[BigMackCam]

I‘d say the building is at least 500 meters away from me.

The distant one, yes - but the slightly out-of-focus cropped area you first posted is only a few metres away, yes? I'm making that assumption given the 50mm focal length...

I just tried to disable lens correction in RT, no effect, still the same, and I believe the distortion is in the image for my experiment with DCU below.

I uploaded my file to there: IMGP1415.zip - File.re temporary file sharing

(please only use it for studying purposes)

After hearing your suggestion, I tried DCU and disabled motion correction, image shows motion artifact and blurs, which shows that the distortion is inherited in the image.

I've had a look at each of the images in the pixel shift "deck"...

Certainly, there was some wind that day, as there's a piece of webbing tied to one of the upright metal railing posts (lower left quarter of the scene) and you can see it changes position considerably between frames. I also wonder if there may have been a chimney or vent below and/or to the left of the scene, such that air of variable temperature (and perhaps humidity) could have blown across the scene by the breeze. Lastly, is it possible that the surface on which your tripod was standing could have distorted with your own movements?

Although I've no firm conclusions, I'm thinking this may be the result of camera movement (for one or more reasons) combined with electronic shutter... but wouldn't rule out thermals carried by the breeze as either the sole reason, or a contributing factor.

[syyrmb]

The distant one, yes - but the slightly out-of-focus cropped area you first posted is only a few metres away, yes?

I also wonder if there may have been a chimney or vent below and/or to the left of the scene, such that air of variable temperature (and perhaps humidity) could have blown across the scene by the breeze. Lastly, is it possible that the surface on which your tripod was standing could have distorted with your own movements?

Although I've no firm conclusions, I'm thinking this may be the result of camera movement (for one or more reasons) combined with electronic shutter... but wouldn't rule out thermals carried by the breeze as either the sole reason, or a contributing factor.

Yep, the area I cropped is a few meters away from me. Maybe it's a chimney, but I don't remember there was one placed there. Usually I mount the tripod on the roof, but sometimes I mount it on the stack of wood panels, and that plus wind might've affect the camera, and the electronic shutter kicked in, then I got this ultra distorted image. Now it seem like the whole thing isn't as mysterious as I formerly thought, but having a stationary object distorted is still pretty silly to me. I guess I'll take extra care in the future and mount the tripod on a still surface.

Yeah, given the additional information you provided wind becomes the most likely suspect, probably.

Big thanks to all of you guys for investigating this.

[ShutterPro]

It really seems to be a problém of the atmosphere. PSR doesn´t always look and work great, but it´s always worth making an extra image. I was astonished when it recovered details I would have a tele lens to see otherwise.

[Rondec]

My experience with pixel shift is that it fails when there is subject movement (probably not the case here), camera movement, or atmospheric conditions that mess with it (fog, haziness, humidity).

When it works, it really adds detail and depth to an image and so if I'm shooting from a tripod I end up using it, even if I don't end up processing it that way in the end.

[ShutterPro]

I guess that's due to air quiver. I have less sharp photos in the summer commonly.