Cathedral Basilica

[BJ Denning]

I love architecture, but I need more practice at shooting it. The widest lens I have is the 24-105. I'm still learning how to deal with the wide angle distortion and what things to look for in architecture shots. A local camera club visited our local Cathedral Basilica. Luckily the inside was all mosaic, so flash was allowed and we were allow tripods.

[rpcrowe]

Great images. However, I suggest that the first one might benefit from some perspective adjustment...

[BJ Denning]

Thanks. Haven't quite got the hang of fixing all perspective issues .... I know CS6 has some pretty fancy tools for perspective stuff, maybe I'll play around as time permits.

[Shadowman]

Great images. However, I suggest that the first one might benefit from some perspective adjustment...

The perspective adjustment sometimes hurts the image when the crop is applied. I usually shoot from two or more distances so that I can salvage some of the surroundings structures. I know they aren't central to the theme but they sometimes add structure to the overall image.

[Shadowman]

Bryan,

Nice images, especially like the colors in the second image.

[Polar01]

Bryan a suggestion for the outside image, take 3 or 4 shots as a pan and let your CS6 stitch them together. Once this has been done increase the canvas size around the image to give room to work on the perspective with the wide angle filter and say warp in editing. Many times I have had to increase the canvas size, once finished you can then crop away what you do not need. Oh and by the way great images.

Cheers:

Allan

[BJ Denning]

Bryan a suggestion for the outside image, take 3 or 4 shots as a pan and let your CS6 stitch them together. Once this has been done increase the canvas size around the image to give room to work on the perspective with the wide angle filter and say warp in editing. Many times I have had to increase the canvas size, once finished you can then crop away what you do not need. Oh and by the way great images.
Allan

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I will remember to take more shots next time, I was worried about loosing context.

[dubaiphil]

Adjusting the perspective on your first shot is not going to help you much. You will end up with a more 'squat' version of the building. The only option to adjust the perspective would be to have some headspace above the building and then stretch vertically after adjusting your verticals. That would provide a more realistic looking view, but the image will be stretched at a pixel level and on close inspection may not look good enough to your eye. Viewed at this screen resolution there won't be too much of an issue, but printing big will highlight this.

So your options with your current lens are:

a) Do a quick vertical panorama, making sure to be in full manual mode for consistency throughout the images you shoot. Taking a little more foreground on the low side and a little more sky on the high side. Then stitch together. My usual method of PP is to select the finished image, use the distort tool to pull the top left and right corners independently to fix the verticals, and then stretching the top and bottom of the image to restore the perspective of the building, cropping afterwards to suit.
b) use the vertical perspective to your advantage to emphasise the height of the structure

Or your other more costly options are:

a) use a wider angle lens. However if you don't shoot with the camera level then you will still have vertical perspective. You will therefore have a lot more foreground in the image, which you can crop out.
b) use a tilt shift lens

[dubaiphil]

And here's a pretty extreme example:

To fit the entire building in with the camera level was not possible, so the camera had to be angled upwards. This introduced vertical perspective issues. Shooting with enough space above the building allowed me to realign my verticals and then stretch the image to it's more realistic height:

[dubaiphil]

You also have to watch your reflections, if they exist, as these will also exhibit vertical perspective. Selecting the area around the reflections and straightening them can help, with cloning to fix any issues around the area which you have not selected to smooth out the transitions.

[nimitzbenedicto]

You also have to watch your reflections, if they exist, as these will also exhibit vertical perspective. Selecting the area around the reflections and straightening them can help, with cloning to fix any issues around the area which you have not selected to smooth out the transitions.

Thanks Phil, very innovative use of distortion/vertical. panoramic use. getting more headspace/foreground so adjustments can be made. Watching reflections too. Glad you're back.

[BJ Denning]

Wow, thanks for all the help/advice. And sweet shot of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper.

[Feracu]

It´s fantastic!!!!!!!!!!