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UER Forum > UE Photography > Something that bugs the crap out of me (Viewed 4923 times)
DescentOnARope 


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Something that bugs the crap out of me
< on 10/21/2015 6:10 PM >
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Pictures are never, ever straight. It's impossible.

I've not been exploring in months, leaving me with lots of time to go back and edit edit edit. During this time, I noticed that every picture I've ever taken is crooked.

"But you can rotate them in photoshop, it's easy!"

No, you don't understand. I've spent more time on rotation than probably anything else. Even if it looks fine during editing, it will never look fine when looking at it later. EVER. I can twist and turn all I want, turning an image this way, then back the other, and there is just no such thing as straight.

Soon I started noticing it in the photography of others, too. Being off so slightly that I'd never have noticed had I not been obsessing over it in my own pics. And now, even as I type this, the text box itself seems to be crooked.


...help me.




Peptic Ulcer 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 1 on 10/21/2015 6:31 PM >
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Its a challenge for sure but there IS hope. This is something I've struggled with as well from the beginning. A few things to do that can help.

1. Get a tripod. Most of the ones that I have seen have the little water bubble things you see on levels and it helps but its not exactly precise. The stability of the tripod makes it easier however to line up your shots.

2. The camera itself. Not sure what you use to shoot but my D750 has a leveling feature on it in live view. Coupled with a tripod, its impossible to not get the shot lined up.

3. Take your time. If either of the 2 above dont work for you then spend a few extra seconds to line up the shot you want, top and bottom left and right. Hold your elbows in close, take a deep breath then push the button. Also try leaning up against something like a wall for extra stability

The point, shoot and move method of urbex photography is just rolling the dice. You'll take hundreds of pics and only come back with a few you like (the old "even the dumb get lucky" approach).

It takes time to line up a shot that you want but we're shooting stills here not football. And then there's always photoshop to fix any screwups....




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Archer 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 2 on 10/21/2015 7:02 PM >
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What camera do you have?

On my 5d the viewfinder shows the AF points, and three of those line up nicely in a horizontal line, which helps a ton.

The other thing I use when I'm not using a flash (which is very rarely), is one of these guys: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/271896765257. At a quick glance I can tell if the camera is level.

Don't forget that the lens profile itself can add curvature to the image, which can make it seem as though it isn't level (not sure about Photoshop, but Lightroom has an option to take this profile into account and flatten out the lines to remove the curve).




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DescentOnARope 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 3 on 10/21/2015 8:00 PM >
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Really, it's not even an issue of shooting or editing. My problem is that nothing, no matter how close it is, will feel straight if I look at it long enough.




Peptic Ulcer 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 4 on 10/21/2015 8:03 PM >
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Post by DescentOnARope
Really, it's not even an issue of shooting or editing. My problem is that nothing, no matter how close it is, will feel straight if I look at it long enough.


Photoshop wont help you there. Only other suggestion I have is lithium and professional help




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Kurt 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 5 on 10/21/2015 8:05 PM >
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Rotating won't do much. You need to also play around with your horizontals, verticals, and distortion controls. Both can be done in photoshop or lightroom




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sleeperspirit 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 6 on 10/21/2015 8:28 PM >
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Maybe you're heads on crooked .



[last edit 10/21/2015 8:28 PM by sleeperspirit - edited 1 times]

Der_Krampus 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 7 on 10/21/2015 8:53 PM >
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Most of the places I shoot are so damned decayed, warped and crooked I just do my best to level with the tripods bubble level, the horizon screen thingy on my d800 and hope for the best.




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blackhawk 

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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 8 on 10/21/2015 11:38 PM >
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Posted by DescentOnARope
Really, it's not even an issue of shooting or editing. My problem is that nothing, no matter how close it is, will feel straight if I look at it long enough.


It's because it isn't framed properly. Not all shoots are framed the same way. First get your focus lock, usually it will be an object such a door or light switch a close to your cam. Hold down the shutter button half way and hols that lock. Then proceed to line up the framing. For a straight head on shot of a hall you need to line up the lines of at least the closest wall so it's at a perfect 90 degree angle from the floor; parallel to the side of the view finder. Next pick an object in the farest point in the shot that is the same height your cam is; the lense barrel must be level. With those points lined up exactly, shoot it. Editing can't undo poor framing. After a while it will become second nature to do this. When framing try to get lines angling inward on or near the corners of the frame.

Composition is everything; useless your doing a documentary, this art. You can have the best subject in the world and screw it to hell with bad framing and composition. Read more about framing and composition. Drawing and painting composition is easily applied to what you are trying to do. Except you need to get your exposure set right for the key elements in the shoot, your focus point, and your f/stop setting that best suits your shot. Most lens are the sharpest around f/8 but not all. The Canon 70-200 L is best shot wide open at 2.8. Don't have the bookmark but theirs a site with interactive blur charts for most lenses. Learn the sweet spots for your len(s) and use them unless you want to change up for special effects using f/stop settings. The trade off is blur increases and chromatic aberrations as well.

You need to understand this and more. The technical limitations of you cam, but especially of your lense will dictate your limits to a certain extent if you want good pictures. You need to know what they are and shoot within the shoot within these parameters. You can shoot great shots with cheap lense, but you are more limited to what you can capture.

Tripods aren't needed most times. Learn to brace the cam on walls, rails, poles, the ground, your knee, anything that's at the right height to frame it to your liking. Bring a brush towel to rest the cam/lense on say a even surface helps. You only need to hold it steady long enough to set up the shot and shoot it. You can shoot off a couple exposures and get at least one clear keeper with practice. Tripods waste time and limit the available shooting angles. Learn to shoot guerrilla style and spent time shooting not jacking around with the tripod. When I street shoot I never use a tripod. I would only use one from exposures over 1/8 of a second or specialty shots like for HDRs where absolute cam rigidity is required.

Better cams have better view finders generally speaking. Pro cams have the best. After shooting with my Canon Mark 3 it was painful to shoot with the 5D. Better view finders are not only larger, but brighter; they have better light gathering capabilities. In low light settings this makes a big difference.

Take a look at NickSan's images on UER. Glass also has great shooting skills. Study their framing techniques. Keepers aren't accidents. You need to make multiple settings and composition judgements in a few seconds. Only knowledge and practice will increase your shooting skills. I prefer shooting RAW images over jpegs because you gain at least 3/f stops of WB and exposure adjustment. I usually like AV shooting mode, but many times will use full manual to get exposures as close as possible. Spot focus is my favorite; lock on, line it up, and shoot.



[last edit 10/22/2015 2:35 AM by blackhawk - edited 3 times]

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catdog23 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 9 on 10/22/2015 12:40 AM >
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Learn to brace the cam on walls, rails, poles, the ground, your knee, anything that's at the right height to frame it to your liking.


Pretty much my life.




Deuterium 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 10 on 10/22/2015 1:19 AM >
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a
Posted by DescentOnARope
Pictures are never, ever straight. It's impossible.


Good lenses used to be very very expensive. In the old days, it required extreme precision and craftsmanship to produce very high quality lenses. Most things are built far sloppier these days and covered up in digital corrections.

The calibration maybe generic, or individualized. That is, the defect correction data maybe generic for the lens model, or it could be individualized to the specific unit you have. This kind of distortion is easily corrected, but you can't create the missing information from blurriness along the edge and that's often a compromise for shooting on the widest setting.

Permanent lens cameras are calibrated on ATE on the production line as a complete unit but interchangeable lenses are more challenging, because they can't be pre-matched as well.

Off of RAW, you might have something like this before corrections are applied:


Using a set of known calibration parameters, the defects are offset and corrected before written to JPG in camera or you would apply the corrections in Lightroom or similar. I'm sure you could get outcome closer to this without corrections if you used a lens that costs thousands of dollars.




[last edit 10/22/2015 1:27 AM by Deuterium - edited 2 times]

mookster 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 11 on 10/22/2015 5:53 PM >
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I know the feeling.

Of course I am not helped by having a tripod with no bubble level, which has lost a lot of the strength in the support to keep the camera straight, as well as legs that aren't exactly straight either. I guess I have chucked it over too many walls, through fences, bushes and such like. I bought one of those little bubble levels that slots into the hotshoe plate on the camera which helped but it fell off at some point during an explore back in the summer...

Also having a wide angle lens is a pain to get something totally straight due to the image distortion.




blackhawk 

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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 12 on 10/22/2015 6:59 PM >
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Posted by mookster
I know the feeling.

Of course I am not helped by having a tripod with no bubble level, which has lost a lot of the strength in the support to keep the camera straight, as well as legs that aren't exactly straight either. I guess I have chucked it over too many walls, through fences, bushes and such like. I bought one of those little bubble levels that slots into the hotshoe plate on the camera which helped but it fell off at some point during an explore back in the summer...

Also having a wide angle lens is a pain to get something totally straight due to the image distortion.


As I explained already all you need to do is pick a point at the far end of the shot that is the same height as the cam and center the lense barrel so it's parallel to that point. After a while it gets to be a habit.




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Darkheart 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 13 on 11/7/2015 12:10 AM >
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blackhawk 

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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 14 on 11/7/2015 12:12 AM >
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Stop that you...




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General Zod 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 15 on 11/8/2015 5:51 AM >
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It's late, so I won't read the replies to your post (yet) but.. for many years (and despite my camera automatically measuring what's "level", digitally) I found that I was shooting cocked about 1-2 degrees off clockwise.

I could not break this habit no matter what. And when shooting wide angle, it is an especially difficult habit to eliminate.

However, I did learn over time that the tilt of a wide angle lens is just as important as the horizontal angle of the lens, in determining if the shot comes out looking "crooked" or not.





[last edit 11/8/2015 5:53 AM by General Zod - edited 1 times]

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sirpsychosexy 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 16 on 11/8/2015 2:17 PM >
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Leveling compositions with a wide angle lens isn't easy, you'll have to get used to spending time on that. Even then, a good part of the photos I come home with have to be slightly rotated and/or perspective corrected to be perfect. Also, we photographers can become a bunch of nitpicky people. The average Joe doesn't look at your photo and think "hmm this needs to be rotated 1 degree clockwise". The homeowner association in my apartment decided to have a photo someone took at the nearby beach printed on a huge 3 by 3 meters canvas and hang it in the lobby. I have a chuckle everytime I walk past it because the sea horizon is a good 10 degrees crooked, yet no one but me has apparently noticed or cared.

Posted by blackhawk
Tripods aren't needed most times. Learn to brace the cam on walls, rails, poles, the ground, your knee, anything that's at the right height to frame it to your liking. Bring a brush towel to rest the cam/lense on say a even surface helps. You only need to hold it steady long enough to set up the shot and shoot it. You can shoot off a couple exposures and get at least one clear keeper with practice. Tripods waste time and limit the available shooting angles. Learn to shoot guerrilla style and spent time shooting not jacking around with the tripod. When I street shoot I never use a tripod. I would only use one from exposures over 1/8 of a second or specialty shots like for HDRs where absolute cam rigidity is required.


I know it's a matter of taste but I don't think this is great advice. We're talking about leveling your camera, and a tripod with bubble level is a great help here! When you balance your camera on poles and ledges, you're kinda asking for crooked photos

Not only do I need a tripod because I bracket almost every shot, also 90% of the abandoned buildings I visit are simply too dark to shoot without a tripod, unless you want to go over iso 400 permanently. I've recently had a discussion with someone who posted some photos with terrible digital noise. He told me that he never takes a tripod because he thinks it's too bulky to carry. Of course it's a good point but on the other hand it's a lazy mindset. I gladly carry some more weight so I don't have to rape my photos with high iso noise. If you really care about image quality, work for it, bring a tripod and keep your iso low. If you have a newer camera that handles high ISO very well it's a different story. Oh, and my new tripod is basically a ninja. Nowadays most tripods have so many features that they're not very limiting in terms of composition anymore (not talking about a 30 dollar piece of plastic labeled as tripod). I can even turn around the center column so the camera is upside down between the tripod legs, and go as close to the ground as I want.

Posted by blackhawkTake a look at NickSan's images on UER. Glass also has great shooting skills. Study their framing techniques.


Both have always been very inspirational to me back in the days, but now I'm looking through archived UER threads of them, pretty much all of their photos were crooked and distorted. Maybe we all just didn't care so much about it back then.



[last edit 11/8/2015 2:18 PM by sirpsychosexy - edited 1 times]

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Speed 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 17 on 11/8/2015 2:28 PM >
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I know its not the answer for everyone but I have a grid focusing screen in my camera. It makes setting up shots quick and easy.




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sirpsychosexy 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 18 on 11/8/2015 2:58 PM >
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Speed, is that a replacement for the original, or did it come with your camera? I'd love to have it!




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Speed 


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Re: Something that bugs the crap out of me
< Reply # 19 on 11/8/2015 3:06 PM >
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it was a replacement screen. cost about 35usd and takes about 60 seconds to install. I shoot with a Canon 5D mk II




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UER Forum > UE Photography > Something that bugs the crap out of me (Viewed 4923 times)
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