Straight or not ??

[jwott]

All right I have been told the first image seems to crooked. This is the original and was taken on level ground but I guess the angle of the shot makes it look crooked. The second pic is croped and straightend. I aligned it with the steps. To me it seems more out of wack than the original. Is it just me or ??? Which do you think looks better ???? If you would like to do some PP to show me please get the original here http://www.flickr.com/photos/32910968@N06/3529450729/sizes/m/
pic 1 original
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2353/3529450729_bcec96df7c.jpg
2nd croped
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/3532824527_81cd241192.jpg

Looking forward to comments.

[treetop]

jwott don't take this as advice, because what I know about photography and a fiver wouldn't get me a haircut.
People on here have forgotten more about photography than I will ever know, so this is just an amateur's perception of your pics.

Looking at the whole picture I can only assume that perhaps the two structures should not have been photographed together. Maybe you should have cropped them into two separate pics and then straightened them.

[verikos]

jwott - for what it's worth (and I'm only a novice myself!), I think the original is better but I would rotate it only slightly (clockwise) so that the bottom of the monument on the left side of the picture is straight. Its a lovely shot, where was it taken?

[jwott]

The 2 subjects where ment to be in the same shot together. It was taken in Ottawa Ontario Canada. It is of the National War Memorial and the famous Chateau Laurier Hotel. I like the original as it adds character in my opinion but have had several more experienced photographers tell me it is leaning and I should try and straighten it. Because of the angle to get both subjects in the shot one of them is going to lean no matter what I do. I am looking for input as to how to maybe fix this or maybe it's fine the way it is. Thank you for your comments.

Jerry

[ladyups]

Wow Jerry! This is very interesting....I'm one of those that said the image was crooked (but I'm not that experienced...I just know it looked crooked to me). But, I agree with you...it looks better in the first image before you straightened it. By chance did you use a super wide angle lens? I've seen where wide angles distort the buildings and such and was wondering if this might be the case here. Or, do you remember if they actually sit crooked from each other? Maybe one sits on the side of a hill more....

[coffee]

This would be the crop I like, as well as getting rid of the bight light on the left.

[jwott]

ladyups I used a 17-85mm but now that you mention it the hotel in the back is on a downward hill slightly. It also wasn't your comment that I was refering to. I had several other people away from this forum say something. I posted it here as the comments that I find here are much more usefull. another person told me "it's crooked and leaning" and left it at that. I am looking for advice from people as yourself as to opinion and ways to correct my composition. Coffe I agree taking away the light on the left helps. Thanks to both of you for your input.

[ladyups]

Wonderful...that explains it more. I've read and have noticed that when using my wide angle that it distorts the straight lines. Plus, if it was already sitting on a slight decline, it would explain the exaggerated lean. Unfortunately, without the wide angle, you probably would not have been able to get all the image in without being way back. So...and you captured the night lights beautifully, I believe you probably got the best image you could have got. Maybe Jerry will step in and explain a way to have got it straight.
I agree with Joseph, the crop of the bright light did help the image!

[jerryph]

The wider the angle, the greater the distortion... with the king of wide angle distortions being the fisheye... but that doesn't mean that anything that isn't a fisheye, doesn't have any distortion... as we can see in this shot. What needs to be done is use an application that removes the side distortions a little.

[Pat]

Hi Jerry. IMHO you have a couple of distractions going here. First with any wide angle lens you're going to get a degree of "Barrel" distortion relevant to your distance from the subject. As the name suggests, this involves a bulging effect. The wider the angle, the more barrel distortion. The closer you are to your subject (with a wide angle), the more distortion.(Note the barrel distortion on the steps)(the opposite being "pincushion" distortion from long lens'). I know of no lens that can compensate for barrel distortion, but others here more knowledgeable than I may. It can be corrected pp.
Second, because of your low viewpoint, you've got some pretty intense three point perspective on the monument and the Chateau, individually and together. If you're flush with coin of the realm a tilt-shift lens apparently can correct for this. Or you can noodle around pp and straighten edges.
Here I made a selection (Photoshop) of the area from the left edge of the pic to the near corner tower on the Chateau. I then selected Edit-Transform-Distort and pulled the top edge of my selection to the left to approximately straighten up the monument and the left side of the Chateau. I then went to my filters and chose DCE Tools Lens Distortion Correction filter to correct the barrel distortion. DCE Tools is a pretty handy set of add on .8bf filters for Photoshop and compatibles (including Gimp, tho I understand Gimp has built in lens distortion correction).

[jerryph]

In terms of compositional techniques, with a lens that does have this effect, the distortion is always less in the center, so you may want to center your subject. Watch both the horizontal and vertical axis as that has an effect too.

In terms of "looking crooked" or not, this is one of those rarer times that I do not care what the angle of the scenery looks like, but I take advantage of the built-in horizontal meter on my D700. Some people use a water meter with adapter so it fits in the hotshoe.

I set the photo to be horizontally correct and let the picture fall where it may. This often gives the look of being crooked in the picture, but in real life, that is just how it looked, so it doesn't bother me at all.