Camera Effects
Steve J. Wright · 2017
Camera effects are all those effects that the imaging camera and lens system has on the photographed image. They range from lens distortion, the introduction of artifacts and the addition of light flares over the frame. Vignetting is a darkening of the image at the corners due to less light hitting that part of the frame. There are several causes for vignetting — mechanical, optical, natural, and pixel — but frankly, the causes are not important. Spherical aberration is an intrinsic defect in lensing systems that causes the light rays to fail to focus sharply across the entire surface of the imaging plane. Astigmatism is when the light rays on the horizontal axis of a lensing system have a different focal plane than rays on the vertical axis. Managing lens distortion is a non-trivial issue so wisdom dictates that the possibility of ignoring it should always be at least considered.