How to shoot tall objects?

[vinnycent]

I have to shoot some ladders for a catalog and I was wondering how (or what I need) to shoot a ladder to match the perspective of this one (attached). I find it a lot more dynamic and visually appealing than just a side shot of a ladder posted on a wall.

Is this a specific technique, lens, etc?

Thanks ahead for your help!

Vince

Image deleted - istockphoto watermarked

 

[vinnycent]

Not sure if this helps but I'm using a Canon T1i with a 50 mm lens!

 

[Josh66]

There's a lot of perspective distortion, so I'm going to say it was a wide lens from a close distance.

 

[KmH]

Plus some keystone distortion from angling the camera upwards.

 

[TCampbell]

This appears not so much to be a specific technique... but rather lack of technique. The ladder is horribly skewed and unrealistic. As a buyer, attempting to determine what my product will look like based on that photo would drive me nuts.

When photographing "tall" objects, you'll get a perspective distortion where the object appears to become much narrower at the top and appears to "lean" back. You can correct for this two ways. If you intend to "shoot" the object such that it looks normal, then you need a "tilt shift" lens (Nikon uses the term "perspective control" lens.) Old view cameras with bellows could naturally do this, but as few people have cameras with bellows, the speciality lens performs the same effect.

Here are two photos. The camera was on a tripod. Both photos were taken from the exact same position... I did not move. They were also both taken with the same lens (same focal length). What's different is that in the first photo, the lens was "normal" - no tilt... no shift.


Riverhouse (uncorrected) by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

In this next photo, I used the "shift" feature of the lens to compensate for the distortion.


Riverhouse by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

A tilt-shift lens is rather expensive. If all you want to do is fix perspective distortion, you can do that in Photoshop (or a number of other editors.) You can ONLY do this for the "shift" effect. The "tilt" effect alters the plane of focus and you CANNOT fix that in Photoshop. But perspective distortion does not require "tilt" to alter the plane of focus... only "shift" to alter perspective distortion.

For these next images (I'll have to embed them because I don't have the 'before' and 'after' on Flickr like I did for the Riverhouse), I did NOT use a tilt-shift lens. Here I used a normal lens but corrected the distortion using only Photoshop.

Here's the before:



And here's the after:



Note the above are NOT two different images taken one after the other. These are both the SAME original image (inspect the wrinkles on the flags if you don't believe me.) The difference is I told Photoshop to correct for the perspective distortion.

BTW, inspect the vertical lines on the building in the background VERY carefully and you'll notice they're not actually "perfectly" straight. I allowed it to pinch in just very slightly. This was deliberate. Your eye believes that tall things should be slightly narrower at top. If I had mathematically made the building "perfect" then your eye would have perceived an optical illusion whereby the building actually *appears* to be wider at the top than it is at the bottom. Whether you use tilt-shift lenses or perspective distortion correction in Photoshop, never "perfectly" fix the image. Always allow just a tiny amount of perspective distortion.

Here's just one (of many) sample videos that show how to use Photoshop to perform a perspective distortion correction: Perspective Correction in Photoshop - YouTube

 

[Josh66]

This appears not so much to be a specific technique... but rather lack of technique. The ladder is horribly skewed and unrealistic. As a buyer, attempting to determine what my product will look like based on that photo would drive me nuts.

Yeah, it wasn't exactly something I would want to emulate... It was almost the exact opposite of what you'd want in a product photo of a ladder. To do that shot 'right', I'd think you'd probably want a tilt/shift lens.


If you really want to emulate the photo that was originally posted, get the widest lens you have, get as close to the subject as you can (while keeping the whole ladder in the frame), and then get as low to the ground as you can.

 

[KmH]

Many don't realize just how expensive it gets to gear up (lenses/lighting/grip/light modifiers) for shooting professional quality images of products.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Super-wide angle, maybe even fisheye, as low as possible, looking up. How else are you going to fit it in amirite?

 

[vinnycent]

Thank you all for your input/help! This place is really informative and friendly!

I'm going to try to shoot it the best way I can figure out. I guess I should say I am by no means a photographer in any way. I'm actually a graphic designer for a small business who needs someone who can wear multiple hats. So I've been taking all the product shots so far (mostly small objects) and it has gone well (surprisingly). This is the first big/awkward thing I've had to shoot so far and I just want it to look as nice as the other smaller things.

 

[Josh66]

To minimize the perspective distortion (which, IMO, is what you want to do), I think you'd be better off shooting from farther away and using a longer lens, or zooming in. That is NOT what they did in the photo you posted, haha.

As TCampbell mentioned, you can also correct the perspective distortion in post - make sure you leave yourself room to crop if you try that.

 

[Helen B]

If you are correcting perspective distortion in post for accurate product shots, just be aware that Photoshop Lens Correction (as demonstrated in the video linked to above) doesn't do it correctly with respect to horizontal-vertical proportions. It is OK if you are doing small adjustments, but not if you are doing large ones. The correct axis of correction is rarely the optical axis (well, it would never be necessary). It is mid-way between the optical axis and the perpendicular to the object axis that passes through the lens. I'll explain in more detail if anyone asks.

 

[michaelferguson]

Any type of camera from a single-use to a DSLR is able to shoot large images.

 

[slow231]

If you are correcting perspective distortion in post for accurate product shots, just be aware that Photoshop Lens Correction (as demonstrated in the video linked to above) doesn't do it correctly with respect to horizontal-vertical proportions. It is OK if you are doing small adjustments, but not if you are doing large ones. The correct axis of correction is rarely the optical axis (well, it would never be necessary). It is mid-way between the optical axis and the perpendicular to the object axis that passes through the lens. I'll explain in more detail if anyone asks.

i've noticed this using the lens correction filter tool in PS. so is the appropriate way to use the free transform tool?

 

[Helen B]

I enlarge the canvas on one side of the image so that the new centerline is the correct axis of rotation, then use the lens correction filter. Use the ruler to measure the position of the correct axis in pixels, then double it and that becomes the new canvas height or width - after adding image area to the required side only.