Topic: Condo Architecture (Read 3475 times)

maxima302 · « **on:** October 31, 2008, 05:50:47 am »

Hi Everyone-

I'm pretty new to LL, but have found it to be one of the most professional forums around

I did a small architecture job yesterday, and am desperately in need of feedback! This is one of my first "jobs" per say, but really loved the nature of it. I've been looking at these images so long I'm out of ways to improve. I think the WB is OK for now, but I am wondering how they look. I typically end up adding too much contrast and "edge" I think for this style, but would love to hear what you think.

Thanks!

Mark

These were all shot with a 5D and a Tokina 12-24. The Tokina wasn't usable on FF, so I wasn't able to go past 20mm, which turned out to be plenty wide.

Guy Mancuso · « **Reply #1 on:** October 31, 2008, 08:25:13 am »

Mark these are looking real nice . What is see though is some distortion from the lens. Little trick if I may. Get into the spot you want to shoot from. Than with camera off the tripod you want to get the head perfect level. I use a RRS Pano head http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Itemdesc.a...amp;eq=&Tp= . Now using this and getting the spirit level just right than put the camera on, make sure the height of the tripod is where you want . Now once the camera is on do NOT move the head by tilting or anything like that. You can loosen the Pano clamp and rotate side to side because you are level now. If you have to go up or down than only use the center column to make those small moves. Trick is don't adjust the head or you will through the level out and that causes the distortion by pointing up or down. Here read this to help some more http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/02.html. Also if you can shoot tethered it helps actually see what you are getting for real. LCD are nice but hard to be critical of what is going on. Also I noticed your ambient light is a little hot, the actually light source . Try more flash balanced at daylight and just use the ambient as more a kicker to warm it up slightly. Lighting takes a lot of practice. Watch your ceilings also so you don't blow those out too much. Also turn fans off, if you want a little movement than start up and shoot at start up just get a little blur if that is what you are after. Interiors are tough take your time and you will nail the fine points but the compositions look good and execution. Just need to finish on the details. Good luck . Hope this helps

Guy

joergen geerds · « **Reply #2 on:** November 01, 2008, 06:04:54 pm »

nice condo shots, congrats. I think the tokina works surprisingly nice on a fullframe.
The only things that I would critizise is the general reddish/monochromatic light and the HDRish dark halos (not sure if you shot them bracketed and then made HDRs from it, or another post-processing method). Did you try exposure fusion/blending? this accomplishes the same for interiors, but without the halos.

good work, thanks for posting.

maxima302 · « **Reply #3 on:** November 06, 2008, 07:50:23 pm »

Thank you both for the excellent advice!

Guy- Looks like I have some additional equipment to buy I'm also eyeing the 24 TS-E which I'm hoping will help to control perspective additionally. I will deffinatly have to work on the ambient lighting as well. What is the best way to control light sources? Should I have them dimmed extensively and use a longer shutter to compensate?

Joergen- Thanks for the imput! The Tokina suprised me as well, especially in sharpness and contrast! For processing, these were exposure blends with Photomatix, but I'm left with the dark halos. I will try to go back to the original files and see if I can drop in some more neutral ceilings.

Thanks again, the feedback is much appreciated!

Mark

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #4 on:** November 06, 2008, 08:00:17 pm »

Nice stuff but thanks for this ...

Quote from: maxima302

These were all shot with a 5D and a Tokina 12-24. The Tokina wasn't usable on FF, so I wasn't able to go past 20mm, which turned out to be plenty wide.

I was wondering where the 12-24 would cut off on FF.

maxima302 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 07, 2008, 12:18:08 am »

20mm to be safe, 19mm introduces a little light fall off and nothing beyond 18mm is usable (Unless you want to crop)

joergen geerds · « **Reply #6 on:** November 07, 2008, 02:53:10 pm »

Quote from: maxima302

I'm also eyeing the 24 TS-E which I'm hoping will help to control perspective additionally. I will deffinatly have to work on the ambient lighting as well. What is the best way to control light sources? Should I have them dimmed extensively and use a longer shutter to compensate?

No need to buy more equipment. I would rather look into ptgui or hugin (aka panorama tools). both have outstanding side effects/functions to compensate lens distortions and perspective control, much more granular than what you can achieve in photoshop, even if you are not using them for panoramas. it's quite simple to shoot 2-3 overlapping wideangles, and then stitch them together and then worry about cropping.

As for the light temperature, you want to be as far away from the deep red as possible. so crank up all the lights you have... you'll probably end up with 3000-3500k color temp. ignore the light from the window (>5000k) and maybe fix it later in photoshop. make the different color temperatures a virtue, rather than fight them...

Quote from: maxima302

For processing, these were exposure blends with Photomatix, but I'm left with the dark halos. I will try to go back to the original files and see if I can drop in some more neutral ceilings.

did you use exposure blending or HDR? i am confused. if exposure blending still gives you that amount of halos, play with the "amount" (aka radius) slider, maybe bring it down to -3 (it looks like +10 right now), or drop one of your exposures, in other words make your blend only from 2 instead of 3 exposures.

keep us posted how it goes.

Joergen

Author Topic: Condo Architecture (Read 3475 times)

DarkPenguin