what's up with this horizon?

[draskol]

Why does the horizon look like it's curved? I've noticed before that in some photos I take things that I thought were perpendicular to the ground (i.e., pillars, columns, etc.) have looked like they've been bending, too.

Actually, here's an example:



The columns towards the left look like they're bending to the right, and the ones on the right are doing the opposite?

Could something be wrong with my lens, or am I missing something?

[Mr Guy]

I'm going to go with fish eye effect from the wide angle lens, since your exif is reporting at 18mm focal length. I'm not sure what you can do to make it less extreme besides using a different focal length. I don't know if there's some lenses that are worse for it than others with the same focal length.

[turnonthejets]

Some software has lens correction

CS2 sample.

[draskol]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

I'm going to go with fish eye effect from the wide angle lens, since your exif is reporting at 18mm focal length. I'm not sure what you can do to make it less extreme besides using a different focal length. I don't know if there's some lenses that are worse for it than others with the same focal length.

This can happen with a non wide-angle lens (18-55) when you're at 18 mm? I didn't know.

I shoot in RAW and convert to .jpg with CS3, I'll look into the lens correction.

edit: wow! Huge difference in about 60 seconds.

[wulf]

It can be a pain but you can also learn to use it as a feature. For example, here is a shot where I think the distortion adds to the sense of scale:



Wulf

[homersapien]

Just about anytime you tilt a wide angle lens up, or down, you'll get distortion. It can easily be corrected in Photoshop. I've found that tilting up/down isn't as problematic as tilting left/right. The former is easily corrected, the latter is a real PITA to correct.

[scorwitz]

I've been doing a great deal of reading about photography for the last 3 years or so, since my first DSLR purchase, and I can rarely if ever seem to make use of that knowledge when I'm in the field. After my initial confusion of F-stops and Shutter speeds, I finally got a handle on it, theoretically speaking, but when I'm out taking pictures all that information seems to fly right out of my brain.

A lot of these things can be corrected in Photoshop later, but isn't the whole purpose of photography to get the image you want on the first try, with no post processing whatsoever? I always feel like a bit of a failure when I have to resort to changing levels or sometimes even cropping.

It's a different story if you are going crazy and adding all kinds of effects or colors etc for artistic purposes, but if your point is to make a true representation of what you've seen, then what are your thoughts on using photoshop?

[Barrie Allan]

Originally Posted by draskol

Why does the horizon look like it's curved? I've noticed before that in some photos I take things that I thought were perpendicular to the ground (i.e., pillars, columns, etc.) have looked like they've been bending, too.

Actually, here's an example:



The columns towards the left look like they're bending to the right, and the ones on the right are doing the opposite?

Could something be wrong with my lens, or am I missing something?

This is a ' Wide angle effect ' it is a lens effect , it can be minimized by having the camera 'Level ' and cropping the image in the camputer. This is not your fault , all brands of lenses regardless of price will giuve similar results to yours, Barrie Allan Australia

[wulf]

Originally Posted by scorwitz

It's a different story if you are going crazy and adding all kinds of effects or colors etc for artistic purposes, but if your point is to make a true representation of what you've seen, then what are your thoughts on using photoshop?

We have had this debate several times on the site and it might be worth digging around. However, it hasn't come up for a while (that I've noticed) and there have been a lot of new people, so we can run with it a bit.

To me, the argument that a photo is cheapened if it is not straight out of the camera suffers from several flaws. Firstly, taking a photo is not a natural process to begin with. Secondly, unless shooting in RAW mode (when you will have to do some post-processing), the camera will already be applying predetermined processing to create your JPG image. Thirdly, camera technology is limited and so cannot accurately recreate what your eye sees (a much lower range of sensitivity, particularly without the option to scan and recombine the scene in real time). Fourthly, most of the great photographers held up as icons of the film age spent a long time in the darkroom and so weren't believers in straight out of camera shots either.

Finally, and most importantly, art is about taking control of an image and giving an insight into what you see. Some of that is done in camera, as you frame the scene and arrange an appropriate exposure but the process that follows is just as much part of the artistic process.

Wulf

[divaphoto]

photoshop certainly has its place, but I think a few people get carried away and over do things.
Although an over shopped photo usually looks unnatural, a well worked on photo can be exceptional.
If you are entering a photo in a competition is it fair to remove a bland sky and replace it with an interesting one just because the conditions werent right on the day?