Hamilton Museum of Steam Technology

[joebranko]

I had a hard time getting the stack vertical and the building lines horizontal. Kept playing with the transform function and the levelling tool. Any suggestions?



I cant remember why I used such a wide open aperture, except perhaps I was going into the museum and I anticipated needing it in there because of low light. The result is a very shallow DOF and the model out of focus.



The building was originally The Hamilton Waterworks, also known as the Hamilton Waterworks Pumping Station. It is a National Historic Site of Canada located in Hamilton, Ontario. It is an industrial water works structure built in the Victorian style, and a rare example of such a structure in Canada to be "architecturally and functionally largely intact". It is currently used to house the Museum of Steam and Technology. (ref Wikipedia).

[Wavelength]

I liked the second image very much it has more life, meaning and a scale of comparison...in the first image the right side roof needs a half degree rotation, clockwise?

[Astro]

Hi Joe, a nice capture (2nd shot), I have been to the museuem with my cousin, when I have visited (Waterloo).

I know the problem getting the corrections right, and you have done much better than I did. (I ended up trashing my attempt).
You may have ended up slightly 'overcompensating', though it is quite marginal. I would be inclined to allow a limited degree of converging parallel rather than trying to eradicate entirely.
I do like the overall balance of the image though, the light cloud softens what could otherwise be an 'overwhelming' sky.

I'm heading over to Waterloo mid May so might just popover to Hamilton again...

[Shadowman]

Nicely framed.

[Manfred M]

Whatever technique you are using Joe, it seems to be working well. You've handled those issues quite nicely.

I tend to use a perspective correcting on these types of shots whenever I can as that saves me the hassle of doing it later, but that also means I have to bring that lens along.

When I am shooting normally, I tend to use the Skew functionality in the Transform tools to make the basic adjustments to get the roof and other building aspects to look horizontal and vertical. This tends to "squash" the image, so I stretch it out vertically using the Scale functionality to get everything to look right from that standpoint.

[joebranko]

...in the first image the right side roof needs a half degree rotation, clockwise?

Thanks Nandakumar. You are probably right, but that may make the stack look out of plumb?

[joebranko]

Thanks James. Hope you make it to Hamilton and to the museum again. If you do, send me a private message if you like and I will meet you there. I have been thinking of taking another pic with better light.

[joebranko]

Nicely framed.

Thanks John.

[joebranko]

Whatever technique you are using Joe, it seems to be working well. You've handled those issues quite nicely.



When I am shooting normally, I tend to use the Skew functionality in the Transform tools to make the basic adjustments to get the roof and other building aspects to look horizontal and vertical. This tends to "squash" the image, so I stretch it out vertically using the Scale functionality to get everything to look right from that standpoint.

Thanks Manfred. I will have to learn that function in Photoshop

[pendennis]

Nice shots, and good starts at editing.

Let me add this: Not all lines can be "corrected". No matter how you look at a vertical structure, there will be some aspects that can't be corrected. Lines are not parallel from the ground, only degrees of conversion. The same goes for horizontal lines. As you look at horizontal lines from one end, they naturally converge in the distance.

While software does an adequate job, don't get carried away. If you completely corrected, and got parallel lines, it wouldn't look natural. However, you have to strike a balance between that, and the "falling over" effect when using wide angle lenses.

I've used view cameras with lots of controls (swings, tilts, etc.) for over 40 years, and there are just some things that are better left "less edited".

[joebranko]

Let me add this: Not all lines can be "corrected". No matter how you look at a vertical structure, there will be some aspects that can't be corrected. Lines are not parallel from the ground, only degrees of conversion. The same goes for horizontal lines. As you look at horizontal lines from one end, they naturally converge in the distance.

However, you have to strike a balance between that, and the "falling over" effect when using wide angle there are just some things that are better left "less edited".

Thanks Dennis. Sounds like good advice.