I am also writing with the the premise of explaining things that I recently learned about and I think others may not be aware of it. If they are wrong I appreciate corrections done in a professional, friendly and polite method.
As for why my lenses are mentioned I do so out of lived experiences and to showcase my work. After all this is a photo forum where we do showcase it.
To clarify, I was not suggesting you were using AI but that your posts read like AI to me. Lots of repeating what was already posted in the same thread, but not adding much understanding. Repeating something is not the same as explaining it, and repeating it doesn't really aid others in understanding, IMO.
For example, in discussing lenses which require correction of distortion, your counterexamples are all telephoto lenses. The reason some newer RF lenses require digital correction of distortion is that the image circle is smaller than the sensor, and all of the lenses with that characteristic have a wide or ultrawide angle of view. An image circle that is smaller than the sensor is never an issue with telephoto lens designs because the image circle is not a limiting factor (for the same reason, there are no long lenses designed for APS-C sensors). So of course your big white lenses do not suffer from strong geometric distortion requiring digital correction. It's not the 'large glass elements', the old EF 300/4L has less distortion than your "optically straight" EF 200/2L.
With apologies for bluntness, that you used telephoto lenses as examples for the issue of a smaller-than-sensor image circle suggests that you don't have a good understanding of the underlying concepts. An analogy might be a thread discussing problems of keeping a motorcycle balanced when riding it, and you saying that you never have problems with tipping over while driving your Mercedes sedan. That may be lived experience but it's really not relevant to the discussion.
As for showcasing your work, that was part of why I asked for an example of the problem you highlight. You've posted many excellent images through the years, and I was wondering if you had direct experience of the problem described: "
To fix barrel distortion the camera software stretches the pixels in the corners. This ruins the uniform noise pattern of the sensor." To me, there's a big difference between repeating stuff you read on an internet forum and explaining a concept you learned about. The latter requires you to dig a bit deeper and hopefully gain an understanding of the concept.
In this case, when I read that claim I was skeptical. To me, some skepticism seemed warranted when reading that digital correction of geometric distortion and vignetting, which is common across many lenses and has been applied for decades (many EF lenses have significant distortion and vignetting, too) now somehow, "...
results in near-unusable images if any corrections are made," as
@zardoz stated and you repeated. But I didn't merely claim the opposite – I looked though my own images, found a relevant example and tried to see the effect described (even taking an image to an extreme point), but I could not see the problem. Still, after that post you repeated the initial claim...but you did not provide any evidence to support it. So, may I ask...what
understanding have you gained about this concept that you would like to share with others on this photography forum?
If it bothers you then perhaps ignoring me is your best option.
I do not believe that ignoring a post that repeats unverified claims is the best option.
In an example that conflates two issues that you mention in adjacent paragraphs (AI upscaling and geometric distortion correction;
you did not conflate them), multiple people have repeated the claim the black corners of lenses like the 16/2.8 and 20/1.4 VCM are filled with AI-generated image data (including someone that, like you, has a long posting history here including many excellent images). That is false, and repeating here it does not add value to the forum, nor is ignoring it the best option, IMO.
