Lens Help

TwistedJ

What type lens do I need to shoot buildings at an angle like below?
Thanks

http://geofflawrence.com/photography_tutorial_photographing_buildings.php

ian408

A tilt shift lens will do the trick.

Now, if you have expertise w/Photoshop, you can fix some of the problems in
post.

Designsmith

Correcting perspective in post is sometimes difficult. To have it work properly you need four widely divergent points that fall in the same plane on the building. Even then it usually takes some finessing to get it to look just right. So if you are shooting a building that has curved or irregular surfaces it makes it more difficult to achieve a pleasing image.

I prefer to do as much on the front end of the process as possible so would opt for the tilt/shift or PC (perspective correction) lens. Some bellows setups may work also. If you haven’t either of these look for a place to shoot from a higher vantage point. It doesn’t solve the problem totally but makes it not so noticeable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_correction_lens

PC lens can be used for other things then building exteriors. They are used in shooting building interiors. I’ve heard of photographers using them for landscapes and macro shots.

ziggy53

If you have PhotoShop 7 or better you should be able to use a "super-wide" lens to capture the image and then adjust in PS using "Free Transform".

Here is a Red Schoolhouse I shot in Indiana last year:



Note the slant caused by perspective distortion.

Brought into PhotoShop:
Select
...All
Edit
...Free Transform

You'll see control points on the edge of the image frame. On a Windows machine, Ctrl-left-mouse-click on one of the control points and draw out to distort the image. It helps to pull out a Guide Line from the Rulers in order to align an edge to the guide.

Here are the control points and a single guide line:



... and here is the image after the upper left control point is dragged to the left to adjust the building on the left side:



You need to draw the right side as well and probably extend the image vertically a bit to complete the perspective adjustment.

After considerable work, here is where I wound up:



Pertinant EXIF:

Model - Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ExposureTime - 1/1000 seconds
FNumber - 8.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 800
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
FocalLength - 13 mm
Quality - RAW
Exposure mode - Av-priority
Focal length - 10 - 20 mm (1 mm)

Lens used was the Sigma 10-20mm, f/4-5.6 EX DC.

TwistedJ

Oh wow, thanks to all of you who offered your advice. I'm thrilled I asked for the help. Ziggy your shots are wonderful and yes I have CS3. Again thanks all.

ziggy53

TwistedJ wrote:

Oh wow, thanks to all of you who offered your advice. I'm thrilled I asked for the help. Ziggy your shots are wonderful and yes I have CS3. Again thanks all.

CS3 is great for this task. Shoot RAW and use ACR to interpolate to the largest size you can. Stay is 16 bit as long as you can as well. Transform works considerably better with more starting pixels. You can always down-sample the image before you post the final image, but the extra pixels will give you better lines and details through the transform.

TwistedJ

Thanks Ziggy will use your advice wisely.