I sold my 17-40L to a dude who shot architecture for a living (as well as resorts all around the world). He said the 17 and 24 TS-E was his bread and butter. Amazing lenses, but there is a learning curve..
The 17-40L lens appears to be for a Canon. Do you happen to know the Nikon equivalent?
Thanks for the links and the advice! I would love to get one of those PC shift lenses but they may cost prohibitive for me/the firm. Might try renting though..
Budget for buying 28mm AI PC + (14n or SLR/n) is under $1000.
But those bodies are not for low light.
My firm has asked that I begin documenting some our past projects. Both interior and exterior shots. Being an amateur I am not sure what lens/settings I should use to get the best shots. I have a Nikon D90 with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm VR lens. I also have Nikon's SB400 speedlight.
I would be more than grateful for any advice on which lens/settings to use or any good book suggestions on photographing architecture.
Thanks!
The 17-40L lens appears to be for a Canon. Do you happen to know the Nikon equivalent?
The best lens for shooting architecture is probably a view camera.
Jeez.....
18mm is probably wide enough. I presume you are photographing large, impressive rooms and spaces, not bathrooms and cute kitchens.
Wander around and take informal test shots and frame things. You will know if you have to rent a wider lens.
DX is fine. FX is fine if you got it. Film for this sort of project....? Really, now.
That little flash is good, but for a big room you probably need more, and likely slave lights to even out the illumination of the rooms and all that is in them.
A PC lens would be good if you did this for a living and got intuitive with the thing. Also, it is hard to just get your first really wide lens and just fire away without a learning curve. Wide is difficult to do correctly.
Not an insult, but a big company is going to use a hobbyist employee for an important presentation? This sure puts you in jeopardy if they expect you to turn out a glossy high-end result.
Lastly, PTLens, Elements, Photoshop, Pixelmator, etc have perspective control. You have to learn how to use it so that your proportions are good. Hint: don't frame too tightly.
Correct, as usual. I talked with a very talented architectural photography who uses Arca and Alpa view and technical medium format digital cameras and gets amazing results. He far prefers the digital gear to 4x5 and 8x10 transparencies because he needs to do less lighting to avoid saturating the dynamic range. But his gear is worth likely in the six figure range and he charges accordingly. With a good tilt/shift lens you can still do okay on a dSLR.
A view cameras gives you immense control of perspective and depth of field, a complete lack of chromatic aberration, and a near-perfect reduction in any kind of lens distortion normally seen in fast wide lenses. Most lenses are diffraction-limited at normal apertures, and you can use wider apertures to get more depth of field if you know what you're doing (I don't, unfortunately; this always trips me up). The issue is, you're either dealing with film or dealing with insanely expensive esoteric digital gear.
If the images posted above--just plain snapshots of houses--are all your client is looking for, then any camera will do. If they want something even resembling architectural photography, you NEED to introduce proper lighting, exposure, and perspective correction. The proper way to do this is renting a tilt/shift lens and full frame camera (not for the image quality, but to get a wider field of view), if not a view camera.
Switch all the light bulbs in the house for matched practicals, if possible, all as bright as possible (100w or above, all matched color temperature, 3200K if you want the house to look "warm;" daylight-balanced florescent if you want it to look "modern" or like an office). Take a reading, figure out what stop you're at to expose the average room in the house nicely and write that down a couple hours before dusk.
Go outside and figure out the angle of one or two shots you want to take. Don't try to take more than one or two. Dress the area with props and clean out anything you don't want in frame. Take readings around dusk, and once the stop to expose the interior gets close (slightly darker than) the stop to get a good exposure outside, take some test shots. Keep shooting test shots until the light is good. Once they're looking good, set up your camera, correct for perspective (aim the lens AT the horizon, then use rise/fall to frame the shot), and take some bracketed exposures. Use a strong tripod, cable release, etc. to ensure registration. Then go and take the other shot you had planned using the same method. When and if you need to use hdr techniques, respect the laws of tonal hierarchy. Very basic stuff, but this is for very basic results. Lighting using strobes and using a view camera would be helpful for professional-quality results.
If you really want to cheap out and skip the tilt/shift lenses....you can. But you will lose a lot of resolution. Just rent the widest decent lens you can find and follow two techniques: 1) shot the shot as you would but wider toward the top of the frame and use Photoshop's perspective correction AFTER correcting lens distortion 2) frame the shot ridiculously wide pointing at the horizon, then crop out the portion you need, which will have natural perspective. Obviously neither is a good option and I would be immediately wary of anyone saying this will give acceptable results, except maybe as a quick hack for web-quality thumbnails.
Another option is that you can buy a wide prime lens which usually known as wide angle lens. This lens allows you to take photos from different angle and on different focal lengths.
Tilt/shift or large format film. For architecture, nothing else will do. If you don't have perspective control, it's game over.
That is so a 2005 approach.
With current DSLR's and Photoshop don't worry too much about T/S.
Unfortunately the TS has a D90, the newer D5100 etc have fully functioning distortion removal that works magnificent.
If you tilt your camera up, and correct in Photoshop, you can't tell the difference. TS lenses are not at their best when shifted and loose detail on the upper half rapidly.
And shift is used maybe at 20% of all architecture pictures, only on exterior shots of tall buildings.
Today for serious architecture photography, you should get a D800 with a 14-24 2.8 lens. It is killer. It beats the crap out of any MF solution as this allows you to shoot from your hand instead of tripods, yet delivers comparable IQ! You even have plenty of room to crop on the 14mm setting to simulate shifting if you like to make the photo straight.
With current DSLR's and Photoshop don't worry too much about T/S.
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Today for serious architecture photography, you should get a D800 with a 14-24 2.8 lens. It is killer. It beats the crap out of any MF solution as this allows you to shoot from your hand instead of tripods, yet delivers comparable IQ! You even have plenty of room to crop on the 14mm setting to simulate shifting if you like to make the photo straight.
What are you talking about?
How many pictures in National Geographic are taken with APS-C or full frame?
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