Barrel Distortion?

[digital flower]

First let me say think this photo is cr@p. I have been reading up on barrel distortion and wondered if this was it or did something else happen?

D70s kit lens @ 18mm

 

[Big Mike]

Looks like barrel distortion to me.

This one should be fairly easy to fix in photoshop though.

 

[crawdaddio]

What's barrel distortion? Is it shown here by the bend in the flagpole? Noob here......

 

[Big Mike]

Well I don't know if this is exactly barrel distortion or perspective distortion or a bit of both.

It's not just the flag pole....but the building also. You can see how things that should be parallel (pole & building) are pointing toward each other.

 

[saulmr]

And how do you go about fixing that on Photoshop?

I have a cheap sony digicam I use for painting listings on eBay and I get that distorsion if I get too close. I makes for very interesting and fun closeups on friends!

 

[Big Mike]

Off the top of my head...ctrl-A (select all), then under edit, chose transform...skew or perspective.

You can then stretch the corners out until it looks better. Then you may have to crop.

 

[FuddyDuddy]

Hello

It looks mostly like converging verticals which you get when the camera is not level (ie pointing upwards).

Barrel distortion is something completely different where things towards the edge of the frame appear to bend outwards in the shape of a barrel.

Fuddy

 

[Mitica100]

FuddyDuddy is absolutely right. This has been shot with a Wide Angle lens and the camera was not level. However, there is some minimal barrel distortion, visible on the flagpole. It's almost straight from top to bottom but there is a slight deviation in the middle. Place a sheet of paper on the picture, connecting the top with the bottom of the pole and you'll see it.

 

[AIRIC]

At least I can say I learned something today. DFP I hope you don't mind but I gave it a try with your image. I only had a few minutes so it is not perfect but at least now I know how it is done.

Eric

 

[digital flower]

Airic, no problem and nice job. I'll have to try that myself.

Thanks to everybody who replied. I had a feeling the distortion was something I was doing

 

[Matty-Bass]

Looks pretty barrel distorted to me.. but I'm me :er:

Nonetheless it's a nice shot, interesting shot.

 

[BernieSC]

Someone was talking about tilt shift lenses in another post. Thats how tilt and shift lenses correct things like that. Personally when I shoot with a super wide angle lens I like that effect. But if you want to avoid it you would have to shoot at a more paralelle angle straight on. Or use a tilt shift lens.