Help! 45mm 1.8 DOF is uneven

[Vivalo]

I have had poor results with my 45mm 1.8 when taking landscape photos. Today I spotted this weird thing in this photo and actually in many of my older photos. It looks like the plane of sharp image is not even in the image. It looks like the focused field is nearer in the left side of the image and goes towards the infinity at the right side of the image. It's the same kind of effect that can be had with tilt shift lenses like Lens Baby. Am I just crazy or can you also spot that thing going on in this image??? It doesn't make any sense that the image is focused in the background in the right side of the image and at the same time in the front in the left side.

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[Amin]

I see it too. Looks like your lens is not right

 

[spatulaboy]

Wow that's weird. Looks like your lens is misaligned. Is it still under warranty?

 

[Chris5107]

I think I see the effect but it is hard due to the perspective. Perhaps it would be easier to diagnose if you had a better subject to photograph and you were aligned in such a way that makes it easy to pick out objects at the same distance.

I would worry that something is mis-aligned. Has the lens been dropped?

 

[wushumr2]

Yep looks misaligned, on the other hand you just got a tilt-shift lens for cheaper than even the Rokinon tilt-shift lenses, so very cool!

 

[Vivalo]

Thanks for your opinions. I think in this image it is very easy to spot that the buoy on the left is as sharp as the trees in the right side background, and this was supposed to be "wide open, soft background photo". I focused to the Mercury text, but still the buoy 3-5 meters nearer is as sharp as the outboard. Luckily there is still 3 months warranty left and I have all the documents on hand.

 

[Jay86]

^^^ Send it in. The lens is misaligned from what I can tell...

 

[marcsitkin]

does this happen with any other lens? If so, could be the problem is in the camera.

 

[madogvelkor]

does this happen with any other lens? If so, could be the problem is in the camera.

Good point -- double check on another camera body, or with other lenses to make sure there isn't another problem.

 

[Vivalo]

I have pictures taken with E-P3 and E-P1 and I do see the same effect in many of my photos. It's not very clear in most of them but on some it is noticeable. There are two criteria that has to happen when it is noticeable. First the focusing distance should be between about 5m and 50m (medium distance) and secondly the aperture value should be from f1.8 to f4 (shallow enough DOF). I also evaluated many pictures taken with 25mm f1.4 and E-M5 and I couldn't spot the same odd effect in any photos taken with the same criteria. Here is one example of that uneven DOF. Only brightness, contrast and clarity has been tweaked. No noise reduction or sharpening added. The cropped photos are from the original, uncropped version which is the first one. 1/2500 sec, f1.8 and ISO200.

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[RichDesmond]

Pretty obvious there, and the CA around the male's head is awful as well. Sumthin' ain't right..

 

[Vivalo]

Today I received a mail from Olympus service and they asked to send them some sample photos. I decided that I would deliver them: I went to local camera store and bought a brand new black 45mm 1.8 :tongue:

The difference between the lenses was dramatic. I sent the samples from both to Oly. Let's see what they have to say.

 

[krugorg]

Wow, that is interesting. Glad to hear you are still under warranty!

 

[Artorius]

Is it just me or is the chromatic aberration horrible in this lens sample?

 

[zlatko-photo]

The lens appears to be badly decentered. Check out: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/201...entered-lens-an-old-technique-gets-a-makeover