There are many, many threads concerning tint, backlight bleed and uniformity issues of 13" and 15" Retina panels. One thing that repeatedly comes up in those threads, is the question whether a single photo of the display is really representative of real life, or not.
I did this quick and dirty demonstration to show you the issue. I've taken some pictures, and made a composite for easy comparison.
Take a look at the picture below. Which one do you consider the better display, the one on the left, or the one on the right?
![display%20uniformity.jpg]()
Here are my thoughts.
On the left: Purple tint on top, and dark corners, horrible uniformity. Might be a tad yellow too. Horrible backlight bleed, and the rainbow in the dark is quite awful.
On the right: pretty much perfect uniformity, no backlight bleed to speak of. Whites pure as snow.
After you've done the comparison, I'll let you in on a secret. All four images are of the same screen.
Why are they so different then?
The ones on the left are taken with an iPhone 5. It's an OK camera for a smartphone, but it still suffers from many of the issues all small cameras suffer from, like vignetting caused by the small objective, and noise caused by the small sensor. The pictures are also taken at point blank range, so the edges of the display are suffering from color shift caused by the viewing angle. These are straight out of camera JPGs, just cropped.
The ones on the right are taken with a Sony NEX-5N and a Voigtländer 35mm f/2.5 @ f/5,6, ISO 200 and a 1/125s exposure, two meters away. These are RAW-images, processed in Adobe Camera Raw, where only white balance was set, no other corrections were applied.
These images exaggerate the issue on purpose, the ones on the left are taken about as badly as I could manage, kind of a worst case scenario. But they actually bare shocking resemblance to many pictures I've seen posted in the threads, and that have been used to judge whether the display in question is good or not.
I know there are people with real display issues out there, and by no means am I downplaying or trying to dismiss them. If a display has clearly visible uniformity issues or image retention, then it should be replaced, no question about that.
TL;DR: What is the point of this post? It's this: if you don't see any issues with bare eyes, you most likely don't have any. If these issues are only "revealed" by taking a picture of them, then the problem lies more likely either in the method, or camera, not the display itself. By looking for problems, you might actually be creating them out of thin air. So stop looking for "hidden flaws", and enjoy your computers
I did this quick and dirty demonstration to show you the issue. I've taken some pictures, and made a composite for easy comparison.
Take a look at the picture below. Which one do you consider the better display, the one on the left, or the one on the right?
Here are my thoughts.
On the left: Purple tint on top, and dark corners, horrible uniformity. Might be a tad yellow too. Horrible backlight bleed, and the rainbow in the dark is quite awful.
On the right: pretty much perfect uniformity, no backlight bleed to speak of. Whites pure as snow.
After you've done the comparison, I'll let you in on a secret. All four images are of the same screen.
Why are they so different then?
The ones on the left are taken with an iPhone 5. It's an OK camera for a smartphone, but it still suffers from many of the issues all small cameras suffer from, like vignetting caused by the small objective, and noise caused by the small sensor. The pictures are also taken at point blank range, so the edges of the display are suffering from color shift caused by the viewing angle. These are straight out of camera JPGs, just cropped.
The ones on the right are taken with a Sony NEX-5N and a Voigtländer 35mm f/2.5 @ f/5,6, ISO 200 and a 1/125s exposure, two meters away. These are RAW-images, processed in Adobe Camera Raw, where only white balance was set, no other corrections were applied.
These images exaggerate the issue on purpose, the ones on the left are taken about as badly as I could manage, kind of a worst case scenario. But they actually bare shocking resemblance to many pictures I've seen posted in the threads, and that have been used to judge whether the display in question is good or not.
I know there are people with real display issues out there, and by no means am I downplaying or trying to dismiss them. If a display has clearly visible uniformity issues or image retention, then it should be replaced, no question about that.
TL;DR: What is the point of this post? It's this: if you don't see any issues with bare eyes, you most likely don't have any. If these issues are only "revealed" by taking a picture of them, then the problem lies more likely either in the method, or camera, not the display itself. By looking for problems, you might actually be creating them out of thin air. So stop looking for "hidden flaws", and enjoy your computers
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