Architectural Photography: Perspective Correction

If anything bothers an architect or designer more than photo defects such as exposure blown windows in a scene, it would be straight lines which appear to bend. An affect called keystoning is created when a photographer uses a medium to wide angle lens and tilts the camera up to capture a tall object. The resulting photograph results in an image where a building appears to be falling away or bending. Hopefully, in reality, it is standing straight up as the architect designed it!

It is possible to correct keystone distortion in Photoshop® by using the Transform/Distort function. Outside of minor tweaks, this type of correction may result in a loss of resolution making any enlargements look fuzzy or pixelated.

Instead, I use a perspective correction lens called a Tilt/Shift. Canon® and Nikon® both make these specialty lenses. Recently, Canon introduced a new series of these lenses with a wider point of view and a new generation of glass and coatings. These images were taken with their new 24mm TS-E II lens.

Click on each image to enlarge it and see its detail.

Here is the scene with no perspective correction:


Without moving the camera, the "Shift" function was used to straighten the building"


For more information,

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