Realty/Interior Design Lens for Crop

What is the consensus on 'best lens' for Interior design and Realty photography?

On a 1.6 crop, is a fisheye still 'too' fisheye?

Recommendations? Thanks!

Dan Kearley wrote in post #15140587
What is the consensus on 'best lens' for Interior design and Realty photography?

On a 1.6 crop, is a fisheye still 'too' fisheye?

Recommendations? Thanks!

I'd say the best option is something like the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 so you can take in a good chunk of the room and everything in one shot while also using the natural light of the room to light it...

The wide angle perspective can be helpful as well as it will make a room look "larger" and more "roomy" at a wide setting, Useful for Realty photography...

I would imagine that the consensus choice for pros in that field would be one of the tilt-shift lenses (probably 17mm on APS-C). But I could be totally wrong.

EF-S 10-22. You're going to be stopped down for this kind of photography anyways (use a tripod)..so f/2.8 is of little value for you. Much better focal range versus the Tokina as well, with good distortion characteristics, and better flare resistance. The Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6 would best best, if your budget is tight.

The 17 TSE on crop is a bit short of wide enough for my tastes...same as using 28mm on FF. I prefer FF with 24mm shift lens, personally.

The TS-e lenses are arguably the best suited lenses for this purpose on a FF camera due to their ability to control perspective. This is very important for interior shots because all of the straight lines in the frame will show any hint of distortion - perspective or lens distortion. The human eye is very good at picking up these distortions on interior shots, even if the viewer doesn't know enough about camera equipment to put their finger on just what is wrong. However, on a crop body, even the 17mm ts-e might not be quite wide enough for what you want to do and it's an awfully expensive solution if it's not exactly what you want. And, since perspective control is so important for this type of photography, a fish eye is not a good choice either.

So, I would recommend any of the UWA zooms available on crop - my favorite being the 10-22. You aren't going to need a fast aperture because if you're doing it right, you should be shooting from a tripod and trying to get as much DOF as you can - and that means f8-f11 on a crop camera if you're trying to balance maximum DOF and minimal diffraction. The 10-22 is plenty fast for this plus it's flare control and corner performance are best in class.

My advice would be to shoot just a tad wider than what you need and correct perspective using software like PT lens - you'll lose some width with the corrections but your end results will be much better.

^- You could take a TS-E and shift it to do an interior pano too if im not mistaken...

I photographed a kitchen using my 15-85 just last week for my wife, a kitchen designer. I stopped down to 7.1 for most of the shots, using a tripod as was mentioned. I also used my 580EX II for some of the photographs.

I'll try remember to post the photos here when I figure out Lightroom 4.2. I'm trying to develop a work flow. I figure it's about time.

PS: I shoot a 60D so I turn on the peripheral illumination option so vingetting isn't an issue.