P: Support lens profiles for Olympus ZUIKO Digital lenses (E-System)

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Will Adobe provide lens profiles for the OLYMPUS DIGITAL ZUIKO four thirds lenses, i.e., the super high grade and high grade lenses of the professional OLYMPUS E-System?

OLYMPUS does not support software of other organizations.

For this reason, E-System photographers urgently need Adobe's support to benefit from lens profiles for the E-System that perfectly match into an ACR based workflow.

Note that OLYMPUS cameras of the E-System are already supported by ACR, whereas we miss the lens profiles of the same system.

Thanks.

[J453]

Thanks for the request. If you weren't aware already, you can create your own lens profiles with the Adobe Lens Profile Creator or you can download user-contributed profile for that lenses through the Adobe Lens Profile Downloader.

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi Jeffrey!

Thank you for your reply. You have a good answer and a good solution, nothing to complain.
Unfortunately for OLYMPUS, the Adobe Lense Profile Downloader has a bug:

If you select "OLYMPUS" from the Camera Make drop down menu, you will not find one profile.
You have to type by hand "OLYMPUS IM" into the Camera Make field and then you will find a small selection of camera profiles.

I think and I hope you agree that this "bug" is little known to the community
that wants to use Adobe Lens Profile Downloader for the OLYMPUS Four Thirds system.
As a consequence, the list cannot be representative for the OLYMPUS needs and interests around the world.
Maybe Adobe needs to additionally support the OLYMPUS four thirds system - just because of that bug.

I will give a list of camera bodies and lenses that represent the part of the OLYMPUS E-System - extra for professional demands.
The consumer level of the E-system might be substituted by newer developments such as the micro four thirds system in the future,
where the OLYMPUS PEN is a good example.
But nevertheless of the latest micro four thirds developments on the market,
please do not forget about the E-System of OLYMPUS for professionals, the OLYMPUS four thirds system.

Four Thirds Porfessional Series:
A.) OLYMPUS Professional Camera Bodies
E-5
E-3
http://asia.olympus-imaging.com/produ...

B.) Super High Grade Lenses
ZUIKO Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0
ZUIKO Digital ED 14-35mm F2.0 SWD
ZUIKO Digital ED 35-100mm F2.0
ZUIKO Digital ED 90-250mm F2.8
ZUIKO Digital ED 150mm F2.0
ZUIKO Digital ED 300mm F2.8

C.) High Grade Lenses
ZUIKO Digital 11-22mm F2.8-3.5
ZUIKO Digital 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD
ZUIKO Digital 14-54mm F2.8-3.5
ZUIKO Digital 14-54mm F2.8-3.5 II
ZUIKO Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 SWD
ZUIKO Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8-3.5
ZUIKO Digital ED 8mm F3.5 Fisheye
ZUIKO Digital ED 50mm F2.0 Macro

http://asia.olympus-imaging.com/produ...

PTLens offers camera profiles for theses lenses, but unfortunately - it is a Photoshop plug-in and does not support ACR.
The lens correction should take place at an early stage of the workflow.
A correction with a PS plug-in would be too late for the raw workflow.

If I will find some time, I will make use of the Adobe Lense Profile Creator and publish the results on Adobe's platform.
But still, these lenses from OLYMPUS definitely deserve more attention than is currently evident.

Thank you for your time.
Regards
Gerald

[J453]

Thanks. Let me talk to the people that maintain the downloader about the Olympus pop-up.

Also, thanks for the prioritized list and offering to contribute to the community.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi All,
in my opinion, the E-30 should be added as it is a camera between the two groups, as well the 25mm Pancake f 2.8 as it may be used from the pros as well for special purposes.

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi Jeffrey!

Did the people, who maintain the downloader, give you any feedback about the OLYMPUS pop-up? The most practical thing would be just to change the name in the drop-down list to "OLYMPUS IM", as what it is de facto.

I was intensively working through Adobe's "Calibration Chart Shooting Guide". The guide is simple, well understood, but nevertheless very detailed. Really, I have to wow your work, i.e., the lens profile creator itself as a solution, but also the guides.

There is only one question left for myself: For the shootings you promote minimum focus distance, 2xminimum focus distance, and 5xminimum focus distance. You offer charts A0, A1, A2, A3, and A4. In the case of some lenses, for example macro lenses, both recommendations do not match together. Either you need smaller charts A5 to A10 or you have to give up the minimum distance approach.
What do you recommend?
I suggest that you add this recommendation to the chart shooting guide.

Thank you for your time and attention.
Gerald

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Jeffrey,
thank you. That is why I often use DXO.
In my opinion there must be included the lenses of the upcoming m4/3-System also.

regards
Thomas N

[FSfromFlorida]

Lightroom handles Olympus raw files, no problem, I work in LR 4 and convert the ORF files to DNG during import.
My question is support for Olympus cameras and lenses in the Develop Module, specifically the Lens Corrections Panel and the Camera Calibration Panel. There are no Olympus options in either place. I recognize that Olympus is a smaller portion of the market, but it would be great to at least have the E-30 and E-5 options plus the High Grade and Super High Grade Zuiko lenses options available.

[Chuck_Dyer]

Adobe - Please add camera profiles and lens correction for Olympus E-M5 to Lightroom 4.x.

[MadManChan2000]

We already have.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Eric,

Thanks a bunch, that would be fantastic! I've just purchased an Olympus OM-D E-M5 with a nice Zuiko 12mm f/2 attached to it and was initially disappointed to find neither lens correction profiles nor camera calibration options for the Olympus (coming from and staying with a Nikon D700 kit).

Can't wait for 4.1 release version to arrive!

[MadManChan2000]

To clarify ...

... what I meant is that lens corrections are automatically applied for all recent Olympus models (e.g., Micro Four-Thirds) and lenses. There are no separate external profiles, nor is any action needed on the part of the user.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

Many thanks for replying!

I'd loved to agree wholeheartedly but in my experience (and professionals in the community) the automatic lens correction for Olympus lenses (for instance, the excellent 12mm f/2.0 for MFT cameras) does not fully remove distortion (I have to manually set this to +7 in the lens correction panel). Clearly, the quality of the result I get for my new Olympus lens/camera is substantially inferior to Lightroom's excellent treatment of my Nikon D700 images.

What is also missing (sorry for being pedantic) is the option to apply camera settings. For my Nikon, Lightroom gives me several option, among which I like the neutral setting in the camera calibration panel most. The generic Adobe camera setting is no match to the camera settings - I would for instance never use the generic camera calibration setting for my D700 images, colors and overall impression is almost ugly by comparison to the very smooth neutral setting.

I hope that clarifies some of the issues photographic nerds have with the current Adobe solution.

My best wishes.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

If you're interested I could provide example images (with Adobe's automatic setting and after manual control) - the difference in terms of distortion is I wouldn't say dramatic but very visible.

[FSfromFlorida]

Dear Steffen, thank you for your comprehensive explanation of this request!

I shoot the Olympus E-30, with the ZUIKO Digital 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD, ZUIKO Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 SWD and the ZUIKO Digital ED 50mm F2.0 Macro. I don't have experience with Nikon or Canon, but I do agree that given all of the options available for those two cameras it just makes sense that having the same types of choices for lens corrections and camera settings in Lightroom would provide a similiar improvement during processing.

Again, thank you, I do hope that Adobe will see fit to add these options.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Francis,

Thanks for the encouragement!

I think it would be great to get some attention from the Lightroom team, I think they have marvellous engineers, if they could just turn their attention towards the new breed of cool Olympus models!

[Skiing_Ozelot]

The E-System lenses are the foundation for both,
FourThirds (FT) & micro FourThirds (mFT).

It does not really answer, if one believes that the E-System, the high grade and super high grade lenses, are already "old", i.e. out-of-time. With the telecentric approach Olympus has chosen a next generation optical design for digital lenses, and that remains true, still today. With an adapter, all the FT lenses can be used equally well with mFT. In the development of the FT lenses, Olympus has invested much more in optical quality and perfection, as in the development of the new mFT lenses. If a photographer wants to work creatively with depth of field, if you also claim on Bokeh, then you need fast lenses, i.e. aperture 2 of the super high grade series of the E-System. Recent development on new camera bodies does not change this fact.

Cheers
Gerald

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Currently, OLYMPUS users need help from Adobe

OLYMPUS delivers its system with a piece of software, which is intended for users who do not want to spent additional money in computer based image processing, but who want to prepare their pictures for a print service. This OLYMPUS software has (besides money - the only?!) advantage, that it contains all the lens profiles of all the OLYMPUS lenses.

OLYMPUS should forward these data to Adobe so that it can be used in Lightroom, Photoshop, and ACR.

Unfortunately, there are political obstacles relating to OLYMPUS willingness to cooperate with software companies. Maybe, Adobe knows ways to open doors for new strategies?

Read this:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mon, 26. Dec 2011 09:22:09
Dear Gerald,

Thank you for your e-mail.

We are grateful for your understanding on our policy.

In regard to your request for a thread posted on the Web, we are
sorry to say that we are not prepared to support it.

It is a fact that we have been receiving many inquiries similar to
yours from Olympus enthusiasts. But we are not ready to comply with
requests for such purposes.

We are sorry that we cannot be more helpful to this matter.

Thank you again for your understanding.

Best regards,

M. XXXX
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan

----------------original message----------------

Dear Sir or Madam
of the OLYMPUS customer support team!

Thank you for your response.
On the one hand I understand and respect your policy very well.
On the other hand, please could you support my thread
that I opened at Adobe's photoshop platform due to your response.

Even if you do not want to be involved as an organization,
could you nevertheless please forward this thread
and inform customers with similar requests?

Here is the link:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

Kind Regards

----------------original message----------------

Dear Gerald,

Thank you for your e-mail concerning our Four Thirds system lenses.

While appreciating your inquiry, we are sorry to inform you that we
are not thinking of making our lenses support the Adobe's software.

In regard to the compatibility of other brand's software, we would
like you to contact the software manufacturer.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

M. XXX
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan

----------------original message----------------

Dear Sir or Madam,

Adobe released the Adobe Raw Converter (ACR) 6.5 update that supports three OLYMPUS camera bodies of the mFT series.

http://www.adobe.com/support/download...

I am interested in lens profiles for the OLYMPUS Four Third (super) high grade lenses. If there is no official support by Adobe, I would be very grateful if OLYMPUS supported the ACR lens profiles for these outstanding top lenses.

Thank you for your help.

Kind Regards

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

My feeling is that even if Olympus would not forward lens specific specifications, Adobe would not need this for
(A) creation of camera calibration profiles (since this is camera not lens specific) and
(B) it makes look Adobe's advise to customers to create their own lens profiles dubious - how would the amateur user be in a better position to create lens profiles than a highly talented pool of professionals at the company...?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Sorry for the "dubious" - not meant to be offensive in any way, "hard to understand" may fit better.

[Skiing_Ozelot]

Hi Steffen, I agree with you: the task to create lens profiles, this is NOT the job of the user community. This fact is reaosn enough to leave OLYMPUS as a platform.

I by myself have created two lens profiles for the Zuiko 7-14 and the Zuiko 150mm. They are approved and public to be used by the Adobe community. Adobe's tools to create lens profiles are a great help, the concept has depth and it works well, also for amateurs. And I have two additional profiles to be completed.

But nevertheless, it makes me laugh and cry that I am the one who delivers lens profiles to all over the world for the super high grade lens series of OLYMPUS. It is a bad joke about OLYMPUS.

[MadManChan2000]

Steffen, Gerald, and team,

The unfortunate reality is that we (Adobe) do not have the resources to build lens profiles internally for all vendors. We also do not have the resources to build the so-called Camera Matching profiles for all vendors.

In the case of lenses, this is why we try to work with vendors (i.e., Adobe-vendor collaboration) to build lens profiles together. The vendors know the design and residual aberration characteristics of their lenses. Adobe has methods and tools for performing software correction based on this data. This results in a win-win situation: Photographers get better results, and this higher quality reflects nicely on the vendor.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Dear Eric,

I think you have our sympathy regarding the resource constraints you're facing within the company. Who didn't/isn't dealing with similar situation at work all the time?

What the enthusiastic Olympus users here are seeking is some initial commitment by Adobe to devote additional or existing resources to this growing (and apparently pretty active) ecosystem. Since Adobe gets support for these development from most other vendors, you're already not developing settings for all vendors from scratch... I guess as very often in life one cannot (better: should not!) apply the same rule to all situations... ie, if Adobe expects all vendors to behave similarly, I could have predicted you that you'll find one or two who wouldn't cooperate - and I suppose as a company you *could* envisage a plan B..., no? I definitely agree with Gerald that it's not quite the user communities job to patch disagreements between Adobe and individual companies.

[MadManChan2000]

I agree that it is not the user community's job to patch such disagreements or lack of collaboration. But it is often helpful for the users to tell the vendors directly how important it is to the users. Even if you often/occasionally get a negative response at first, it adds up over time in a positive way. Indeed, direct user feedback is a big contributing factor to how we were able to deliver so many complete sets of lens profiles from so many different vendors (e.g., Hasselblad, Leica, Pentax, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Zeiss).

Internally, we maintain good relationships with the vendors and we do also let them know how important this is to the users. But in the long run, it makes more sense and has broader impact for them to hear this directly from their users.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks Eric.

Agreed.

Gerald, Francis and fellow Olympus users: shall we form a "petition" to Olympus?

[FSfromFlorida]

My thanks too Eric. Steffen, yes, it appears that a petition to Olympus is possibly the most productive next step.
First though, in summary do I understand correctly from reading this thread that at issue is the fact that Olympus has not provided specifications on their lenses and cameras that would enable Adobe to develop the requested features in Lightroom? And, in contrast, Nikon, Canon, etc. are indeed providing that information, hence the number of choices available for users of those cameras?
Am I missing anything?
I am eagerly hoping for an announcement of the release of an upgrade to either the E-30 or E-5, I do hope that their resistance is not indicative of additional issues, although that is more a topic for another forum.
Francie