Good Morning,
This sounds like a real fun project. I think that you have received some excellent advice from everyone. However, it has been somewhat limited to mainly glass. The suggestion about considering a K3 at 24MP is one that does add resolution, and that in an overall sense is where I will be going also - but in a slightly different direction.
Before I start - let me say, I have done something similar - to a degree. I was able to gain after hours access to the shipyard around the USS Constitution (square rigged sailing ship) and shot the sunrise (4am to 7am) and sunset (6pm to 10pm). I went out and picked up a 8-16 for this since, I wanted to shoot waterline to the top of the main mast in one shot. Note that the ship moves with the tide and wind, so stitching was not a real option here. I also shot with the 12-24 and 28, 31 and 85. There were also piers and docks obstructing the views that needed to be shot around.
Also, I am a systems engineer during the day. There is more to all of this than just camera and lens. As you have said, large size and scale, potential dense overgrown surroundings (jungle) are also limiting factors in all of this too. Distortion, aperture, lighting, dynamic range and mechanical support - in terms of how you are going to take the images, along with post processing are all going to play a part here to varying degrees.
When using a body and mounting various lenses, you have a fixed sensor of some size - let's say 3000 x 2000 for the sake of argument. Each lens is going to take a different view (wide, normal, whatever) and fold it on to this FIXED set of pixels. So an 8-16 @8mm is going to pull in about 9 times as much area as a 35mm lens and put the view on the same pixels. So, just considering a single pixel, the 8mm view is going to have to represent 9 times more area (remember area is length x width, so its about 3 * 3 = 9) that the view from a 35mm lens. That is just plain physics at work here - no way you can change that fact.
So, what are your options here. You can upgrade one of your bodies to a K3. That is one path as has been pointed out by folks. The other approach is to add pixels through stitching - effectively taking panorama. The third option is a combination of these two - better resolution (K3) and stitch.
Let's also address the glass aspect too. There are various advantages and disadvantages that also need to be considered. I think that you will probably have plenty of light - and if not, shutter time can overcome that for the most part (these structures are not going to be moving any time soon). Sharpness to a degree is going to be a function of depth of field. You are probably going to be at f8 to f11 also. Most wide angle lenses have tremendous depth of field also. Using a low ISO will help in terms of overall image quality - which will provide a good dynamic range. I don't think that darkness will be a problem, but shadows may. The K30 and newer sensor will help with pulling detail out of the shadows. The CCD sensor of the K200 should be very rich with the colorings and saturations.
- 8-16 - I really do like this lens. That said, at 8mm at time it can be toooooo wide. Its colorings and saturations are rich and wonderful. Even with a lens this wide, it is sharp. You do get distortions at the edges. Even with a lens this wide, you can stitch with it, which tends to mitigate the distortions at the edges. With stitching, and up in the vertical or portrait orientation, you do get a full 109 degree angle of view top to bottom. This works for up close things - since it has a very deep depth of field for focus. At 16mm it is wonderful, sharp, colorful and renders beautifully.
- 12-24 - For a wide angle zoom this is bankable all the time. As you probably know, it does have some CA when the shot is backlight. Its distortions are well controlled. I personally really like this lens. I use it much more than my 8-16. It also stitches exceptionally well.
- 35 - I have a 28 and 31. I have not shot with the 35. Having said that, and for architecture, this may well be your most used lens - probably equal in use to the 12-24, since it will have no distortion, is relatively fast, and with stitching will provide even better sharpness and detail than either the 8-16 or 12-24. I was real happy with my 12-24. I would stitch with it and was wonderfully happy with the detail and sharpness. When I got my 31 and stitched the same exact scene, the detail and sharpness blew away the 12-24. Not because of the 31's pixy dust, but because of the focal length.
Let me toss in one more lens here into the mix, that has not come up. The 10-17 Fisheye. I know what you are thinking - the fishness and the bending. Yes - you can get that effect, and architecture has lots of straight and square lines. But, if you shoot
LEVEL with the lens, it is very possible to get the best overall natural view possible - even better than with the 8-16 and 12-24. Yes, it is also wider than either the 8-16 and 12-24, and you are stuffing a lot more view on to the sensor, but it can be valuable. Corner to corner its 180 degrees wide. Side to Side its 135 degrees wide (compared to the 8-16 which is 109 degrees). Take a look at this link (and especially the roof lines between the various lenses).
Now let me transition to the topic of stitching and mechanical support. You can stitch with any lens. There is FREE software that will stitch the images for you (
Microsoft ICE). It does work well. You can stitch hand held too. So, go pick up your camera, pop on the 12-24 and go out side and shoot your neighborhood (remember you want to overlap the image by about 25 to 30%), house next door, what ever. Come back in and drag the images (JPG or TIFF) into ICE and let it stitch them together.
How did it go? Welcome to the world of spherical geometry or taking a spherical world and laying it on to a 2D flat sheet of paper. It can go wonderfully well, or it can bring up some interesting angles, and everything in between. The key here is in the way the camera is held and aimed. You need to keep the camera level and pivot around a fixed central point. So, go try it again - with that thought in mind.
Also, pop on the 35mm lens and go try this again. With the 35 or 50 or 85mm, or whatever - you will have a lot more shots to take. The longer the focal length, the more detail and sharpness you get, but at the cost of the number of shots - AND you might have holes. As you are shooting, you might move a bit too much and not have enough or any overlap (shooting handheld). I do think that the 35 will provide sufficient resolution, sharpness and sufficient coverage to possibly shoot hand held.
The tripod and head. If you are going to stitch - especially architecture, you will probably what some sort of pano head. This will allow you to put the pano head on top of your tripod and head, level it out, and shoot around a fixed point - and allow you to tilt up to get the entire structure - do it in a standard pattern, thereby getting full coverage with out holes and gaps. Yes, it is a lot of work and you can (depending on the lens and its angle of view) shoot 3 or 5 or 9 or 10, even perhaps 30 or 40 shots per "stitched image". Its a good thing that you have large SD cards (and several of them) along with a number of fully charged batteries. The result can be incredibly detailed and sharp images. A panohead like the Panosaurus is relatively cheap. A Nodal Ninja is a bit more money.
Processing a lot of stitched images together can be a lot of work. Also, fixing some straight lines, and various views from stitching (projection distortions, etc.) and be additional work. Take a look at this site and the video - it give a good illustration of the process from beginning to end.
So, overall -
- Lenses -I think that the lenses you have cover everything (more than just the basics) that you might need to do. Yes, you can always get more lenses for specific perceived needs. I have not been down to the area that you are going, so I can only just go by the pictures on the web and then think of the problems and views that you will be dealing with.
- Bodies - I think that with the K30, you have an excellent K5 type of sensor. 16MP should do real well. 24MP may do better, certainly 50% more resolution.
- Stitching and how you might stitch - its a personal call as to what you want to do. Go out around town and give it a try. Shoot handheld and then stitch with ICE, to see if this appeals to you - before you go out and spend any money.
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You are going to want to also consider work flow here. Both when taking the images and the processing them. Together they all need to tell a story. A single wide angle shot will give context, a stitch around a corner - say 270 degrees wide will give more of a relationship between the structure and its surroundings. Another stitch will give an overall view the the structure itself, and then the longer focal lengths will provide additional details.
Last edited by interested_observer; 01-25-2015 at 06:43 AM.