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05-30-2018, 11:54 AM   #1
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One thing on which I would like opinion/advice.
Lens: 18-55 DA L kit Camera: K-70 Photo Location: Salt Fork State Park, Ohio 

I am still playing with the editing but what bother me is the angle of the building which seems to be sinking right. Tripod and camera were horizontally level. Any further back and i would have been in a lake after a fall (I know, anything for a photo). The image is as it looks in real life but. . . . Is it just me? Does it bother you? Any ideas?

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05-30-2018, 12:11 PM - 2 Likes   #2
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Your issue here is not moving back, it's you needed to move to the right. You also needed a cherry picker.

There are two things happening. Because you're shooting from the left of the building you have your top and bottom lines heading towards a single horizon point off to the right. So the top and bottom are not parallel.

The you are lower than the building, or at least lower than the centre of the building, so you also have the two side walls converging towards the top of the image. Whenever you have two pairs of lines converging in two different directions, you have change for a wonky looking image.The thing that bothers me most is neither of those things. It's the curvature of the corner of the wall. With distortion like that, the others are minor. You need a lens corrected for architecture.

The fact that the sun is behind the building means the face of the building looks a little flatter than it could in better light. So, lots of things going on there.

Last edited by normhead; 05-30-2018 at 12:19 PM.
05-30-2018, 01:21 PM - 1 Like   #3
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You can do a wee tweak in photoshop to get the horizontals and verticals correct, is this what you had in mind?
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05-30-2018, 02:00 PM   #4
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Your issue here is not moving back, it's you needed to move to the right. You also needed a cherry picker.

There are two things happening. Because you're shooting from the left of the building you have your top and bottom lines heading towards a single horizon point off to the right. So the top and bottom are not parallel.

The you are lower than the building, or at least lower than the centre of the building, so you also have the two side walls converging towards the top of the image. Whenever you have two pairs of lines converging in two different directions, you have change for a wonky looking image.The thing that bothers me most is neither of those things. It's the curvature of the corner of the wall. With distortion like that, the others are minor. You need a lens corrected for architecture.

The fact that the sun is behind the building means the face of the building looks a little flatter than it could in better light. So, lots of things going on there.
Thanks. I had considered shooting from another position but I thought centering would make it rather mundane. I wanted the flowering plant as an anchor in the foreground. I probably should have explored the right side but there was a lot of vegetation. The sun is early morning. the building faces north so maybe in another month there may be some light on the front. I am looking at wide angle fixed lens for landscapes. Should I also consider something in another range for architecture? I will be playing with this as I learn the editing stuff. I appreciate both answers for helping me look for and see the problems.

05-30-2018, 06:19 PM   #5
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Some lenses are heavily corrected and keep architectural lines straight, but they'll make your wife look fat and squat if she's at the edge of the frame. You take your life in your hands buying such a lens.

My Sigma 8-16. Taken from a high vantage point and with a lens corrected for use in architecture.



But even with a corrected lens, if you shot from low down, the building heads for a vanishing point up in the air somewhere. But it keeps the straight lines straight. But it gives your relatives really big feet.


Last edited by normhead; 05-31-2018 at 10:42 AM.
05-30-2018, 08:16 PM   #6
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Hi gump


The image is a bit soft, why I don't know but this is not the subject matter here.


As Norm says, you need a cherry picker to get the parallax on an even keel with the subject. If you do this sort of photography a lot (an awful lot) the cherry picker is out of the question but you can mount camera at the end of a mast and trigger it by remote. Special masts are commercially available.


There are three ways to deal with this:


1) Get a tilt and shift lens
2) Use the above mentioned
3) Correct falling lines with software. Photoshop it. (verb)



I photoshopped your pic to show you what is possible. When you do this in software, you will have a certain loss of image because you are pulling and stretching part of the image out of the picture boundaries. When I take photos of this kind I anticipate this and frame shots such as to allow me to do correction without losing important componants of the image. Or at least try to minimise it.

Cheers


You can also re-stump the house to level it. (Just kidding)

Last edited by Schraubstock; 10-27-2018 at 10:46 PM.
05-30-2018, 08:51 PM   #7
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If you make the walls totally parallel it will fool your eye and make the building look wrong the opposite way. In this example you should leave some convergence as you are not centered on the building.

05-30-2018, 08:53 PM   #8
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The other option is sometimes to make the view and distortions even more extreme--possibly even using fisheye lens.
05-30-2018, 09:07 PM - 1 Like   #9
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Following up on some of the other comments/tries--and especially specialK's comment--the attached using skew in photoshop adjusts it some, while still leaving it natural looking.
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05-31-2018, 05:59 AM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by dms Quote
Following up on some of the other comments/tries--and especially specialK's comment--the attached using skew in photoshop adjusts it some, while still leaving it natural looking.
All very helpful critiques. The warning about wife-distortion is exceptionally valuable. I do not have photoshop. I have been using/stumbling around with Infan, gimp, and raw therapee, I am frugal. I did not want to commit to a $$$ program until I have a better handle on what I need. I have been snapping photos for probably 60 years but my brain development is pre-digital. All that aside I appreciate the time you took to comment and edit to show me what was possible in post-processing. These give me an example to aim at.
05-31-2018, 06:04 AM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by SpecialK Quote
If you make the walls totally parallel it will fool your eye and make the building look wrong the opposite way. In this example you should leave some convergence as you are not centered on the building.
I stopped that kind of correction because I had images that went from looking a little distorted, which my eye can handle, to just looking odd. Trying to correct on a a computer, be sure to use non-destructive software, you may at times want to just go back and start over.

QuoteOriginally posted by gump Quote
The warning about wife-distortion is exceptionally valuable.
Keeping her in the middle of the frame she'll look tall and skinny. But once that happens, she'll claim you know how to make her look skinny and demand to know why you are intentionally not making her skinny in other photographs. Because clearly you can do it when you want to, right? Buying a corrected lens is fraught with marital dangers.

Last edited by normhead; 05-31-2018 at 06:12 AM.
05-31-2018, 08:18 AM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by gump Quote
I am still playing with the editing but what bother me is the angle of the building which seems to be sinking right. Tripod and camera were horizontally level. Any further back and i would have been in a lake after a fall (I know, anything for a photo). The image is as it looks in real life but. . . . Is it just me? Does it bother you? Any ideas?


As what other people have said there are a few things you can do. There is a tilt shift lens, helps with distortion(costs money though, though its less time in computer and you keep a full image where you dont have to crop at all). you can use perspective control in software, you can rotate/crop, push and pull and distort the image to where it looks better for you(it doesnt cost anything just some time to get use to in software, but it removes pixels from images to correct). the k1 can utilize the sensor as a form of in body tilt/shift. Lastly there is actually two forms of level, one where you level everything such as your tripod, and camera, or you utilize your subject to level your image such as a form of perspective leveling.

Nice image overall


05-31-2018, 10:06 AM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by gump Quote
All very helpful critiques. The warning about wife-distortion is exceptionally valuable. I do not have photoshop. I have been using/stumbling around with Infan, gimp, and raw therapee, I am frugal. I did not want to commit to a $$$ program until I have a better handle on what I need. I have been snapping photos for probably 60 years but my brain development is pre-digital. All that aside I appreciate the time you took to comment and edit to show me what was possible in post-processing. These give me an example to aim at.
As regards Photoshop (PS), I don't know what can be gotten inexpensively or at no cost, nor do I know what other software can do similar to PS, but I will say this about PS. As regards various perspective controls, I use CS2 and CS6 versions and (for my purposes) they are identical. Actually except for the camera raw handling (which CS6 is much better) I find CS2 and CS6 to be the same, so if CS2 can be gotten for little or no money it may be useful. But as I mentioned the camera Raw (2012 version) is so much better in CS6 that it is usually what I start with.
05-31-2018, 10:37 AM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by dms Quote
As regards Photoshop (PS), I don't know what can be gotten inexpensively or at no cost, nor do I know what other software can do similar to PS, but I will say this about PS. As regards various perspective controls, I use CS2 and CS6 versions and (for my purposes) they are identical. Actually except for the camera raw handling (which CS6 is much better) I find CS2 and CS6 to be the same, so if CS2 can be gotten for little or no money it may be useful. But as I mentioned the camera Raw (2012 version) is so much better in CS6 that it is usually what I start with.
dms,
,
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not cheap, well maybe I am, but I dislike the frustration as much as the $ waste of buying the wrong (for me) item. Some reviewers have compared the "freebies" I use as earlier versions of PS. Somehow I got on Adobe's email list and I do not know how I can resist LR or all their other products. My experiences have led me to do a lot of research. There is also computer power and what the heck I am going to do with all these outstanding images to add to the mix. I spent about three months looking at cameras even though Nikon, during this period was offering a wonderful deal on the refurbish D5500. I have no doubt that there are great editing programs (not fond of the idea of renting). I will spend some time with free trials and see what might be appealing. I will use your comments to look at PS. Thanks for posting them.
05-31-2018, 01:00 PM - 1 Like   #15
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Gump,
On the list of software you said you use, you mentioned Gimp, under the tools menu you have transform, and there you have perspective. I think that this tool is what you can use.
Cheers,
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