Dawg Pics Learns Wide Angle (Feel free to post images)

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
New thread for the new Tokina 11-20mm f2.8.

Feel free to add Tokina (or other brand) wide angle lens images. I need samples and editing tips.

Lake Elsinore, Main Street Kitchen and Tap
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hark

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Glad you received your lens. One of the biggest differences with wide angle lenses when composing landscape/scenic images is to include some type of foreground interest. Examples can be leading lines, having the lens close to the ground to capture foreground flowers with a scene in the background, or some other type of foreground element that will draw your eye into the frame.

Just be sure to keep watch of verticals in building photos since you previously said you wanted to shoot cityscapes. Verticals and horizontals can be straightened in Camera RAW but if they are way off, sometimes it leaves a huge amount that needs to be cropped. There is a Transform tab in LR and Camera RAW (if you aren't familiar with it).

Here is an example (sorry it's a Nikon lens). This was taken inside a historic Log Cabin. The rooms are very small. Notice how the verticals are off in the sooc unedited jpeg. But when vertical and/or horizontal straightening is applied, the corners wind up needing to be cropped as you can see in the second pic. But this isn't a good image because I should have stood exactly parallel to the wall with the fireplace. Unfortunately the room was roped off so no way to get in there and shoot wider which I would have preferred. No amount of correction/straightening can really help without going into Photoshop and doing additional transformation.

_10K3948 low res sooc jpeg.jpg


I applied the Transform feature in Camera RAW but sill had to manually override a little of the vertical and horizontal lines. The corners need to be cropped due to straightening the image - and additional editing would be required. But I didn't have my 16-35mm lens which would have given me an even wider view of the room. Had I known the building was accessible, I would have taken it. My point is to watch your verticals and horizontals and try to get them as close as possible in camera. When shooting wide, those verticals and horizontals become exaggerated when they are off.

_10K3948 low res nef edited.jpg
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
@hark
Thank you. Doesn't matter that is is a Nikon image. This helps me out.

I have Affinity Photo. It has some lens correction profiles in it and transform/warp/perspective tools. I fiddled about with that last night, and I had to crop some. I am not great at landscape photography to begin with. Add this wide angle to it, and I really need to learn some stuff.

I remember Don had some type of program to straighten out images. I need to go back and look for it.
 
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Peter7100

Senior Member
@hark


I remember Don had some type of program to straighten out images. I need to go back and look for it.

I find the current version of Lightroom works very well for straightening out images and you can use the 'auto' feature under 'Transform' if you don't want to waste time on the processing part. There is also the lens 'profile corrections' feature that also work but I find not as well as the 'Transform'.
I recently uploaded a 11mm wide crop photo to LR with verticals going away at all angles and was amazed how well the above worked.
 

hark

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I find the current version of Lightroom works very well for straightening out images and you can use the 'auto' feature under 'Transform' if you don't want to waste time on the processing part. There is also the lens 'profile corrections' feature that also work but I find not as well as the 'Transform'.
I recently uploaded a 11mm wide crop photo to LR with verticals going away at all angles and was amazed how well the above worked.

Most of the time, I use the lens profile feature in Camera RAW, too. But I took a few photos during a historic recreation and needed my 16-35mm for indoors. Unfortunately when people are lined up across the viewfinder with a wide angle lens, those standing near the right and left sides tend to get stretched wider than they really are. So for those, I found turning off the lens profile was a better option. :beguiled: Trust me when I say they wouldn't have liked how the camera added 20 pounds to their faces! :loyal:
 

bluzman

Senior Member
Since you asked, here a some pix shot using the Nikon AF-P DX 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens. They've been tweaked for lighting and cropped to 16x9. I've never tried the lens in low light but it does fine in the sunshine...kinda like me. :)

Garibaldi, OR
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Tokeland, WA

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Russian Gulch, Mendocino, CA

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hark

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Mily Way in Twentynine Palms, Ca.

milky_way_observatory_lr.jpg

I wonder if the forum has a hiccup. The EXIF is only visible thru a second EXIF reader, not the one used with Nikonites. I can see you were at 13mm for 20 seconds. So how do you like the Tokina lens? Is it performing the way you hoped? Nicely captured!
 

hark

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One more question - can you see any of the stars in the Milky Way just with your eyes when you are out there? We have so much light pollution here we seldom have more than a couple of stars visible in the sky. When I was a kid visiting my grandparents in the country, many stars were visible nightly including the Big Dipper.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
@hark
I had a long post, but I deleted it after re-reading your post.

The Milky Way looks like light clouds. After it got dark enough, it ran from the horizon past zenith. Enough to have an arch to it. There are lots of clusters and stars that you can see, but the cloudy, diffuse light is what makes the Milky Way.

I think the Tokina performs well considering the person using it. ;) Anyway, I had suggested a long exposure pointing at Scorpius until I read your post again and saw that you can't even see the Big Dipper. I am lucky that Scorpius rises over the mountains, and they help block the lights of Orange County and Los Angeles. Disadvantage: No horizon.

I forgot to mention that the Milky Way image was 3 images stacked.
 
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hark

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@hark
I had a long post, but I deleted it after re-reading your post.

The Milky Way looks like light clouds. After it got dark enough, it ran from the horizon past zenith. Enough to have an arch to it. There are lots of clusters and stars that you can see, but the cloudy, diffuse light it what makes the Milky Way.

I think the Tokina performs well considering the person using it. ;) Anyway, I had suggested a long exposure pointing at Scorpius until I read your post again and saw that you can't even see the Big Dipper. I am lucky that Scorpius rises over the mountains, and they help block the lights of Orange County and Los Angeles. Disadvantage: No horizon.

I forgot to mention that the Milky Way image was 3 images stacked.

Thanks for the info! On most nights that aren't cloudy, I can see what I assume is Venus (obviously a planet) and one or two other bright lights in the sky. That's pretty much it. However, there were a couple nights this summer when I saw at least a dozen stars - so the sky immediately caught my attention. But that was the extent of what was visible. :( This entire area of Pennsylvania and New Jersey is urban and suburban for miles on end with lots of light pollution and smog.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Thanks for the info! On most nights that aren't cloudy, I can see what I assume is Venus (obviously a planet) and one or two other bright lights in the sky. That's pretty much it. However, there were a couple nights this summer when I saw at least a dozen stars - so the sky immediately caught my attention. But that was the extent of what was visible. :( This entire area of Pennsylvania and New Jersey is urban and suburban for miles on end with lots of light pollution and smog.

It is getting worse around here, and they are adding LED street lights without appropriate hoods, so they light up everything. As much as I love sunlight, I love the night sky. When my brother first moved out into the 'country', there were so many stars, I could barely ID the constellations, and the crickets and frogs were so loud you couldn't hold a conversation.. Now, it is glowing disaster of a night sky and not as many night critters. BLAH:p
 
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