Need help taking photos of buildings.

USCRugbyNo1 · Oct 3, 2016

Hey Guys,

I am a real estate agent. I have a Canon t3i and I have these 3 lenses.

10 -22
18-55
55-250

I am only looking to take exterior building shots and city shots. These photos will be compressed on my website to make things more mobile friendly. These photos are ONLY for the web. I notice when I take photos the sky doesn't look nearly as crisp as other photographers?

Do you guys recommend a particular lens?
Do you guys recommend a particular filter?

I am a total novice and looking for the cheapest way possible to accomplish my goal. Thank you very much for your time.

otherprof · Oct 3, 2016

USCRugbyNo1 said:
Hey Guys,

I am a real estate agent. I have a Canon t3i and I have these 3 lenses.

10 -22
18-55
55-250

I am only looking to take exterior building shots and city shots. These photos will be compressed on my website to make things more mobile friendly. These photos are ONLY for the web. I notice when I take photos the sky doesn't look nearly as crisp as other photographers?

Do you guys recommend a particular lens?
Do you guys recommend a particular filter?

I am a total novice and looking for the cheapest way possible to accomplish my goal. Thank you very much for your time.

Please post a couple of shots you are unhappy with. Lack of crispness is too vague. My first guess is you mean the sky is overexposed, and there are ways to correct that. But I think of sharpness and contrast when I hear "crisp."

Overread · Oct 3, 2016

As said there could be multiple reasons why you're not getting the result you want so we need more information from you about what you're doing and examples to see so that we can put context to your question. What you have should work for good shots and with the right approach some great shots.

You want ot note how you took the shot - what settings; mode; if you used a tripod etc... everything and then show the photo too. With that we can start to put together an idea of how you took the shot and what thoughts you had as you were taking it (ergo how you choose what settings you use - even if its just to set it to auto mode).

KmH · Oct 3, 2016

USCRugbyNo1 said:
I am a total novice and looking for the cheapest way possible to accomplish my goal. Thank you very much for your time.

The cheapest way is to spend the time and effort it takes to learn how to make the gear you already have do what you want it to do.

When shooting a building(s) from outside you'll need to know about the various kinds of camera perspective distortion plus evaluating light quality and direction.

USCRugbyNo1 · Oct 3, 2016

Thank you very much for your responses. I do have a tripod, but I'm not looking to use it. I use the tripod when I shoot video for pans. I am looking to point and click. Here are some photos I shot of one particular building.

Dropbox - Fifth and Poplar

Light Guru · Oct 3, 2016

Nothing un crisp bout those skys. Some of them are below out but thats normal, if the sky was properly exposed in them the building would be really dark.

USCRugbyNo1 · Oct 4, 2016

So, what lens should I use then to shoot with?

KmH · Oct 4, 2016

Many DSLRs have a feature that evens out dark and light areas of a scene.
Nikon calls their's Active-D Lighting.
I'm sure Canon has a similar function.

Again, it's about learning to use what you have. You might want to re-read the T3i Instruction manual.
See - Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) - pages 49 and 109.

beagle100 · Oct 4, 2016

USCRugbyNo1 said:
So, what lens should I use then to shoot with?

Canon 10-18 refurbished - $199
but the 10-22 should work fine - shoot in RAW and adjust 'blue' sky levels

table1349 · Oct 4, 2016

First use the tripod. The buildings not going anywhere, there is no need for snap shooting when you can have the best of stability.

As for lens, use which ever one works for the shot. There is no one perfect lens. The 10-22 is by far the best quality lens in your group as well as being better quality than say the 10-18. Use DPP to adjust the angle distortion of the buildings.

The best lenses for shooting architecture are Tilt/Shift lenses. The 17mm f4L and 24mm f3.5L are both in the 2k range so I would guess that they are out of your price range. The 45m f2.8 is in the 1.4k range but that is getting a bit tight.

titaniummd · Oct 5, 2016

Go with the widest angle. See of you can take pictures without street signs, cars, people and someone's red long Johns hanging off off the balcony. Shoot in raw and edit the photo.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

USCRugbyNo1 · Oct 5, 2016

What is DDP?
Why shoot in RAW?
I don't have any software to edit these photos. Outsource to Fiverr?
I am looking for the easiest, cheapest solution and thank you for your responses.

table1349 · Oct 5, 2016

USCRugbyNo1 said:
What is DDP?
Why shoot in RAW?
I don't have any software to edit these photos. Outsource to Fiverr?
I am looking for the easiest, cheapest solution and thank you for your responses.

When you bought your camera did you see a CD in the box? Did you put it in the computer to see what was on it?

DPP is Digital Photo Professional. It is a software editing program that comes FREE with your camera. In it is a lens utility that allows you to among other things correct distortion. On the disk is other helpful software you might like to be aware of. Free is pretty cheap in my book.

Why RAW. Because it records and saves all of the possible data that the camera can capture. You can do non destructive editing on the files and export them into the format you wish.

AlanKlein · Oct 5, 2016

For your purpose, RAW isn't necessary. Shoot jpeg. Increase the saturation and sharpness in the camera. That will give more attractive pictures for your viewers and clients to see.

One problem though with shooting buildings is the keystone effect. If you look at your shots, you will see that the vertical lines of the buildings are not parallel. They kind of come together as they go up. That's due to a 3D image being printed or shown in 2D and the camera is shooting up. You can correct for that with a post processing program. However, there are cameras I believe that can do that in the camera. That would save you the problem of post processing these problems in a computer. Call B and H Photo in NYC. Ask their technical people which cameras will do that. I believe there may be some relatively cheap ones that will. Explain to B and H your problem. They are very helpful. Good luck.

KmH · Oct 6, 2016

There is no EASY button if you want to consistently make high quality photographs.

The camera makers make tilt/shift lenses that correct for keystone and camera perspective distortion that are used for architectural photography.
Nikon's is only $2200:
Nikon PC-E FX NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED