Help with lens selection for shooting large buildings

[nicole_rodriguez2]

I am going to be shooting office buildings of all sizes in Manhattan and need some help. I currently shoot with a

20D and use a 24-70mm 2.8 lens and am concerned about capturing a decent perspective of the very tall buildings

when I don't have much space between the building and myself. I would appreciate any lens or technique

suggestions. Thanks

[freelance]

This picture is made with a 5D and a 16-35(16mm). The same result you can get with a 20D and a 10-22 at 10 mm<div></div>

[nathan_meador]

I recently rented the sigma 10-20mm for a similar project, and it was perfect for the job. I used 'borrowlenses.com'.

[adam_gifford]

A tilt shift lens like the 24mm TS-E is theoretically the way to go. Tilt for perspective control, and you might be able to use the shift to help capture the whole thing as well. If you buy one or rent one, you may need the tilt & shift setup for the same direction instead of rotated(?).

 

I don't own such a specialized piece of gear myself though.

 

http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/tse24

[JDMvW]

What you need is one of the shortest TSE (Tilt-shift) lenses. You've got the 20D so the 24mm is best, though it

is a little soft (see Photozone.de for a review) and will only be equivalent to a 38mm lens on your 20D. A 5D

would be better for this purpose. The catch, as you've already discovered is that in NYC it's often difficult to

get far enough back in the narrow streets so that even a view camera with bellows has a hard time getting it all

in without tilting the camera up and thus creating the "falling over backwards" view such as that in Antonio's

picture above.

 

I personally have a Sigma 10-20mm and it (or the Canon 10-22mm) will do the job. Distortion is there on the

Sigma, but is strangely concentrated right at the edges and the center of the field is pretty straight. Try to

hold the camera as close to parallel to the ground as you can, and then use a lens correction program (such as

the Filter>Distortion>Lens Distortion in Photoshop) to make the lines as parallel as possible. On the other hand,

maybe you don't mind buildings tipping over backwards for whatever your purpose is?<div></div>

[scott_ferris]

Hi all, leave lots of free space around the edge of the picture then do all perspective corrections in photoshop. Easy.

[scott_ferris]

Very rough and quick extreme example, hope it is OK Antonio......<div></div>

[swilson]

You can also stitch photos and use just about any lens. Doing this gives you perspective control and high resolution.

 

Here is an example I did of a church with stitched photos.

 

<a href="http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=1041">Link to Gigapan photo</a>

 

.

[zml]

JDM-overcorrected/too much shift..? The lines seem to converge downwards.

[JDMvW]

It's quite possible there's a little overshift. But I think if you measure it you will find that the apparent

convergence downward is mostly an illusion caused by our mind's tendency to correct for the normal convergence

upward.

 

This is why it's also a good idea to get a grid viewfinder for this sort of work.

[color]

Hi Nicole. I have a 20D and the Canon 10-22. It's a great combination for architectural photography if you're not going for large prints. I also have a 5d and the Canon 17-40, but I like the 20D/10-22 combo better for the purpose. I recommend using a tripod, ISO 100, manual focus, and a smallish aperture, like F11 with whatever lens/body combo you use.

[abzphotoz]

You definately want a wide angle lens. The above suggestions are great. I have seen some awesome looking shots of buildings with fisheye lenses as well.

[robin_sibson1]

"Tilt for perspective control". Wrong. Tilt is used to displace the plane of focus from its normal position at right angles to the lens axis. I would not describe that with the phrase "perspective control".

 

The best combination for photographing buildings is a FF body and the TS-E 24/3.5 lens, using the shift movement. I find that sometimes I do not need the full coverage of the 24mm, and there are two ways of dealing with that: use it with the Extender 1.4x (which works MUCH better than you have any right to expect), or, better, use it on a 1.6-factor body. Although small corrections to converging/diverging verticals can be made during post-processing, it is well-established that correction of substantial convergence/divergence significantly reduces image quality as well as requiring awkward cropping, and it is much better to get it right, or at least nearly right, in the camera. The use of a Type D screen is strongly recommended.

 

If you do not want to spend the significant amount of money required for a FF/TS setup (and 1.6/TS on its own doesn't usually solve the problem) then get the EF-S 10~22 lens. My preference is not to shoot architecture with it pointing slightly upwards; either I level the lens axis carefully, or point it substantially upwards to produce dramatic perspective effects. With the lens set to 10mm, you can obtain approximately the same effect by cropping as by using the TS at full shift on FF; the price you pay is to finish up with many fewer pixels, which may be a limitation if you want to make large prints.

 

If you go for the 10~22, you would benefit from upgrading your camera body to a 40D, for three reasons. First, you can fit the Ef-D grid screen to the 40D, whereas the 20D is not designed with interchangeable screens (although I believe various workrounds may be possible). Secondly, you can use LiveView, which has a grid option. Thirdly, the 40D is fully supported for lens aberration correction in Digital Photo Professional (the 20D is not supported, although it is apparently possible to edit the EXIF section of the image file to obtain the partial support provided for the 30D), and although the 10~22 is an excellent lens, it is not perfect, and tidying up the residual distortion, CA, and illumination fall-off is desirable for architectural work.

[freelance]

Excellent, Scott! I'll try with photoshop. Concerning the tilt-lens I think are not wide enough for my work. Sometimes I need Full Frame and 12 mm (Sigma 12-24)<div></div>

[manuel barrera houston,]

If you buy apc sensor lens, you will limited in use to those types of cameras in the future, tokina atx 116 pro

dx is also an option for cropped cameras, very good ratings, better rating at fredmiranda.com is the Tokina

10-17. A Sigma or Canon fisheye would also work, there is very little distortion with on a cropped camera. Many

options out there for lens (Canon has a fantastic apc sensor lens for wide, if you are thinking of full frame in

the future, those lens for apc sensors will not be usable.

[freelance]

Sample of 20D+Canon 10-22 at 10:

 

 

http://www.mrx.no/Misc/canon_10_22mm_at_10mm.html

[swilson]

Another thing to keep in mind is that for some very wide angle shots a rectilinear lens does not give the most

pleasing image. Below is a comparison of the same image projected as both a

rectilinear and a equirectangular image. The rectilinear image is very wide with a horizontal FOV of 135 degrees, but

the equirectangular image is even wider at 163 degrees. The rectilinear image has less distortion, but the

equirectangular image is more pleasing to my eye.

 

<IMG SRC="http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/99918710.jpg" ALT="Image">

[nicole_rodriguez2]

WOW...thank you so much everyone. I appreciate all you examples and ideas.

[sarah_fox]

Michael, Scott, the overcorrection of the perspective is probably an optical illusion, since the viewpoint is obvious upwards, with differing angles on each balcony level, but with no perspective in the wall.

 

The lesson is that you can't correct out all the perspective without it looking a bit odd. This is all the more true the more extreme the perspective is.

 

A tilt-shift lens would certainly be useful for correcting some of the perspective, but the image circle wouldn't be large enough for one of those looking-up-the-skyscraper shots. Personally, I'd just mount up a 10-22 on the 20D and go with it. If you need wider, you'll need a Sigma 12-24 on a full frame body.

[scott_ferris]

Hi Sarah, I think you miss read Michael's post, he was commenting on the picture by JDM von Winberg of Winchester Cathedral, not my very quick and extreme attempt at a perspective correction. I corrected with the grid in place so the horizontals are correct but I didn't think anybody would take it as a serious attempt to demonstrate architectural photography, it was just meant to show that whilst you can never do better than starting with the best shot you can take, with care you can minimise the amount you need to correct and you don't need special lenses to sort out these things nowadays, photoshop works very well, particularly if you take the shot with the necessary corrections in mind. Back in my bedroom darkroom B&W days you could do the same thing by stopping the enlarger lens right down and tilting the paper holder, lens carrier and head, no I don't miss it :-). Interestingly enough (maybe) lots of old buildings towers and minarets do lean slightly outwards, the Taj Mahal being probably the most famous example, this was done on purpose so if there was a collapse then the tower would fall away from the main structure.

[scott_ferris]

Sorry should have said verticals are correct! Doh!

[zml]

<i>lots of old buildings towers and minarets do lean slightly outwards,</i><br>True, and makes squaring the camera on both axis in relation to the actual structure more important than leveling the camera (in relation to the ground.)

[JDMvW]

>>Tilt for perspective control". Wrong. Tilt is used to displace the plane of focus from its normal position at right angles to the lens axis. I would not describe that with the phrase "perspective control". <<

 

Who said anything about tilt for perspective control? I said tilting the camera upwards to include the top of the building contributed to the lack of perspective control. On the lens I was using (the 35mm PC Nikkor ) there is no tilt, only shift. The shift is so that the camera body can be held parallel to the earth's surface so that upward lines stay parallel or at least closer to it. On a view camera, there are more options, but this is the best you can do without bellows.

[sarah_fox]

Scott, you wrote: "Hi Sarah, I think you miss read Michael's post"

 

Oops! Yes, I did indeed! ;-/

 

Even so, I think there is an optical illusion afoot in that image too. We're looking up at the thing, and yet there is no perspective. Our eye tells us that it's really larger on the top than on the bottom. One only has to leave a tiny bit of perspective in the image to overpower this illusion. Only a little. ;-)

[scott_ferris]

Hey Sarah I certainly wouldn't disagree, the Greeks mastered all that kind of architectural optical illusion stuff! Like all the speciality areas in photography (well in most fields) you can get deeper and deeper into it becoming very knowledgeable and masterful. The coolest thing about the digital age, in this area, is that you don't need the cumbersome cameras (that were very expensive and involved to use)or the darkroom skills that you used to need to get even average results, you can, with practice, get very good results with a normal camera, a bit of technique, a small step ladder and a reasonable priced computer. Sweet! :-)