Camera

The Render Raw Physical Camera option enables a custom OSL lens shader that runs in Cycles. This allows for more realistic affects than can be achieved using the compositor.

Requirements

Cycles only. EEVEE and Workbench render the camera as a regular perspective camera
CPU or an NVIDIA GPU with OptiX enabled only

Lens

Focal Length, Shift, and Clipping are Blender settings and work as usual. The physical camera is always a perspective lens, so orthographic and panoramic cameras become perspective while it is enabled.

The Vignette options darkens the edges of the frame more accurately than the vignette in the Effects panel. 1 is realistic for a simple lens.

Normalize Exposure brightens the result to make up for the light that Vignette and the other options remove, so the overall brightness stays similar to Blender’s camera. It is an estimate and not exact.

Distortion bends the image. Negative K1 values bulge the frame outward and positive values pinch it. K2 and K3 affect the corners on top of K1. The values are for the corner of a full-frame sensor, so a smaller sensor or a wider frame sees less distortion, just like a real lens. Very strong values can leave black corners. Unlike the Effects panel’s Lens Distortion, this renders more of the scene at the edges instead of stretching pixels.

The lens presets let you choose a distortion model from a set of real lenses. You will need to set the Focal Length to match the chosen lens for accurate results. The measurements come from the Lensfun database (lensfun.github.io, CC BY-SA 3.0).

Depth of Field

Focus and Aperture are regular Blender settings. F-Stop, Blades, Rotation, and Ratio shape the bokeh like they do on a regular camera.

Shape sets the shape of the aperture and thus every bokeh highlight. Blades is Blender’s aperture model. Star has a number of Points and an Inner Ratio. Image uses the brightness of any image. For custom images, transparency counts as black, setting the color space to non-color data is preferred, and missing textures fall back to Blender’s aperture.

Swirl stretches bokeh around the center of the frame, like Petzval and Helios portrait lenses.

Bokeh Edge changes the brightness across each bokeh disc. Negative values fade the edge for creamy bokeh and positive values brighten the rim. Most lenses show a faint bright line, so 0.1 is realistic.

Tilt X and Y tilt the focus plane like a tilt-shift lens.

Split Diopter puts half a close-up lens over one side of the frame, so that side focuses at its own Distance while the other side keeps the camera’s focus. Position slides the edge across the frame and Angle rotates it. Half a turn swaps the sides. The seam gets sharper as the lens is stopped down.

Dispersion

Simulates chromatic aberration much more realistically than the compositing effect in the Effects panel.

Strength is the percent difference in focal length between red and blue.

Horizontal is how much of the fringing is sideways. 1 is a normal lens, 2 is a 2x anamorphic lens, and 0 makes the effect only vertical.

Achromatic Lens corrects red and blue to the same focus like most real camera lenses. Out of focus highlights in front of the focus point get magenta fringes and the ones behind it get green fringes. Turning it off simulates a simple uncorrected lens, which fringes warm in front and cool behind. Fringing towards the corners of the frame is the same either way.

Spectral samples a continuous spectrum instead of just red, green, and blue, for smooth rainbow fringes. Both modes add color noise but turning Spectral off reduces it a little.

Glare

Simulates veiling glare, bloom, and halation with real light rays. Unlike the compositing effects in the Effects panel, light from outside the frame can influence the image. It works best on large light sources due to the random sampling, so small bright lights are still better handled by the Effects panel.

Veil spreads light evenly over the image, lifting the blacks like haze or an uncoated lens. Spread lets it gather light from beyond the frame as a multiple of the frame size.

Bloom spreads light around bright areas with a realistic falloff. Size is the radius as a fraction of the frame height.

Halation simulates light reflected off the back of the film and results in a small halo around highlights. Size is the radius on the sensor in millimeters.

The defaults are realistic for a coated lens on modern film.

Tip: Clamp Direct and Indirect reduce the glare, so try turning those higher or off for more realistic results.

Grunge

Simulates specks of dust, dirt, smudges and drops of rain on the front of the lens, with the same controls as the Grunge effect in the compositor. Dirt blocks light and casts soft shadows. Dust and smudges scatter light, so they glow near bright sources and haze the rest. Each rain drop is a tiny lens, so it shows a softened, upside down view of the scene.

How visible they are depends on the aperture, like with a real lens. Wide apertures only dim the frame a little and add a haze. Stopped down, each speck casts a soft shadow or glows with the shape of the aperture. With Depth of Field off the lens is assumed to be at f/8.

Factor fades the whole effect in. Dust is how many specks of dust there are, and its Size the radius of the largest in millimeters. Dirt is how many pieces of dirt there are, and its Size the radius of the largest. Smudges is how many greasy smears there are. Rain is how many drops there are, its Size the radius of the largest drop and its Thickness how much they bend light. Distance is how far in front of the aperture they are, in focal lengths, with about 1 to 2 for the front of a lens and 3 to 4 for a filter. Further out, the specks and drops are smaller and more distinct. Softness scales how much the aperture blurs the specks and drops without changing Depth of Field. Spread is how widely dust and smudges scatter light.

Limitations

The Vector pass and Window texture coordinates do not work with custom cameras.