Do I need wide angle lens for photography buildings?

[Alexis Roberts]

I have been asked to take photos of a new build property for promotional purposes (luxury detached house). I have a nikon D80 with 18-70 and 18-200 lens. Are these good enough to take external and internal shots if not, how can I achieve this without too much expense? Any advice gratefully received

[OsmosisStudios]

The 18-200 is not a good lens for architecture: its got some very complex distortion thats near on impossible to correct.

The 18-70 has some distortion as well, but its easily corrected if you really need it to be.

Ideally, you'd use a PC-E lens: the perspective-control mechanisms allows you to keep verticals vertical and yet maintain the proper perspective. The downside is that theyre super expensive.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Ideally, you'd use a PC-E lens: the perspective-control mechanisms allows you to keep verticals vertical and yet maintain the proper perspective. The downside is that theyre super expensive.

..and not particularly wide on a crop body.

Software correction for perspective and distortion are probably going to be your best bets. The main problem you're going to run into with interiors, though, is lighting and having a relatively slow 18-70. A tripod might be a good idea, and if you're at all interested in lighting, you may want to start reading the Strobist, and maybe take a spin around Scott Hargis's Flickr stream and blog, and the Flickr "Photography for Real Estate" group.

You may want to consider renting an ultrawide lens (I would've added "or a full-frame body", but your lenses are both DX...).

[acedrew]

IDEALLY, you'd use a technical camera

Andrew Rodgers
Perfected Perspectives -- Photography by Andrew Rodgers | Andrew Rodgers (acedrew) on Twitter | Login | Facebook

[teaking]

There was an article on this site a few weeks back they recomended shooting at, at least ISO 400 for interiors using a minimal flash just to bring out the high lights. A wide lense may help the interior part of the shoot but maybe you could shoot a few shots and stitch them together and then crop?

And would deffinately say bring the tripod

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by teaking

A wide lense may help the interior part of the shoot but maybe you could shoot a few shots and stitch them together and then crop?

Stitching is great for landscapes, but for interiors the subject is so close youll get some very weird looking shapes: it'll be very distorted. Depending on what the OP wants to do, this may not be an option.

[Michel.Paez]

One of my paid assignments was to take interior shots of a luxury home. In order to get as much detail as possible in the shots, I used a 12-24mm wide angle and a couple of off-camera flashes to light up the room.


This particular shot was with ambient light:

Model: NIKON D100 �- ISO: 400 -Exposure: 1/4 sec - Aperture: 16.0 - Focal Length: 14mm

Originally Posted by Alexis Roberts

I have been asked to take photos of a new build property for promotional purposes (luxury detached house). I have a nikon D80 with 18-70 and 18-200 lens. Are these good enough to take external and internal shots if not, how can I achieve this without too much expense? Any advice gratefully received

[OsmosisStudios]

Excellent Michael: My only concern is the right hand side: there's clear angling of the right-hand wall (unless the cabinets were falling off!). That's where a PC-E or TS-E lens comes in handy.

Originally Posted by Inkista

..and not particularly wide on a crop body.

Sadly Nikon doesn't have a 17mm version like Canon does...

[Alexis Roberts]

Thanks for all your replies. I do have a tripod so that will help. I've also just received D-Lite 400W strobes/light boxes so maybe they would come in handy for the interiors? (thanks for the lighting links I've a 50mm prime too 1.8 which will help for details, but its getting wide angle I'm more concerned with. Even outdoors as this house has stables blocks, and a leisure complex - it would be great to get as much in as possible to give a clear impression of the 3 acres it sits on.
I've not done stitching before so wouldn't want to rely on that option. I still have L plates on!

[inkista]

Maybe just rent a 10-22?