defaults in the settings set to None) and RawTherapee (neutral profile) use minimal processing. Both are free. They both rely on Lensfun for lens correction, and I don't think anyone has created a CA profile for your lens.