Sydney Olympic park

[Desmo Chi]

Sydney Olympic Park, 17- 40mm, f8 at 20 secs (?)

Hi folks , I went out the other night after reading the tutorials on the aperture, shutter speed and iso - however I dont really have an eye for composition so I'm keen to get feedback please to develop my thinking and approach to shooting.
All comments appreciated .... What is pleasing to the eye ?

[Mike Buckley]

Welcome to CiC, Chi!

Based on this photo, you clearly have an excellent eye for composition.

I see that you used a 33mm focal length. Considering that you were probably pointing your camera upward, the tendency would be for the buildings to appear as if they are leaning away from the viewer and toward the center. These structures don't do that. Instead they are leaning in all sorts of different directions. If that's because they are built that way, that's fine. If that's because you are new to correcting perspective distortion and understandably got things messed up a bit when post-processing the image, you might want to attend to that. If I had to make a bet, these issues are probably a combination of how they are built and how you corrected the distortion, but I really don't know.

[WJT]

Hi Chi, I really like the composition too. The only comment is the closest light could be a little further into the picture for me but I love the way the lights lead into the picture. There are some great colours in this and angles. Good choice of subject. You may have it slightly leaning to the right too, so check the levels, ice work and keep at it.

[Desmo Chi]

Hello Mike and Wayne
thank you for your warm welcome and insightful comments. Please excuse my ignorance , but how is 'correcting perspective distortion' done or .... what does that mean ? I cropped it a little to bring more attention to the main subjects so I see what you mean Wayne by noting that the first light is a little too much in the foreground. And I never thought about how pointing upwards would make them appear to lean away - this must be a basic concept. Thank you for pointing that out, I really appreciate the both of you sharing your experience with me .
Chi

[Geoff F]

Firstly, Chi, I wonder if you have cropped a fraction too tight which is now looking a little too 'complicated'? But sometimes it is necessary to leave out distracting items so there is little in the way of alternative crops.

With regard to correcting perspective distortion; and I will try to keep it simple.

Your vertical lines aren't perfectly upright, particularly those light towers on the left. This often occurs for a variety of reasons. Usually due to lens problems or shooting angles.

This can be corrected but the method depends on your software, and requires a tiny bit of expertise.

Here is a very quick edit of your image.



The basic method requires a transform of part of the image.

Select the whole scene (Ctrl +A or Select All etc). Go to the Transform menu (possibly under the Edit options). Select Skew (or maybe Free Transform etc).

A selection box should surround the image. Drag the top left corner adjustment 'handle' towards the right until the image distorts sufficiently to produce upright vertical lines.

Crop the image to suit the new scene.

Sometimes you need to crop more than one side. Drag another corner handle as required.

When possible, I prefer to drag inwards (squash the pixels together) rather than outwards (stretch pixels apart) although either method can work and sometimes depends on the actual scene.

There are potential problems to consider. In this case, the distortion was mostly on the left side so dragging the top left handle has also slightly distorted the 'spiral building'. But this doesn't really notice.

An alternative is to place a selection just around part of the scene. For example, to draw a rectangular selection just around the light towers and do a distortion which only affects that area.

But I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible.

[Dave Humphries]

I'd recommend a look on Google Streetview, those towers do lean - a lot - and the correction applied has made the buildings lean inwards even more - mind you, I'm not convinced all of the distant ones have straight sides either





The distortion I see in the original image posted is the regular "camera pointing up a bit, so tops leaning in a bit" kind.

Chi,

For this kind of shot, if you're not fully wide (at 33mm), I would zoom out a bit, keep the camera dead level - i.e. pointing at something the same height as the tripod (or you) in distance. Then all you need do is crop off the boring foreground in PP and not have to worry about correcting perspective

Given they do lean, not having them quite so close to the edge of the image would also help.

Good white balance and exposure by the way!

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Desmo Chi]

Thank you Geoff and Dave, WOW , you guys are amazing! The light towers do lean quite a lot and the ground slopes away (down towards the left hand side of the shot). My next port of call is to return and try your recommendations re the camera pointing up and zooming out a bit - It may be easier for me to see the distortion you folks are speaking of , my eye doesn't quite pick it up. And Geoff thank you for the detailed explanation, really appreciate it
Will be back to Olympic park this weekend to have another go ...
Chi

[Dave Humphries]

My next port of call is to return and try your recommendations re the camera pointing up and zooming out a bit - It may be easier for me to see the distortion you folks are speaking of , my eye doesn't quite pick it up.

Hi Chi,

To be clear, and I think this is what you mean; we don't want you to point it upwards

Regarding seeing the distortion we mean, it would be better to stand in front of a regular 'square' building and aim the camera at the wall with windows and make it level, check the edges of frame in the viewfinder and note the vertical window edges will be parallel with the frame edges. Now angle it up a little and see what happens to the edges of the windows - they slope in at the top.

Hope that helps,

[Desmo Chi]

Thanks Dave, I realised what my post may have suggested after I posted, so no I won't be pointing it up. You're advice on pointing it straight ahead and level has been taken on board. AND now I know what to look for regarding the perception of it leaning away ... I must say - you folks have fantastic eyes for this , I could stare at it for hours and not pick it up. Think its cos I don't know what to look for.
Thanks again for the time taken to educate the unschooled :-)
Cheers
Chi