i cant fix this

[bribrius]

part of what I was doing the other night. playing with a certain view I cant quite get down.
the church isn't level. I know the street isn't, it goes down hill. I level the staircase, square the building. The church isn't level.. But hang on, It gets worse...
View attachment 72738

 

[bribrius]

View attachment 72739I have two buildings, the stair case, and the church. and the church is the most obvious when not level because of the height. I know the street goes down hill.
how do I level this pic best as possible. I tried the staircase top, what should I be using for the guide. just the steeple? I was over tired and had a few but I don't think that worked either...

but it gets worse..

 

[Scatterbrained]

It could just be that the church isn't quite square to the street and other buildings. Then again, it could just be crooked. . . . . .

 

[bribrius]

View attachment 72740

here is the the p.o.v im actually trying to take this pick from, crossing a over a waterfall and ravine. know why its so dark? I have it at iso 100 and f20 in the middle of the night. I cant get the light in this to save my life, least to any decent quailtiy. I jacked the dlight in this too by the way and the shadows, it really was that dark. But I had it there for a reason..

Remember the staircase above?
They must have like 100000000000000000000watt lights on that thing..

 

[bribrius]

View attachment 72741

 

[bribrius]

It could just be that the church isn't quite square to the street and other buildings. Then again, it could just be crooked. . . . . .

I don't know. that is why when I posted it the other night in a few of my shots I purposely through the dutch tilt on it. I was getting annoyed. It really is the principle of it. I want the church level, the buildings level. the light brought up by the waterfall and the ravine and a nice balance across that parking lot. instead im getting unlevel buildings, a unlevel church, a washed out staircase and about the ****tiest light I can get.
And I cant solve it, and its t-ing me off.

 

[bribrius]

whatever. Just throwing this out there for thoughts. I don't need this shot. Its more a determination thing its a throw anyway. I just feel I should be able to do it. And what if someone hired me to do this shot and told me they want a night shot across this waterfall on the building for something? what would I say then that I wasn't good enough to do it? I don't like letting shots go I have trouble making. in fact it is the ones I have trouble with I care about the most even if they are throw aways the easy ones I don't give a **** about. im going to try it again just wanted some thoughts before I do. I shoot at night quite a bit too, not to say im great at it but ive got some experience. This one just isn't coming together.

still any confusion the other pics from there are in the thread I posted a few days ago "so I found me a corner"....
which really ended up being all about this shot, and one other which ive determined might really be hopeless because of lack of lighting along the river there.

 

[bratkinson]

Unless one uses a tilt-shift lens, trying to get parallel lines parallel gets rather difficult. I do a lot of indoor photography of church events and various wall corners in the background are often converging. The effect gets worse the wider-angle of the lens.

In the past, I've simply played with it in post processing until I reached an acceptably level shot. I sometimes cropped out the converging walls just to keep the subject(s) fully upright. Then Adobe came out with Lightroom 5 that has vertical and/or horizontal correction capabilities. The full blown Photoshop versions have had this feature for some years. I almost immediately upgraded to LR 5 to get that feature and have used it while processing a couple of shoots. While it's not perfect, it does a fantastic job for this amateur.

 

[480sparky]

I'm not finding what's unlevel or out-of-plumb in the second shot. The buildings are straight, and the street is level. Is it the church that's visually crooked? Or the street?

The only thing 'off I could find was a slight perspective distortion in the steeple. The horizontal lines were slightly CCW. An easy fix.

 

[The_Traveler]

View attachment 72740

here is the the p.o.v im actually trying to take this pick from, crossing a over a waterfall and ravine. know why its so dark? I have it at iso 100 and f20 in the middle of the night. I cant get the light in this to save my life, least to any decent quailtiy. I jacked the dlight in this too by the way and the shadows, it really was that dark. But I had it there for a reason..

Remember the staircase above?
They must have like 100000000000000000000watt lights on that thing..

ISO 100 means a lot of light is needed.
f20 is a tiny, tiny aperture.
so you would need a very, very, very long exposure time.


You need to stop writing and read about the exposure triangle because it seems that haven't got that down yet.

 

[bribrius]

I'm not finding what's unlevel or out-of-plumb in the second shot. The buildings are straight, and the street is level. Is it the church that's visually crooked? Or the street?

The only thing 'off I could find was a slight perspective distortion in the steeple. The horizontal lines were slightly CCW. An easy fix.

that was my closest I could come shot wth happened here. I actually threw this on a leveling graph and stared at it for a while when it wasnt.. huh? first I straightened the church, then noticed everything else went off. then I started using the staircase. yeah, church off.
Any thoughts to shooting from where im trying to on this and pulling off that staircase and the light without it washing out and still keeping the waterfall visible? This realy all started with me taking a wide angle for the waterfall and parking lot with the church in the background. the stairs washing out. Then I zoned in on the stairs trying to figure out the deal there, and noticed the church wasn't level. tried leveling the church, backed off again and noticed the buildings were out of wack. Looked at the street, started second guessing myself then remembered the street went down hill anyway. pulled back out took a few shots and about peaked at how messed up they were and went back to trying to figure the shot out one step at a time, starting with the church and those stairs. If I got that down I was hoping to pull back out more, figure out the parking lot, pull back more, figure out the water fall.. And try to find a happy medium of all. Maybe im going about this the wrong way, don't know. That church is key though, its just to obvious when it isn't level and further back you go more obvious it is..

 

[bribrius]

View attachment 72740

here is the the p.o.v im actually trying to take this pick from, crossing a over a waterfall and ravine. know why its so dark? I have it at iso 100 and f20 in the middle of the night. I cant get the light in this to save my life, least to any decent quailtiy. I jacked the dlight in this too by the way and the shadows, it really was that dark. But I had it there for a reason..

Remember the staircase above?
They must have like 100000000000000000000watt lights on that thing..

ISO 100 means a lot of light is needed.
f20 is a tiny, tiny aperture.
so you would need a very, very, very long exposure time.


You need to stop writing and read about the exposure triangle because it seems that haven't got that down yet.

View attachment 72756
15 second exposure f9 iso160 stair case blows out. Stairs not blown out were taken at f20 dropped to a 100 still on 15 sec. its on the timer.

I did manage a couple I liked at f10 but binging up the light the staircase still blows out. , really they are all pretty much not working. im going to get this though. Because im that irked.

 

[sashbar]

Just select the dominant vertical that in your opinion must look straight for the image to look natural. If you are not sure what is the dominant vertical, try to ignore the details, look at the main lines. Here in the first image the church simply must be vertical. I can not imagine why it would be built at an angle. All the rest may be not quite straight. You can easily straighten other lines close to the edges in post production if the distortion is caused by the lense (like barrel dist.) or perspective.
And bear in mind that the are no straight lines in nature, apart from crystal sides, sun rays and some other rare insignificant exceptions, everything in nature is bent and curved. Straight lines are human invention.

 

[astroNikon]

Don't worry about a perfect photo, because you might actually mention the powerlines going across the entire thing.

Can you try getting up close to the scene with a Wide Angle lens, in front of the power lines ?

In LR I started learning about the Shadow and other adjustment tools that you may want to investigate to help the brights and darks of this photo.

 

[bribrius]

Don't worry about a perfect photo, because you might actually mention the powerlines going across the entire thing.

Can you try getting up close to the scene with a Wide Angle lens, in front of the power lines ?

In LR I started learning about the Shadow and other adjustment tools that you may want to investigate to help the brights and darks of this photo.

oh I could. im just using Picasso and view nx and want to shoot across the water fall. My biggest problem here, is I cant seem to do it. OR get this down. And I take this personally as if I am going to be worth a damn at this I should be able to do it. I don't give a crap about the shot, except for the fact I cant seem to do it. I manage to do it i'll smile, feel I accomplished what I wanted and I don't totally suck, then toss it out anyway. I know I cant fix the powerlines from where I want to take this from, so that really isn't even on the table for me.


doing stuff like this is good for me its like a test (which im failing so far)