At 04:48 AM 11/20/04, Chris Barker wrote:
>What do others do to avoid the need to rotate an image after processing?
>
>Chris
I'm not certain I would rotate either photograph . . . there are visual
cues in the photograph that the terrain isn't dead level . . . which brings
me to Chris' question.
[*RA] _Start_ with a leveled tripod . . .
Keeping vertical/horizontal alignment for the photograph becomes
increasingly difficult as focal length decreases (AOV increases).
Level tripod is only a starting point. "Leveling" a tripod uses _only_
local gravity, something a viewer later will _not_ have as a _visual_
cue. A photograph is a visual slice of space (recording of light)
presented to others at a different time in a different place. The
photographer has visual and physiological (notably inner ear) cues about
local "horizonatal" and "vertical" that the viewer later does not
have. They are notably absent the inner ear cues that define "horizontal"
and "vertical" via local gravity, along with anything visual outside the
frame of the photograph. The only things left are what the viewer will
_expect_ to be horizontal or vertical visually in the phototgraph as
related to the photograph's edges (or frame). If they are skewed relative
to that, and this can occur with depth perspectives as well, it may appear
that the photograph was not made level, when in actuality it was (as
related to local gravity). As a result, level tripod for me is only the
starting point. I will adjust this if necessary by looking carefully at
the composition in the viewfinder alone to examine only the visual cues for
"horizontal" and "vertical" that will be in it for those that view it
later, in another space and time. This sometimes requires consciously
looking at objects in the composition and thinking about what viewer
_expectations_ will be for them regarding horizontal and vertical.
Not all, indeed very few, manmade rectilinear objects are perfectly
vertical, horizontal, or otherwise "squared up." However, we visually
expect tall tree trunks to be vertical, along with power poles, light poles
and fence poles . . . and expect the apparent surface of water to be
horizontal (sometimes the cue for this is a waterline which may be skewed
by its depth perspective). Absent a gravitational cue to the inner ear
that they may not be, the viewer of it later is only left with the visual
cues present, the mental expectations of what ideally _ought_ to be, and
that is not necessarily what the "true state of nature" is (or was) in reality.
*Rhetorical Answer
-- John Lind
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