Richard's comments are correct. Below are my additional thoughts after
rereading my original terse post:
Trying to be brief, I sacrificed clarity.
My point was that to render vertical lines vertical on the film, one must
have the film plane vertical (thus parallel to the subject vertical lines.)
This is more easily and precisely achieved by leveling the camera than by
matching the subject lines to a gridded viewfinder, IMHO. So, you don't
really need a gridded screen if you have a button level or a tripod head
with a spirit level.
Now, once you have the back vertical, you still have the problem of field of
view. Without a shift lens you will indeed waste the lower portion of the
frame by filling it with floor, if you are at a low point of view. A way of
handling it is to use a wider lens to get the top of the subject in the
picture, then crop the wasted foreground in the darkroom. For slides, you
use a slide mount with a smaller window or mask the bottom off with aluminum
(or other material) tape.
Or, ignore my first paragraph. Go ahead and tilt the camera to frame the
picture. In the darkroom, correct for the converging verticals by tilting
the enlarging easel (raise the bottom edge.) You will find that this
approach is limited by the dept of field available from the enlarging lens,
even at very small apertures. The modern way, which is not limited by depth
of field, is to scan the image and use the keystoning feature of some
graphics packages to un-converge the verticals. This technique is still
limited by the image resolution. These limitations are the reason that view
cameras still have a place, especially for serious architectural
photography. The ability to use tilts and swings to control the plane of
focus is a powerful tool which will overcome these limitations.
But getting back to my original point, you don't really need a gridded
viewfinder screen.
Gary Edwards
Arlington, Texas
Richard Schaetzl wrote:
> Gary Edwards schrieb:
> >
> > The absolute first dictim of architectural photography (especially with
> > view cameras) is to FIRST level the camera (via the tripod head). Then,
> > for starters, you have vertical verticals without a gridded viewfinder.
>
> The problem is, with an leveled camera and standing on the basement
> level, photographing an structure towering above, half of your picture
> will show the floor.
>
> So you either can use an shift lens (and might have "problems" with the
> wide angle perspective) or you might try to photograph from an elevated
> position (preferable half of the heigth of your structure), which is in
> many cases cheaper than buying an shift lens.
>
> If possible, you might try to take the picture from a greater distance
> using a longer lens, this will reduce the amount of tilt you need to
> eliminate the foreground (floor).
> Problem is, this will not posible for most interiors and there will
> still be a slight (natural looking) distorsion.
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
>
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