San Francisco Church's Bell Tower - Panama's Old Quarter - C+C Please

jfrabat · Mar 16, 2013

Here's another one from my walk around today... This time, it is the Bell Tower of San Francisco Church in Panama's Old Quarter. This time, I did an HDR and used local tone mapping to get an almost B+W feel with just a touch of color. The original image was not impressive, but I kind of like this one. Let me know if you agree!

Some Details:

Camera: Sony SLT-A77V
Lens: SAL1680Z Zeiss 16-80mm 3.5-4.5
Expusure Time: 1/250 Sec
Focal Length: 55mm
Aperture: f/11
ISO 160
HDR (single RAW, -2, 0, +2 compensation)
Tone Mapping

Felipe

eswebster · Mar 17, 2013

Straighten it and crop a bit off the right and i like it. Cool picture.

jfrabat · Mar 18, 2013

eswebster said:
Straighten it and crop a bit off the right and i like it. Cool picture.

Hmmm.... I just rechecked it, and the centerline of the tower is straight; the picture is not crooked...

WesternGuy · Mar 19, 2013

The picture is not crooked, but in any architectural photo shot from "below", you will still have convergence of the outside verticals, although the centre line is straight. This is just an artefact of not having shot on the level of the tower. I am not sure if this is what eswebster meant. This can be corrected in Photoshop - Photoshop Tutorial - Straightening Horizons and Converging Verticals - Part 2 - and of course, those who shoot architecture for a living use tilt-shift lenses, probably not something you or I have in our camera bag

. I also think it might be better if the centre line of the tower was in the centre-line of the image, just my opinion, but that's just me. If you are happy with it and the converging verticals, then just leave it the way it is. If you are interested, then Google "photography architecture convergence" and you will get a lot of hits on this phenomenon.

WesternGuy

TimLindstedt · Mar 19, 2013

It's a beautiful shot, well done!

jfrabat · Mar 20, 2013

WesternGuy said:
The picture is not crooked, but in any architectural photo shot from "below", you will still have convergence of the outside verticals, although the centre line is straight. This is just an artefact of not having shot on the level of the tower. I am not sure if this is what eswebster meant. This can be corrected in Photoshop - Photoshop Tutorial - Straightening Horizons and Converging Verticals - Part 2 - and of course, those who shoot architecture for a living use tilt-shift lenses, probably not something you or I have in our camera bag . I also think it might be better if the centre line of the tower was in the centre-line of the image, just my opinion, but that's just me. If you are happy with it and the converging verticals, then just leave it the way it is. If you are interested, then Google "photography architecture convergence" and you will get a lot of hits on this phenomenon.

WesternGuy

Thanks, Western... I will look up the tutorial and see if I can fiddle around with the image to make it look better (unfortunately, since I lost the original and only have the low-res one I got back from flickr due to the HDD dying on me, it will not have the best resolution!).

Light Guru · Mar 20, 2013

WesternGuy said:
The picture is not crooked, but in any architectural photo shot from "below", you will still have convergence of the outside verticals, although the centre line is straight. This is just an artefact of not having shot on the level of the tower. I am not sure if this is what eswebster meant. This can be corrected in Photoshop - Photoshop Tutorial - Straightening Horizons and Converging Verticals - Part 2 - and of course, those who shoot architecture for a living use tilt-shift lenses, probably not something you or I have in our camera bag . I also think it might be better if the centre line of the tower was in the centre-line of the image, just my opinion, but that's just me. If you are happy with it and the converging verticals, then just leave it the way it is. If you are interested, then Google "photography architecture convergence" and you will get a lot of hits on this phenomenon.

WesternGuy

That tutorial shows one way to do it however using the lens correction filter in photoshop gives you much more control.

After correcting the distortion I still had to straiten it 1 degree.

Light Guru · Mar 20, 2013

Thats one of the things I like about large format cameras is that can all be taken care on in camera. To do it in camera on a DSLR you would need a tilt shift lens.

jfrabat · Mar 21, 2013

For the amount of shots I take of buildings, I rather invest in some other type of lens (macro, prime, etc.)... I looked online anyway, to see the costs, and I found only 2 brands making them for Sony; Rokinon and Arsat. I have never before heard of Arsat, and Rokinon I have not heard great reviews from (they are OK, but not as good as others out there). Still, as I mentioned, I think I rather just do it in Photoshop because I really do not take that many photos of buildings (not to mention that I would have to learn how to use such a lens, and I still am working on the basic photography principles!). But it certainly looks better once corrected!

eswebster · Mar 21, 2013

looks great, the lean i saw before.... or at least what appeared to be lean is gone. Amazing what the lens correction in PS can do.... amazing what PS can do really.