how to correct barrel distortion without sacrificing FOV?

as above - is there any method that can do so without compromise? right now i just use LR4.2 to fix the 'flattened sides', but the downside is that it sacrifices some of my corners.

suggestions welcome!

leave a little margin when framing the shot, so you can afford to straighten the edges

there are times when the room is really small and i'm doing group shots with ppl @ the edges. :/

...umm shoot wider. Removing barrel distortion is mutually exclusive with keeping the edges in the frame. I suppose you can use the transform tool in Photoshop to do this, but I'm not sure if it'll give a satisfactory result.

As long as we get rectangular sensors this will be a problem. I can see no solution to it other than framing slightly "looser" to allow for some cropping after attending to the distortion. If we are ever offered circular sensors, then the problem ceases. Sadly I believe thats highly unlikely to ever happen, even though it would bring other advantages with it.

Two advantages immediately spring to mind: Square format; using more of the focused image, then never having to decide between portrait or landscape formats until the post-processing stage.

I recommend the program called PTLens $25. Probably the best and covers many lenses. It is a stand alone and also a plugin for Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom

doesn't it do the same thing as correcting for barrel distortion in LR?

yes, but you have more control. LR tends to crop too much

the.forumer wrote in post #15232618
as above - is there any method that can do so without compromise?

No - it's a simple matter of geometry.