Help with Architectural Elevations

[natelox]

I am an architecture student and I am interested in documenting the elevations of a few streets in the City of Toronto. Does anyone have tips or suggestions as to how to take elevation photos of streets with a minimum of perspective? Here's an example of what I want to achieve:

Main Street USA (by DisneyKrayzie). This isn't the best example because some of the buildings are seen slightly in perspective and you can see the stitching lines, but this is the general idea of what I'm going for.

Drawing (by Gerard Michael). Another example of what I would like to achieve, but drawn instead of a photograph.

Every Building on the Sunset Strip (by Ed Ruscha). Ed Ruscha created a well known elevation study of the Sunset Strip (1965). The craft of his series is less than ideal though. I'm hoping to achieve something more fluid.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[480sparky]

Most likely, the Disney image is a series of individual images 'stitched' together. The Sunset Strip shot obviously is.

 

[analog.universe]

You'll want a lens that has minimal distortion. (i.e. straight lines stay straight, object on the edge of the frame are not rendered differently than objects in the center etc..). You can then take a number of overlapping shots with the camera perfectly level to the ground and also perfectly perpendicular to the buildings you're shooting. Be sure to actually measure the distance from your camera to the buildings and keep it constant as you move down the street. You'll then have a very clean set of images that a number of different pieces of software will be able to stitch together for you. If you're not able fit the height of the buildings in while keeping the camera level, you can use a shift lens (also known as perspective correcting) to maintain parallel verticals with an off center horizon line.

 

[analog.universe]

Also set your exposure and white balance manually, so that there is no variance between shots...

 

[gsgary]

You will want a nice expensive tilt and shift lens

 

[natelox]

Thank you very much for sharing your expertise! These are all great tips.

 

[Helen B]

You will want a nice expensive tilt and shift lens

There's no need for tilt, only shift. You can, of course, correct perspective later in Photoshop or whatever. Each source image should have the correct perspective correction applied before stitching together. If you want to keep vertical/horizontal proportions correct there is a particular method of post correction to use.

Here is what I wrote in an earlier thread on the subject:

"The 'accurate' way to do it is to hold the width of the correct part of the building constant while narrowing the building below that line and expanding above. You could simply hold the width of the centre of the image constant. The accurate location of the constant width line can be estimated by imagining the level of the camera (ie imagine a horizontal plane at the level of the camera) and placing a guide, then placing a horizontal guide at the mid-point of the uncropped image (ie on the lens axis). Then you place a third guide exactly between those two. The third guide is the line that should be constant width.

Having got the 'line of constant width' you then expand the canvas so that that line becomes the new centre line of the image, allowing the use of the perspective correction tool (Lens Correction filter in PS6?)."

Best,
Helen