Washington Square, NYC C&C Welcome

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[Wavelength]

Nice

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Thanks Nandakumar.

[Geoff F]

Basic shot is fine but you do have problems with the verticals not being straight. If they were equally 'tapered' I wouldn't worry about them but as there is more 'lean' on the left side I wonder if a bit of correction would help?

Not a major problem but if it was possible to correct, I would have a go.

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Greg, thanks. I did notice the extra lean on the left and in fact did play with the perspective. What it ended up doing was distorting the Arch. I'll give it another look and see if more can be done. Or I just may do a tighter crop of the Arch which eliminates the distortion in the BG.

[Geoff F]

If you do try a crop, Jack, I would leave most of the right side and end up with the arch off centre and towards the right?

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Greg, let me know what you think of this one. I was able to tweak the perspective a bit without too much distortion, only thing is that I lost most of the sky on the left.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi there Jack,

I think it needed a small amount of counter-clockwise rotation before any perspective correction was applied for a (slightly) better result. Judge this by overlaying a suitable size grid in PP, or simply by taking the verticals of each side of edge to your screen edge, and identifying that the lean wasn't symmetrical, indicating rotation is needed - and that's always the first thing to do (for your sanity).

If I were shooting such a scene as this, I would shoot wider (assuming that's possible for the shooting distance and surroundings, combined with widest focal length available) - doing so allows me to:
a) not tilt the camera up so much meaning less perspective correction is needed on those verticals (crop foreground if necessary) and
b) give more space for correction without running in to the problem you have here with second version.

Of course, I learnt the hard way too

[Shadowman]

Jack,

Nice capture, so many scenes within one. With a step to the side the archway could be a good frame for the rest of the city.

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Hi Dave and thanks. I went back to the original and I believe I went with a 'best fit'. I can make it plumb, or level, but I can't do both (it may be a result of the angle I took it at, somewhat oblique to the center of the arch. Then playing with the perspective seems to further aggravate the plumbosity of the verticals on the arch. I had rotated the image initially but it may be off some small percent of a degree or so and then was further exaggerated in the perspective adjustment. In any event it (like a really good crossword puzzle) will give me some hours of entertainment trying to see if I can sort it out.

I can tell you I shot it with a 35mm lens at f/11 but not from the best distance.

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Thanks John. You're right, I may go down to Washington Square tomorrow, if I do I'll see what I can get.

[IzzieK]

Jack...although there are some nits to pick about the perspective, this is actually a beautiful shot. So many things to look at. I like it that you have captured the birds and the busy street down below...the whole scene is that. It makes me realized how many scenes I have seen similar to this, wanted to take a shot but didn't...now with this shot, it will make me "see" more and shoot more instead of wishing I wished I had ...

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Thanks Isabel. There actually is a lot in that image. I may go into it and see just how many more images I can crop out of it. Maybe we need to require to take a street shot of people at least once a week. Just to get you out and doing it :-)

[Geoff F]

One alternative crop would be to go square and lose some of the left side. I doubt you could get away with 4 x 5 ratio and I wouldn't really want to lose much, if anything, from the height.