Barrel distortion

I think you answered your own question — are there people on the edge of frame or architecture? If architecture, then barrel distortion will be more distracting than rectilinear correction. If people, the opposite may be true.

I made a post on Instagram about this yesterday because I couldn’t put images here, about the two types of extreme wide-angle lenses used on “2001”, a 28mm Cooke (14mm equivalent in Super-35) which was rectilinear and a 14mm-ish Fairchild-Curtis 160º (7mm equivalent in Super-35) which was very barrel distorted.

As usual a great answer from David and a very useful IG post!

Little thought experiment?

If we shoot a checkerboard wall with a FF/LF Camera and a 18mm rectilinear lens we see the outside squares the same size as the ones in the centre. Now those squares on the outside are much further away so how can they be rendered the same size?  …because the lens essentially has variable magnification as you move away from the center. This is a form of ‘distortion’ no? Of course it is inevitable as we are taking a 3d scene and rendering it on a plane and that image is often projected at very different sizes. Though getting the marketing guys from the lens manufacturers to agree is tricky.

I realise you probably are asking Roger and James and even though I obv can’t answer for them, I would look at the lens series and FL they have historically used for clues?

Arri Signatures: Modern clean and rectilinear, but a tiny tiny bit relaxed and never overcorrected.

Master Primes: Sharp clean Modern rectilinear

and before S4s:  Modern’ish and attempting to head towards rectilinear, but mostly undercorrected so have a slight curved feel.

Also apart from ‘special shots’, they don’t seem to go so very wide where this is a big issue/question

reagrds

Michael

PS David that is a very useful IG post!