Opinions needed

I snapped this by chance a couple of weeks ago thinking it might be interesting with all the birds along the roof. Not having my tripod out, and having to stand in the middle of the road to fill the frame I didn't hang about and didn't think much would come of the shot. I've since been mucking about with it in photoshop and pushed it through HDR Effex Pro and got this result. I wasn't sure about it, but I keep on coming back to it. Composition-wise it doesn't really follow the rule of thirds, all I've done if fill the frame and lead in from the bottom left, but somehow I quite like it.

It's hard to be personally objective though, so please crit away!

I like the mood the image brings. Although I'm not fond of the distortion of the building.

I like the shot in itself but the perspective somewhat kills it for me. It now looks a bit like a movie background prop that got blown over.

FG and Jsee hit it on the head. If there was some distortion correction to minimize the harsh odd angles, it would greatly improve, imho. The details and feel are fine though.

Thanks, I can see what you are saying, the distortion in my 10-24mm wide angle is known to be extreme at 10mm (the focal length of this shot). I applied the lens correction profile, but I can see now this wasn't enough. I appreciate the inputs.

While all the distortion doesn't have to be removed, a slight change may help. Some distortion shows that the shot is indicative of it being wide angle. I believe that is necessary.






Removing all distortion also removes the original interest of the shot.



(I'm a hack, so my opinion is worth exactly what you paid.)

Using LightRoom to PP? Might be able to manually push the perspective correction to clean it up a bit more.

Gadzooky said:

Thanks, I can see what you are saying, the distortion at 10mm in my 10-24mm wide angle is known to be extreme at 10mm (the focal length of this shot). I applied the lens correction profile, but I can see now this wasn't enough. I appreciate the inputs.

Click to expand...

The lens correction doesn't always do a perfect nor good job. Especially not when shooting closer at a short length. I usually go manual when trying to adjust the distortion. It can be some work but the result is at times better than what auto-correct does.

Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion, this is how I'd do this shot. There are other ways of approaching this subject.

This perspective doesn't work for me. I'd do it either symmetric, standing right in front of the door, or more from the side, so the side wall is well visible. In the former case, symmetry helps getting over the strong perspective effect. In the latter case, you can see the building as a 3D object, not only its facade, which looks flat otherwise.

I like the drama of the high contrast.

I have a thought, but will take a few minutes to illustrate.

LR/ACR will get you close with the perspective correction (Auto and Vertical seemed to do OK), but you need to use Free Transform in Photoshop to get you somewhere reasonable with this one. Here's a side-by-side-by-side ...

Upper Left = Original
Upper Right = Free Transform (Skew adjustment)
Lower Left = LR/ACR Auto Perspective
Lower Right = LR/ACR Vertical Perspective (requires a crop to finish, but I left it so you can see what it does)




If you're not comfortable with Free Transform, for my money the Vertical + Crop works best.

IMO (which doesn't hold much weight), I like the shot, the colors the distortion, etc. I find if that I keep coming back to a photo and keep looking at it, I must like it for some reason and therefore keep it, print it, display it, etc. I like to go outside the box every now and again and get people to look at things differently. Heck, Andy Worhol wouldn't have a museum if he followed the rule of thirds all the time.

I like the original and find wide angle lens distortion adds to the interest of the picture. I think all of the software available to correct lens distortion has made people believe that it NEEDS to be corrected all the time. I disagree. The first shot has character and a special mood created by the very wide angle perspective.

Now, obviously, if I were shooting a picture for a real estate ad, the lens corrections would be required. But this shot is art, not commercial photography.

All this, of course, is just one guy's opinion.

Great picture!

I like it, but I see it more as a picture without a home. Home is a movie poster for murder story.

I tend to agree with Ted and Woody's assessment of the shot. Following the rule of thirds is not always practical either. In this shot, the distortion adds to the overall perspective and mood of the shot. I like it as is. It's quite obvious it was done with a wide angle lens, therefor correcting it would defeat the purpose of shooting with a wide angle lens in the first place! Just my 2 cents worth, of course.

My first thought was it could use some more foreground so the white face was more in the middle third. This edit not perfect, but might convey the concept.

For a nice image of an very interesting building and environment, correcting the distortion definitely would improve it.

For an Art Image, I really like it as you shot it...tweaking here and there with clouds, etc. would be a personal choice. Make a nice large print and hang it on the wall, and enjoy it.



( Keep in mind, that this is only an old man's opinion, whose dog orders him around at mealtimes, and whose cat never gives up in trying to drink out of his glass or cup of whatever beverage he is trying to consume. I do mention, from time to time, that *I* am the one in charge...so far my opinion of that has had no effect. :cat:)