[nitewalk] TS-E 17 mm f/4L on a Sony A7R

[Kit]

You mean I should not align verticals?

:bsmilie::sweat::sweat:

 

[bbear]

You mean I should not align verticals?

Quote from the Book title "Professional Architectural Photography" by Michael G. Harris, Page 46.

Another problem can arise when using an excessive shift movement to photograph a tall building. This is a problem of geometrical distortion whereby the outermost part of the filed of view actually becomes elon-gated, resulting in a building appearing top-heavy: see Figure 3.6. Although the verticals are actually parallel, the optical illusion is that they appear to be diverging slightly.

One way to overcome this is to reduce the amount of shift being used. With a tall buildings this is most effectively achieved by raising the camera position to approximately one-third the height of the building, probably by working form just such a height in a nearby building. If this is not possible, you could use a lens of shorter focal length (i.e. of wider angle), select a more distant vantage point, or event tilt the camera slightly - see section on 'Tall buildings" in Chapter 9 for further details.

Figure 3.6

 

[MarkersNg]

jotting down pro tips!

 

[Scintillation]

Quote from the Book title "Professional Architectural Photography" by Michael G. Harris, Page 46.

I think we get your point of the buildings becoming top-heavy when a tilt-shift is being used to align verticals, but to introduce some tilt in order to negate that effect seems to be counter-intuitive. The reason one uses a tilt-shift is to correct keystone distortion, otherwise there isn't any other point to use such a specialised perspective correction lens.

If I may hijhack this thread for a bit, here's a photo of Skyville@Dawson shot quite recently, with the 17mm TS-E fully shifted up to accommodate the full length of the building. It may seem a bit top-heavy, but I much prefer this perspective over one with leaning or converging verticals. If not, I might have as well shot it on a standard wide-angle lens and tilted the camera upwards.

Dawson Blue by Jon Chiang, on Flickr​

 

[dareangel321]

Yes because it's called tilt-shift - as you shift, you must first tilt up.

1. Tilt, 2. Shift = Tilt-Shift

 

[bbear]

It's not asking the user to heavily tilting the camera to recreate a heavy keystone effects but just a slight tilt to ease the top heavy. Having the specialized lens to correct doesn't meant once should over doing the corrections to yield a technically straight but geometrically distorted or pure optical illusion building. Anyway, this is just a sharing and as usual, everyone have their own preferred method and usage with the expectation of what comes out from it. It's not a rules and not something that will be penalized if doesn't follows


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[nitewalk]

My take is, yes there is no definitive rules and no one will stop you from doing whatever you want. At the end of the day, there will be some things which are more acceptable than others.

Whether you have that sort of distortion and keep your verticals aligned or vice versa, other photographers and laymen will judge based on their standards. We can argue to death about this but it remains what we think. There is a reason why certain practices are followed more than others.

I think we can leave this to the viewer to decide what works for them. You can take a piece of your work and ask for opinions from a handful of photographers with at least some experience, chances are you will get varying opinions. Why? We all have our own aesthetic standards. I would not impose my views on others but my take is still verticals over the inherent distortion. To me, slight keystone is still keystone if it is visible without zooming in. That said, i do have photos with slightly off verticals too, but its a standard i strive towards and the principles i hold on to that matters.