Lens choices for architectural/interior photography?

[Scatterbrained]

http://photographyforrealestate.net/lighting/

Amazon.com Canon TS-E 17mm f 4L UD Aspherical Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras Digital Slr Camera Lenses Camera Photo

 

[Designer]

OMG, Buckster! That's great! So you're saying that I just need better editing software, and the two softwares combined cost way less than the PC lens that I thought I needed.

Thank you!

 

[Light Guru]

On the tilt-shift lens, it's a lot less necessary in the digital age than it was in the film era (especially considering their high cost as a specialty lens), simply because it's so much easier now to fix keystoning and such in Photoshop

Yes you can use photo shop but the BIG problem there is that you will end out cropping out a fair chunk of the image. This could cause you to not have to go back and reshoot because a key part of the image is cropped out once you correct for the distortion. If you shoot with a tilt shift lens in the first place then you will see in the camera what is going to be in the final photo.

 

[Buckster]

Allow room to crop.

 

[theregoesjb]

Wow thanks for all the replies, this has all been super informative, but I guess I should have been more clear about my situation.

This is a hobby for me, not a pursuit into a new career, I am considering doing what I call "splurging" on a 400-500$ lens (tamron or sigma 17-50 2.8) for my own uses. I dont have a budget too far beyond that, however I would consider getting a light or two. I AM still open to other suggestions in, or closer to, that price range.
My boss currently takes pictures with his iphone because he doesn't like paying for professional photos, unless it's being featured in something. I would just like to try and get better at taking indoor pictures, dealing with lighting, framing, and I'm going to use our projects to practice with.

I am sure better photos can be taken with the gear I already have/will have. Since a 2,000$ lens is not happening, or a full frame upgrade, what are peoples thoughts?

I also have a tripod that I am willing to say is good enough for what I'm doing.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Wow thanks for all the replies, this has all been super informative, but I guess I should have been more clear about my situation.

This is a hobby for me, not a pursuit into a new career, I am considering doing what I call "splurging" on a 400-500$ lens (tamron or sigma 17-50 2.8) for my own uses. I dont have a budget too far beyond that, however I would consider getting a light or two. I AM still open to other suggestions in, or closer to, that price range.
My boss currently takes pictures with his iphone because he doesn't like paying for professional photos, unless it's being featured in something. I would just like to try and get better at taking indoor pictures, dealing with lighting, framing, and I'm going to use our projects to practice with.

I am sure better photos can be taken with the gear I already have/will have. Since a 2,000$ lens is not happening, or a full frame upgrade, what are peoples thoughts?

I also have a tripod that I am willing to say is good enough for what I'm doing.

1. Do you have a tripod? If not. Get one, you'll need it.

2. Get a speedlight, use napkins or whatever to diffuse it if needed.

3. Light important details of the room in an interesting but not too distracting way and take multiple long exposures with the camera set up on the tripod. Walk around the scene and dont worry if you need to be in frame to get the lighting (you can mask yourself out with another image of the room.

4. Layer the images in PS and mask in the different types of lighting you did with each exposure. (as long as they work together)

5. Viola! you just made an excellent interior shot with limited equipment.



I made both of these images using that exact method:

Far from perfect but I think they'd do for your boss.. right?

 

[Designer]

Wow thanks for all the replies, this has all been super informative, but I guess I should have been more clear about my situation.

Yes.

Apparently you won't be using any of the excellent suggestions here, so would you mind terribly if use them myself?

 

[photoguy99]

'Allow room to crop' is all very well but it is worth adding that you should practice a bit to get a sense of just how much room you need before you do anything important. You might be surprised.

 

[Buckster]

Yes, indeed. Practice makes perfect in all aspects of photography, and this is no different.

That said, it really doesn't take that much to learn how to get a pretty good idea when looking through the viewfinder what's going to happen when you correct perspective in post. Follow the pseudo-perpendicular lines from the corners of the wide ends of the keystone down to the corners of the narrow ends using the vertical and horizontal lines of the existing architecture, and everything outside that imaginary trapezoidal keystone boundary formed by those lines will be cropped out. Then, simply allow a bit more room than that to crop, and you're golden.

Example from the earlier photo I posted:

Just looking through the viewfinder, it's easy to see that the top and left sides are the wide ends of the perspective trapezoid. With a little practice, it's not terribly difficult then to imagine where those red lines will be when seeing that scene through the viewfinder, and knowing that everything outside of them will be cropped away by correcting the perspective in post.

ETA: I suppose that if you really wanted to get into it, you could do it in live view and use strips of gaff tape on the screen to replace the imaginary red lines in your mind. And of course, if the screen on the back of the camera is too small for you to work with, connect a large tablet and mark them out on that with gaff tape or a straight edge and dry erase marker.

Of course, for those who can't manage to learn how to do it, there is always the option to buy a range of T/S lenses instead. These are Canon T/S lenses at BH:

Your choice.

 

[photoguy99]

When I am correcting perspective, I always squash rather than stretch. So I get a weirdly shaped four sided figure on the canvas. And then I crop that.

This last step always astonishes me, the actual rectangle I can pry out of the odd shape is sometimes bizarrely small.

Probably some combination of mild stretching and mild squishing would be more satisfactory. Obviously too much stretching will produce regions in which the underlying resolution is quite low, producing softness.

 

[Dave442]

So working at the firm you have a better idea than another photographer what the boss will pay for images. Not necessarily images that are going out for publication (where a pro photographer knows what needs to be charged), but ones your boss may want to have on his phone or computer to show potential clients or to discuss ideas. May not pay you directly but could ask for time to process photos at work and they pay for some software.

 

[TCampbell]

If the camera lens axis is perfectly level (nose to tail) when you take the shots, then walls, door frames, and windows won't lean inward or outward. Sometimes getting the shot you need means having to place the camera in a location where that's not always possible... at which point the "shift" capability of a tilt-shift lens really helps.

You can do it in Photoshop, but you have to remember you're going loose some of the image around the edges -- and you may start to cut into something you actually wanted. I used to do this in Photoshop before owning a tilt-shift lens.

Also there's a bit of a learning curve to the tilt-shift lens and all tilt-shift lenses are manual-focus only (there is no such thing as a tilt-shift lens with focus motors.) If you think bout all the ways the tilt-shift has to be able to slide, twist, and articulate, there's really no good way to route power connections to operate focus motors... hence YOU are the focus motor.

 

[cesarmario]

I Also just started with interiors. I agree, Mike Kelley is excellent in the first(all)steps in this division.