This distorting effect can be especially problematic, and understanding how to fix it can drastically improve your photography or videography skills.

Adaptive optics systems utilize optical signals, such as from laser guide stars, to measure atmospheric optical disturbance for ground-based telescopes. Deformable Mirrors (DMs) are used in a closed-loop with these signals to compensate for this disturbance for both astronomy and laser satellite communications, to correct the vision of the systems in real time and improve optical throughput. Within the context of space-based astronomical programs, AO systems are also key to achieving high-contrast imaging capabilities (e.g. exoplanet science) and compensate imperfections of the optics due to manufacturing flaws, misalignments, gravitational release and stress during launching and deploying phases.

Wide-angle lenses are among the most common culprits behind this issue, as their broad field of view, especially that of lenses with a focal length of 35mm or less, often creates an uneven magnification between an image’s center and edges.

In late 2024, TNO is planning to deliver an ASM for the UH88 (2.2 meter) telescope in Hawaii. This ASM is 620 mm in diameter and has 210 actuators. One of the key developments at this scale was developing a low-cost manufacturing method for accurate thin-shell glass mirrors, called heat-slumping or capture-range-replication, which can produce mirrors at a fraction of the cost of traditional grinding and polishing.

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Fortunately, editing software like Filmora makes barrel distortion correction remarkably simple and almost entirely automated, requiring only a few taps on the user’s end. With that said, let’s see how you can go about it:

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On the one hand, you have barrel distortion, which is also often called negative distortion. This optical defect causes a digital image’s straight lines to curve outward from the center, making the picture appear more rounded and creating a barrel-like look, hence the name.

As a photographer or videographer, you’re likely already aware of the term barrel distortion photography, whether you came across it while learning or experienced it during shooting.

Fixing such optical defects in post-production with barrel distortion correction software is one of these methods and, in most cases, the easiest way to remove unwanted optical defects from shots.

Barrel distortion is a common optical defect in photography and videography. It’s usually caused by shooting with a wide-angle lens with a small focal length, but the distance between the camera and the subject and the device’s aperture settings also play a role.

While barrel distortion has many adverse effects in multiple genres of photography and videography, the good news is that these optical defects can be reduced or removed with various methods.

An extensive library of device models and unique shooting resolutions for each device make barrel distortion correction with Filmora seamless. Moreover, intelligent AI engines automate lens correction, simplifying the already short and straightforward process and making Filmora an obvious choice for all lens correction needs.

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Fortunately, the barrel distortion effect can be lessened or removed with cropping, physical backdrop grids, and screw-on filters for barrel distortion lenses like wide-angle and extremely wide-angle optics.

Other causes of barrel distortion in photography and videography include the distance between the camera and the subject, an imperfect alignment, and the device’s aperture setting. Still, these are much less common causes of the issue.

The optical defect known as barrel distortion will likely be stronger the wider your lens, primarily if you use extremely wide-angle optics with a focal length between 14 and 24mm. Moreover, the effect will be especially pronounced with a fisheye lens.

In essence, barrel distortion can have noticeable adverse effects in multiple photo and video genres. It also makes consistency challenging, prompting many amateurs and professionals to correct these shots in post-production.

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To mitigate such distortions and enhance your video quality, understanding how to use your phone camera settings effectively is crucial.Hopefully, the following video will be helpful.

Latest HVR Actuator – DM16. Performance specs: Linear force range >30N PV; Displacement range >30µm PV- (up to 100µm PV, TBC); Internal resonance >2kHz; Efficiency; 60N/√W.

In today’s guide, you’ll learn what barrel distortion is and what it’s caused by. We’ll also explore the different types of lenses that cause barrel and pincushion distortion and teach you how to perform barrel distortion correction with Filmora’s powerful post-production techniques, so let’s dig in.

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As you can see from the various distortion removal methods mentioned above, some have side effects, while others require additional work. For example, cropping causes massive detail loss, while distortion grids only tell you how much the shot is curved and still require post-production removal. Finally, screw-on lens correction filters can be expensive.

Besides barrel distortion correction software, there are a few other ways to eliminate barrel distortion from your images or videos. These methods include the following:

Adaptive optics

Many photographers and videographers actively choose a fisheye lens for certain shots, as it creates a unique effect. However, when accuracy is essential, barrel distortion, regardless of lens, can ruin the viewing experience and reduce the overall quality of your shots. In such cases, its adverse effects most commonly include the following:

Software such as Wondershare Filmora offers various tools for barrel distortion correction. With it, photographers and videographers can fine-tune a shot’s settings to straighten the curved edges with a few taps. Such tools often have automated lens correction profiles that automatically apply fixes tailored explicitly to the lens you’re using.

Deformable Mirror DM2 used in OFELIA Laser Communications Breadboard – proved that beam-shaping (atmospheric pre-correction) can significantly improve signal quality through atmospheric turbulence.

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However, the simplest solution involves specialized barrel distortion correction software, where Wondershare Filmora is an obvious choice. Thanks to its massive library of lens correction profiles and simple adjustment sliders, Filmora makes barrel distortion correction seamless, requiring only a few taps on the user’s end and effectively eliminating the optical defect in seconds.

Barrel distortion occurs most often when you use wide-angle lenses, which include optics with a focal length of 35mm or less.

Before discussing barrel distortion, we must first understand that it’s only one-half of a broader term that’s most often mentioned together: barrel and pincushion distortion. Understanding these two opposite phenomena together and as separate occurrences is pivotal to learning how to correct them.

Deformable Mirrors (DMs) are key components in Adaptive Optics (AO) systems employed in astronomy and laser communications to compensate for shape errors in optical elements and optical atmospheric disturbance, as well as for defense applications using high-powered lasers. Until now, deformable mirrors have suffered from inefficient and/or low-reliability actuators, with an inability to service system components. TNO has developed a Hybrid-Variable-Reluctance (HVR) DM technology which is reliable, serviceable, durable, scalable, modular, accurate, efficient and powerful.

In early 2024, TNO with its development partners listed below delivered an Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM) for the NASA-IRTF Telescope in Hawaii. The project went from design concept to delivered hardware in under a year, and the DM “closed the loop” in the first hour of operation on the telescope.

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While it’s not the only cause of this phenomenon, barrel distortion primarily occurs due to the design of camera lenses, hence its secondary name: barrel lens distortion.

The key ingredient to TNO’s Hybrid-Variable-Reluctance (HVR) DM technology is the actuation principle, which generally has the following qualities:

TNO focusses on development, prototyping and performance testing. We have worked with the following development partners on the Hybrid-Variable-Reluctance (HVR) DMs:

On the other hand, pincushion distortion, often called positive distortion, is the direct opposite of barrel distortion, as it curves an image’s edges inward, making them resemble a pin cushion, hence its name. Of course, there are additional types of distortions, including mustache distortion, comatic aberration, chromatic aberration, and perspective distortion, but we won’t detail them in this guide.

The first TNO-HVR DM was built for ESA around 2017, to prove the principle of use of adaptive optics in space for optical corrections. Since that time several laboratory DMs have been built and proven.