Lens for architectural photography?


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rumraisin

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Jan 18, 2002
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I'm looking for a lens for taking photos of buildings and interiors. Does anyone have any experience in this?

I was thinking, prob need something wider than 28mm to capture the whole room. Also to go down to about f2 or at least f2.8 in case the room is dim. I don't want to use a tripod as it's a hassle...

Oh yah and budget is very constrained... so the cheaper the better. By the way I have a Canon EOS 10.
 

you're probably looking at a 24mm f/2.8 or wider... fisheye lens also won't be of much help to you i guess, since it'll distort your perspective on the interior shots.
 

firefox: can you recommend a specific one? I don't know much about the options available.

ckiang: But I bet they're verrrrrrryyyyyyy exxxxxxpensive aren't they? :D
 

Originally posted by rumraisin
firefox: can you recommend a specific one? I don't know much about the options available.

ckiang: But I bet they're verrrrrrryyyyyyy exxxxxxpensive aren't they? :D

Yeah, very expensive. :( But they lets you do perspective correction, so the pictures will be free from things like converging verticals.

A Canon 24/2.8 should cost no more than $500-$600.

Regards
CK
 

Originally posted by rumraisin
I'm looking for a lens for taking photos of buildings and interiors. Does anyone have any experience in this?

I was thinking, prob need something wider than 28mm to capture the whole room. Also to go down to about f2 or at least f2.8 in case the room is dim. I don't want to use a tripod as it's a hassle...

Oh yah and budget is very constrained... so the cheaper the better. By the way I have a Canon EOS 10.

A 28mm perspective control lens and a tripod is how the problem is tackled at a professional level as this setup eliminates converging verticals in walls and so on. However it's expensive with the lens costing around 2000 SGD at least.

As you don't want to use a tripod (which is suicidal IMHO) then you'll have to look at the 20-24mm range of lenses and hope that you can live with the distortion such lenses produce when shooting indoors.
 

Originally posted by Ian


A 28mm perspective control lens and a tripod is how the problem is tackled at a professional level as this setup eliminates converging verticals in walls and so on. However it's expensive with the lens costing around 2000 SGD at least.

As you don't want to use a tripod (which is suicidal IMHO) then you'll have to look at the 20-24mm range of lenses and hope that you can live with the distortion such lenses produce when shooting indoors.

Ian, do you know if the 28mm PC lens is compatible with the F100? If not, are there any PC lens that can be used on that body? Thanks.
 

Third party lens, brand = ARSAT. 2.8/35mm. Cheap Perspective control lens, can be bought from ebay. Available in many mounts, including Nikon.

353.jpg


more info at:
http://www.kievcamera.com/camera.php?ID=17
 

Originally posted by Kit


Ian, do you know if the 28mm PC lens is compatible with the F100? If not, are there any PC lens that can be used on that body? Thanks.

Hiya Kit

The F100 has no problems using any PC lens made since about 1977 as they are on an AI or AIS mount. However, like the Canon version the lens is a preset diaphram lens, so it has to be placed in the 'neutral' position and then metered using stop down metering to determine the correct exposure, then the lens is set up for the shot and the shot made.

The one cheap alternative is the Arsat, though to be honest I'd avoid the Arsat lenses like the plague, horrible cheap crap with awful build quality and some serious quality control issues.
Image quality is fair to average however though a lot lower than the Nikon or Canon lenses and is on par with the rubbish images produced by Zenits.
 

Originally posted by Kho King
Third party lens, brand = ARSAT. 2.8/35mm. Cheap Perspective control lens, can be bought from ebay. Available in many mounts, including Nikon.

Guess you've never used one Khoking.

The Arsat 35TS is plagued with quality control issues, is roughly constructed and even rougher in operation. Image quality is at best average and the lens flares badly and suffers from almost unacceptable levels of field curvature for a perspective control lens, though to be fair it's about 1/2 the price of a used Nikkor or Canon equivalent. I've used about 6 of these lenses and only one was any good.
 

Kho King, thanks for the suggestion.

Ian, I came across a list of lenses that cannot be used on the F100 on its manual and the list includes.........

PC 28mm f/4 (No. 180900 or smaller)
PC 35mm f/2.8 (No. 851001 - 906200)

I assume that those numbers in bracket are serial numbers and I would be fine as long as mine doesn't fall into that series?

Yeah, I was told to do the metering before any T&S action on the Canon. Could you explain what you mean by stop down metering? Stopping down the aperture and work from there? Thanks for the clarification. How's the weather in Perth? :)
 

if anyone could tell me where i can get a PC lens to could be used for the bronica SQ-Ai...i will extremely grateful!!!!!!


Ramrasin
And also...if you really want to take proper interior/architecture, a tripod is a definite must....you still could get away without a PC lens, but not a tripod
 

Originally posted by insanne
if anyone could tell me where i can get a PC lens to could be used for the bronica SQ-Ai...i will extremely grateful!!!!!!


Ramrasin
And also...if you really want to take proper interior/architecture, a tripod is a definite must....you still could get away without a PC lens, but not a tripod

There's this Horseman View Camera convertor which works with MF cameras which gives you some tilt/shift functions of view cameras. Expensive though.

Regards
CK
 

I guess I should use a tripod, but I'm actually going on backpacking and was thinking it'll be extremely heavy to lug around.

OK so the options are:
-cheap 15mm fisheye and correct in photoshop
-20-24mm lens eg. 24mm f2.8
-TS-E lens (great but way out of budget)

I think I'm going to use my film SLR, so the 20-24mm lens seems like the best way to go.

Thanks for the tips guys! :)
 

Originally posted by Kit

Ian, I came across a list of lenses that cannot be used on the F100 on its manual and the list includes.........

PC 28mm f/4 (No. 180900 or smaller)
PC 35mm f/2.8 (No. 851001 - 906200)

I assume that those numbers in bracket are serial numbers and I would be fine as long as mine doesn't fall into that series?

Yeah, I was told to do the metering before any T&S action on the Canon. Could you explain what you mean by stop down metering? Stopping down the aperture and work from there? Thanks for the clarification. How's the weather in Perth? :)

You assume right on the numbers Kit, they are the serial numbers and what it means is that the 28/4 cannot be used at all, while AI and AIS versions of the 28/2.8 can be used.

With a T&S lens metering is done by the following method.

1) Point the lens up at the object and focus with the lens wide open

2) Select desiered aperture and stop lens down

3) Meter scene with lens stopped down according to the camera manual for stop down metering.

4) Level camera on a tripod with a bubble level in the desired format (horiz/vertical)

5) Rotate the lens until the shift is opposite the direction of convergance.

6) Read off the maximum amount of shift allowed for the lens position.

7) Adjust shift to remove convergance and if possible do not shift more than the maximum from step 6

8) Take shot.

Simple huh :)

The weather here is clear and quite warm days but cold at night, how about over east?
 

Ahhh......ok. Thanks for the info once again. Sounds like a technical and fun lens to use:) Will look up the manual on stop down metering again. I think I missed that part.

Its been wet for the past few days here. About 15 deg max. Not that cold but cold enough to bring on a good o'asthma again:(
 

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