Toward the identification of DSLR lenses by chromatic aberration

While previous work on lens identification by chromatic aberration succeeded in distinguishing lenses of different model, the CA patterns obtained were not stable enough to support distinguishing different copies of the same lens. This paper discusses on how to eliminate two major hurdles in the way of obtaining a stable lens CA pattern. The first hurdle was overcome by using a white noise pattern as shooting target to supplant the conventional but misalignment-prone checkerboard pattern. The second hurdle was removed by the introduction of the lens focal distance, which had not received the attention it deserves. Consequently, we were able to obtain a stable enough CA pattern distinguishing different copies of the same lens. Finally, with a complete view of the lens CA pattern feature space, it is possible to fulfil lens identification among a large lens database.