Wide Angle Distortion

I have never shot with a wide angle lens but my 10-22 is scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I know that with extreme wide angle lenses verticle lines tend to not be verticle and I know that it is exaggerated if the sensor plane is tilted up or down. If I can get the camera square to the world I know the slant at least will be lessened but can I acheive verticle verticles or will there always be some slant to verticle lines?

with ANY lens that is corrected sufficiently, vertical lines are not vertical only when the CAMERA IS NOT LEVEL to the ground in all directions....and this is true for teles or wides!

Wide angle lenses are more often prone to 'barrel distortion' than tele lenses, but tele lenses can have barrel distortion, too!

Super wide focal lengths can cause 'perspective distortion' due to the difference in relative distance of objects in the scene. So a lady with smaller busom can appear very ample in proportion when she is very close to the lens, yet a man with a big beer gut can appear diminuitive in size compared to the nearby lady, simply because the difference in distance can be exaggerated with a WA lens. For example, with 50mm lens, lady is 5' away and man is 8' away, or 1.6x the relative distance and their relative sizes in the photo are per our normal perception. But with 10mm lens, when the lady is 1' away and the man is 4' away...4x the relative distance, so her busom is exaggerated in the photo compared to his gut!

Yes, hold the camera level and you'll be fine. In general, lenses do not distort things. Distance (that the lens allowed you to focus from) can.

Sparky98 wrote in post #3990137
I have never shot with a wide angle lens but my 10-22 is scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I know that with extreme wide angle lenses verticle lines tend to not be verticle and I know that it is exaggerated if the sensor plane is tilted up or down. If I can get the camera square to the world I know the slant at least will be lessened but can I acheive verticle verticles or will there always be some slant to verticle lines?

The "distortion" you speak of is usually not distortion in the true sense. In other words, good lenses like Canon's 10-22 can provide images of a 2-dimensional target without significant distortion. In order to achieve this, the camera's sensor has to be parallel to and centered on the target image.

In the real world, the "distortion" you refer to is actually caused by the position of the viewer (camera) relative to the subject and how much of that subject you are forcing the camera to record. Perspective is controlled by the distance between the viewer (or camera) and the subject. By getting closer to a subject, you increase the likelihood that you will experience perspective distortion in your images.

There are few ways to control perspective "distortion". One is positioning of the camera - mostly getting the sensor plane parallel to the major flat surface of the subject. Another is to use a view camera that allows you to shift the lens in several planes. To some extent, lenses like Canon's TS-E series of lenses can emulate the view camera and straigten parallel lines within the image.

Thanks to all for answering my question. I thought I knew the answer but just needed some verification.