How To Use An Ultra Wide Angle

I just recently got my first UWA, a Tokina 12-24. After a few weeks, someone mentioned that to keep the buildings from leaning in, level the camera to the ground. And hey, that works. Now I am finding another problem I keep running into, and it just dawned on me that being level with the plain of the building will keep it's sides from narrowing too. Is that how it works?

What happened, I was shooting doorways the other day, from a few steps down. I had the second step leveled in the viewfinder, then looked up and the lintel over the door was crooked. Well, that can't be, they are both level to the ground. So was I not shooting 90* to the plain of the wall to make that happen?

A UWA simply makes obvious the converging lines that your brain compensates its interpretation of what the eyes are seeing! Lines will converge if the camera plane is not in perfect plano-parallel position relative to the object being photographed. The same convergence which you experience with 'falling over building' also happens in the other plane, too!

Thanks for verifying that Wilt. I thought that was the case, but can't get out again right now to test it. I'm glad I got it figured out though.

Photographing a brick wall or a chess board makes it quite obvious!

I'll try that tomorrow.

I was looking at an UWA, and the problems with keystoning, are you saying that you have to tilt the body as well, or am I way off mark.

Well, yeah, the lens is connected to the body, so they both have to be level, or flat might be a better word, parallel, with the wall or building. You may be thinking of tilt shift lenses. These can tilt the lens at an angle from the focal plane of the sensor and still take an undistorted picture.

But what I was getting at, is you can see the buildings leaning in at the top or out, depending on which way you tilt the camera. Say you face a tall building. Look in the view finder, then tilt the camera down and the buildings will lean out, tilt it back up and they will lean in at the top. You can see it happening.

My reason for asking my question is, instead of parallel to the up down face of the building to kill the lean in the verticle, I want to know is if twisting side to side along the width of the building, will it make one side smaller and the other wider, and apparently that is the case. Now I know a lot more about getting undistorted images than I did before, and that will save me a lot of bin shots.

canonloader wrote in post #6158365
Well, yeah, the lens is connected to the body, so they both have to be level, or flat might be a better word, parallel, with the wall or building. You may be thinking of tilt shift lenses. These can tilt the lens at an angle from the focal plane of the sensor and still take an undistorted picture.

To increase your understanding (I hope, not to increase any confusion!) lens Lens Tilt has NOTHING to do with converging lines...this is done purely with keeping the film plane (or sensor) perfectly parallel to the plane being photographed (tilt of the film plane, not lens plane!)

Lens Tilt does nothing to allow the frame to include the entire building, in spite of the parallelism of the film/sensor. Lens Tilt only changes the Plane of Focus, such as making it more parallel to the ground rather than parallel to the building.

Lens Shift (or Film Shift) alters the portion of the image circle which is captured on the sensor or film. That allows the full height of the building to be captured, even though the center of the lens axis is down at the level of the doors on the ground floor of the building.

canonloader wrote in post #6158365
My reason for asking my question is, instead of parallel to the up down face of the building to kill the lean in the verticle, I want to know is if twisting side to side along the width of the building, will it make one side smaller and the other wider, and apparently that is the case.

OK, I get it now.

Thanks for explaining canonloader, must admit, I was a little lost.

And wilt

"Lines will converge if the camera plane is not in perfect plano-parallel position relative to the object being photographed.

Now this interests me, this is an angle (pun intended lol) that I have not thought about before, is there a site that explains this further or If you have the time, put it in layman's terms.

Thanks

Steve

superstes wrote in post #6158533
OK, I get it now.

Thanks for explaining canonloader, must admit, I was a little lost.

And wilt

"Lines will converge if the camera plane is not in perfect plano-parallel position relative to the object being photographed.

Now this interests me, this is an angle (pun intended lol) that I have not thought about before, is there a site that explains this further or If you have the time, put it in layman's terms.

Thanks

Steve

Any book on Large Format photography covers the topic far better than any book written for the 35mm format audience!

Thanks.

I will look into it.

Steve