1st cityscape attempt

PhotosGuy the water looks level but the buildings look angled, is this an optical illusion or just the way the pic was taken? ( I'm trying to learn too Rebel nothing against your picture just wondering what I could do if it was me taking picture )

Dan

Probably because the camera was not aimed perpindicular to the coast.

Nice shot!

When I scroll down it's dead even with the bottom of my monitor.

Because the camera axis was not aimed perpendicular to the buildings, which are straight up & down, so a level will help. "make sure that the cam back (or the lens front) was straight up & down."

Thanks Dan and Kevin! Frank is right. I remember the ground wasn't level(rocks and sand) and i had to adjust my tripod's legs' differently. Then I used the river line and the bridge as the horizon, which I shouldn't. I should have paid more attention to the buildings.
Great advice Frank!

Kbreit, the shot was taken at 27mm, ISO100, f16, 1/15s, tripod.

Hey Rebel your doing great and really putting an effort into the hobby. I have not had as much time to do this and it shows, my lense is coming in tomorrow
and I hope I get some time to play. Keep up the great work!!

Dan

Hey Dan, don't worry. Summer is coming. You'll have plenty of chance to get some great shots, especially with your 70-200L. I'm glad it's coming in tomorrow.

Actually summer is already here in Texas. We hit 100F for two days consecutively and it's only May! Geeezzzzz

Here's a straightened copy. Is it better?

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Better, but still not verticle.

I think now the buildings on the right lean to the left a little, and the Frost Bank building still "looks" leaning alittle to the right eventho it is vertical in the correction grid when straightening.
Ok, i don't think any software can straighten this correctly, at least not Picasa2. I'll have to reshoot it.

Hey Rebel

I read your last post and downloaded Picasso2, nice easy program to use.
Thanks....Is there any downfalls to this program?

Dan

Hey Rebel,
You need to shoot when the bats fly. Or is that the wrong bridge? I know when we saw them it was an amazing sight.
pam

Hi Pam,
You are right. This year i'll make sure i get some "bat" shots at the bridge.
It's a shame i haven't seen such phenomena in Austin.

You've a simple case of vertical convergence there. I've not read every post in this string and this point may have been covered already; if not; here are a few tips:

Expect distortion when using wide angle lenses – especially with architecture. Look into a tilt / shift lens for shots like these. If a set of these expensive fixed focal length lenses isn't within your budget; use what you've got and utilize post processing to repair the flaw. The leaning or vertical convergence in your photo is a very simple fix in any image editing program allowing you to cut and paste the image and adjust the perspective. No special plug-in or stand alone program is necessary. I copied this shot, and put exactly 30 seconds into the repair shown below. If it’s not dead on; it may of course be tweaked to perfection from the original file. I cut the entire image from its background. Next, I pasted the image to a separate layer. I then adjusted the perspective of the shot by eye until it looked acceptable. Remember to crop the image to remove the extraneous background which will be showing along the vertical borders after this adjustment. You'll need to sharpen things up as well as a final step. Definitely shoot RAW for scenes like these; you will have much more information which with to work for the final product.

Good Luck,

Movick

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