Modern archictecture in mixed lighting II - Lessons learned

[Manfred M]

I had previously posted a shot of this building, Exterior modern architecture - mixed lighting and was really on my way to take another shot of the interior Interior architecture and only had my camera with a single lens, with the rest of my gear in the car (my daughter was in the car) when I saw this shot.

I really liked the way the building entrance and the tables were perfectly mirrored in the window and i really liked the angles that I saw.



This is the type of shot I should have removed my filter. Unfortunately, I had no place to put it, so I left it on.

It's a decent mid-range (Sigma) one and the lens I used (Nikkor f/3.5 24mm PC-E) has Nikon's "Nano coating" anti-reflection technology (only available on the high end lenses). The filter was fairly clean, but I got all kinds of reflection "artifacts". The worst ones were in the clouds and I de-emphasized them by adding a bit of gaussian blur to just the cloudy sky. Removing the filter would have done even more. There are still artifacts that can be seen, but they really don't take away from the shot (too much).

So for all the shooters out there that insist on having an clear protective filter on their lens, there are situations where removing them will result in an improved image. This would have been one of them...

[Mike Buckley]

A very novel composition that works exceptionally well.

Try tilting a little to the right to get the foreground metal window framing straight. However, doing so might throw out the rest of the image too much.

When I'm doing photography, I always make a point of wearing an article of clothing that has a spare empty pocket so I can temporarily remove and store a filter in it.

[John 2]

Angles and the comp as a whole apart, I really like the colours as well. Very well seen and captured.

[Manfred M]

Try tilting a little to the right to get the foreground metal window framing straight. However, doing so might throw out the rest of the image too much.

The distortion is actually keystoning from pointing the lens up. If I had straightened the lines in the window, the ground would have seemed to be tilting. The angle was simply too great to correct with the shift control on the lens.

[Mike Buckley]

The distortion is actually keystoning from pointing the lens up.

I should have noticed that. Instead, I thought part of the building was a little out of line, as often happens.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Manfred I like the geometric lines and reflections . Although I like the image as is ,IMO a square format would put the emphasis more on the reflections. Or I would try another shot with only reflections in a landscape format.

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred I like the geometric lines and reflections . Although I like the image as is ,IMO a square format would put the emphasis more on the reflections. Or I would try another shot with only reflections in a landscape format.

While I sometimes go with a square format, I find that it is fairly conservative and the images are generally not as dynamic looking as when one goes with a more rectangular look.

I did look at shooting this scene in landscape format, but again, did not get the look I wanted, so I went to the vertical (portrait) orientation, but found that the shot was not as dynamic as I looking for as some of the strong lines I was shooting for disappeared.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.