Sloping Horizon?

[rockabillyrebel]

Took a couple of shots this afternoon to test out something I think I read (where I'm not sure) about sloping horizons. In both shots I was leaning on a sea wall & made sure to get the horizon perfectly lined up with the focus points in the view finder. And yet when viewed on my PC the horizon clearly slopes to the right! Any ideas??

Thanks.

[Scottes]

Can't see the images be Yahoo doesn't allow direct linking to images, but...

Lord knows I've done this almost every time. What you can see if the viewfinder just isn't enough to tell if your horizon is perfect or just pretty darn close. But it may look perfect, and then you find the image has a .5-degree tilt, which looks very tilted on your screen.

1) Really, really try hard to make sure that it's perfectly level in the viewfinder. Good luck - my eyesight isn't good enough.
2) You can deal with it, and fix it Photoshop. That what I do. :(
3) Try a tripod with a level built in, and test it to make sure it's perfect. My 2nd tripod isn't even close. My third is so far untested for accuracy.
4) Get an add-on level which goes into the hotshoe. Can be had for (I've heard) $8 but I just paid $32 because I'm not too bright and couldn't find an $8 one. Also I believe that $8 levels are probably useless, so I hope a $32 one isn't. But I just got it today so I have no idea yet.

I'm not even convinced yet that the bubble level will help.

If anyone else has some tips I'd love to hear them too. I believe that I've lucked into level horizons in any of my pictures.

[robertwgross]

I went around and around with this for the first six months I had my camera. I have quick release mounts stuck on each of my camera bodies, and those fit into quick release tripods. There is a tiny level in each quick release mount, but that is tiny and crude. I have a larger level that came from Home Depot, perhaps intended for a carpenter's line. That helps a bit.

I discovered that I will get a different tilt depending on whether I view my camera with my right eye or my left eye or with or without sunglasses. The bottom line is that I still end up with a 0.5 to 1.0 degree error sometimes. However, that is what image editors are for. I had to do a 1.0 degree rotation on each image from a 140-image wedding one time. That'll teach you.

---Bob Gross---

[Scottes]

The bottom line is that I still end up with a 0.5 to 1.0 degree error sometimes.

Well I don't feel so bad any more. I'm just about always within 1 degree.

So maybe I just wasted $32....