[MrB]

Effective Philip.  Some day as a exercise, clone out the people!  Cheers.  Ed.

Thank you, Ed.  Interesting suggestion but I think I'll pass!

Cheers.
Philip

[MrB]

Exeter Cathedral - Choir Stalls and Organ

Much of the carved oak here dates back over 800 years.

This photo was a hand-held shot, captured at around lunchtime in July, using the natural light from the windows.  I used a Pentax K-3 at ISO 1000, and a 28-105 zoom lens at 28mm. The exposure was made to preserve the highlights, so 1/30s at f/8, with -2EV of exposure compensation. 

The perspective (vertical convergence) was corrected in PaintShop Pro, which was also used to brighten the shadow areas, as well as to make other small adjustments where necessary - brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity and sharpness.  

Cheers.
Philip

[attachment=7170]

[delb0y]

Good work on those verticals, Philip. I never cracked it on my recent visit to Gloucester.

[MrB]

Thank you for your comment, Derek. 

A disadvantage of posting in the Showcase Forum is that it restricts comments on the images, so one reason for posting this image here was as an example that might be relevant to your point #1 there re. Gloucester Cathedral.  

Converging verticals are not much of a problem to me, as they are so easy to correct in PP.  In PaintShop Pro there is the Perspective Correction Tool and, although I don't use the Adobe software, I think it is called the Transform Tool there.  So I composed the shot to include the features of the scene that I wanted - in this one I had to tilt the camera up to include all of the organ and some of the ceiling arches - and then I straightened the verticals using the image editing software.  

In my opinion, a standard focal length is effective for this sort of shot, because it gives a view similar to that seen by our eyes and, in a large building, it is still wide enough to include enough of the scene.  28mm was used here - 42mm FF equivalent.  I find that when a wide angle lens is tilted even a small amount, it can tend to introduce other distortions, particularly near the corners of the frame, which are not so easy to correct in PP.  For me, even the cheapest of tilt-shift lenses (e.g. the Samyang) is still too expensive, as well as being quite big and heavy. 

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, to each his own.

Cheers.
Philip

[delb0y]

Thanks Philip. I've seen the Transform tool used, but as my version of PS is really old I've never investigated it. I will do so. There is a vertical adjustment available in Lightroom which is pretty good up to a certain extent but one has to remember to leave a lot of space around the image when taking the shot, as adjusting the verticals cuts off quite a lot of the original picture. I forgot to do this at Gloucester. Also, in the main hall, even at 18mm I couldn't get enough of the hall for the image I had in my head. I think the scene is simply too big to fit :-) Hence why I planned to just shoot the small pictures. I will return, though!

[MrB]

Exeter Cathedral - The Bishop's Throne

The 14th Century carved oak throne is 59 feet high, and this tall field-of-view photo was made by a different approach.  As I did not have a wide angle lens with me at the time, and moving further back wasn't possible, I took five hand-held over-lapping shots in landscape orientation - bottom, lower middle, upper middle, and top - each with the same exposure (Av Mode, ISO 800, 1/50s, f/5.6, -2EV).  They were then stitched together in the computer, using the free compositing software - Microsoft ICE.  The resulting image was suitably cropped and a few adjustments applied in PaintShop Pro.

Cheers.
Philip

[attachment=7172]

[EdMak]

Spot on Philip, excellent.  Ed.

[MrB]

Thank you, Ed.

Philip

[MrB]

A Hertfordshire Village Church:

I had a 35mm prime lens on the camera which wasn't wide enough to include the church.  Not a problem, however, as I took three overlapping shots (top, middle, bottom) and stitched them together in Microsoft ICE (free software):

[attachment=7368]

[ All three taken at ISO 200; f/4; 1/2000s; camera JPEGs; composite image from ICE with some adjustments in PaintShop Pro.]

Any comments always welcome.
Philip

[EdMak]

Really amazing, doubly so, since the prog. is free. Ed.

[MrB]

Thank you, Ed.

Philip

[camperbc]

A Hertfordshire Village Church:

I had a 35mm prime lens on the camera which wasn't wide enough to include the church.  Not a problem, however, as I took three overlapping shots (top, middle, bottom) and stitched them together in Microsoft ICE (free software):



[ All three taken at ISO 200; f/4; 1/2000s; camera JPEGs; composite image from ICE with some adjustments in PaintShop Pro.]

Any comments always welcome.
Philip

Another excellent capture, my friend! I too have used the free Microsoft ICE software over the years for stitching images, with great success!

Glen
www.FocusOnNewfoundland.com

[MrB]

Thank you, Glen.

Yes, ICE is great free software and quite easy to use. I think that some photographers do both the image stitching and the processing in Lightroom, but I'm very happy using MS ICE and PaintShop Pro. Whichever way it is done, it is an effective technique for obtaining a wide-angle field of view without needing to use a wide-angle lens.

Philip

[camperbc]

Thank you, Glen.

Yes, ICE is great free software and quite easy to use.  I think that some photographers do both the image stitching and the processing in Lightroom, but I'm very happy using MS ICE and PaintShop Pro. Whichever way it is done, it is an effective technique for obtaining a wide-angle field of view without needing to use a wide-angle lens.

Philip

Philip, I'm not sure if you are familiar with my Newfoundland photography, but I now capture most of my ultra-wide landscapes using an inexpensive (Samyang 8mm f/3.5) fisheye lens, so there has been very little stitching for me to do in recent years. In fact, I have an entire gallery on my photography website dedicated to my "ultra-wide" landscapes shot with this fine lens. I posted an article on DPReview way back in 2012, describing in detail my methods of using the fisheye lens for landscapes, and to this day I still receive many messages from photographers who have, themselves, begun using an 8mm prime for capturing their landscapes. As explained in my article, with a little experience, it becomes possible to photograph an almost 180 degree view with almost none of the typical fisheye distortion, simply by how one composes the shot. 

It is also interesting that you mentioned using PSP, as this is indeed the editing software I have used for the past decade or more for all of my work. I have always used the ancient Paint Shop Pro 9 until just a month or so ago, when I finally splurged and bought myself the new 2019 version of the program. I was fearing a whole new learning curve, but was very pleasantly surprised to see that it is still a very familiar layout/style as the much older version #9, only it's a much faster/smoother user experience. 

I am attaching a few examples of my wide landscapes that were shot with the Samyang 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens mounted on my Sony Alpha SLT-A57 body, and without the use of any "defishing" software.

Glen
www.FocusOnNewfoundland.com

[MrB]

Thank you for posting the information about your images, Glen - that is another interesting technique for making wide-angle shots. I do have an ultra-wide rectilinear lens which I sometimes use for shots of buildings, but I rarely shoot panoramic landscapes.

Philip

[MrB]

A Hertfordshire Village Church 2:

This is the Church interior viewing east, a single hand-held shot also using the 35mm prime lens:

[attachment=7370]

[ ISO 1600, f/4; 1/80s; -1EV (compensation for the bright window); camera JPEG; shadow areas brightened and some other subtle adjustments in PaintShop Pro.]

Any comments always welcome.

Philip

[camperbc]

Just Lovely. Beautiful church. Couldn't ask for a nicer shot!

Glen
www.FocusOnNewfoundland.com

[MrB]

Thank you, Glen.

Philip

[jogesh12345]

Great going thread.  
Local Chapel, outside and inside, taken for a book. Ed.

Sony a290.  1000th @F5 18mm Sony Bog Standard lens ISO 100

Interior,  1/30th@3.5 same lens. ISO 125, tripod

Like the capture of interior and its design.

[MrB]

Another Hertfordshire Church - 

A Victorian construction near Hertford; images captured hand-held with a Pentax K-70 and 20-40 mm zoom lens:

[attachment=7377]
[ ISO 200; f/8; 1/500s; three shots (top+middle+bottom) stitched in MS ICE.]

And a couple of stained glass windows:

[attachment=7378]
[ ISO 400; f/5.6; 1/125s ]

[attachment=7379]
[ ISO 800; f/4; 1/60s ]

Comments always welcome.

Philip

[EdMak]

Excellent Philip. Regards. Ed.

[MrB]

Thank you, Ed.

All the best.
Philip

[MrB]

Great Brickhill Church, near Milton Keynes:

[attachment=7381]

[attachment=7382]

[ Pentax K-70 with film era 30mm manual prime lens; camera JPEGs adjusted in PaintShop Pro.]

Philip

[webber]

This was taken looking out from the Cloisters at Lacock Abbey.
Canon EOSR
RF 24-105l lens

[webber]

IMG_3645 bournemouth pier by derek webber, on Flickr


[li][size=2]
Canon EOS 450D
EF-S10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM[/size][/li]
[li]ƒ/11.0[/li]
 
[li]18.0 mm[/li]
 
[li]1/250[/li]
 
[li]200[/li]