You are so right. Sometimes the great pictures are even an accident in that things beyond your control just seem to fall into place. Here's one that was used as the cover photo on the 2010 Lyman Calendar. I had been trying without success for several years to get a good picture with three or more boats in it, but always the owners managed to not do it right. I was standing on a motorbox of a 30ft. Lyman with my right arm around a rail stanchion of the flying bridge and my right hand holding my D700, the left hand supporting the 70-200 F2.8 G VR lens and just generally "hanging on for dear life" as the wakes of the other boats were causing the photo boat to foll and bounce a lot. The D700 was set to ISO 1600 and in shutter priority at 1/1250th second, which, allowed the camera to use F18. The result was stop-action and everything from near to far in focus......all by accident!

Well, it's been many years since I learned photography, but one of the things I was taught was that a 50mm lens, which was the "standard lens" on just about every 35mm camera, saw a wider angle than the human eye did and things in the distance appeared smaller than they had appeared to our eyes when we took the photo. Folks used to complain about this; they'd take a picture of the Grand Canyon, for example, and when they got the color slide or print, the base of the canyon was almost not visible. It sure was when they took the picture, but wasn't in the picture.

We were taught that for a 35 mm camera an 85-90 mm focal length lens created the same perspective that the human eye did and was therefore the correct lens to use for portraits. It did not exaggerate (lengthen or shorten) the features of the subject.

I have a number of lenses for my digital Nikons, but the ones I use for most portrait-type shots is either the 24-85mm f/2.8-4 D at 85 mm or the 70-200 F/2.8 AFS VR at about 85 mm. Note that the first of these two requires a camera body which includes a self-contained AF motor, as one is NOT in the lens. Some of the lower-priced Nikon dSLR's do not have this feature to keep the cost down.......these require a lens with a focusing motor in the lens.

Don

As I said in my original email, the secret is to have the camera perfectly level. So no, I have never experienced any lens distortions with those lenses.

They do have a very small amount of pin-cushion distortion at maximum wide angle, but that is very easily corrected in PS, especially since these are all quality lenses and have very little pin-cushioning.

Wide angle lenses can give some rather "weird" affects to things which are very near the lens and in the corners of the picture. I try to stay away from that situation.

I specialize in photos of wooden antique and classic boats. When shooting at a boat show, where you are standing on a dock right on top of the boats, you can't back up unless you want to go swimming. On some hot days I wouldn't mind that, but the cameras sure would.......they don't like getting wet!
Actually, unlike the home pictures, the camera is never level in these situations, so I do a lot of geometric distortion corrections in Photoshop. I would guess that most photographers use telephoto lenses more than they do wide angle. I'm just the opposite!

When we look at the scenes with our eyes, we don't see verticals falling down. That is because our brains automatically correct that situation for us. I guess that is why walls falling down in photos bother me so.

Our daughter is a real estate agent, so several times she has had me do photos of houses for her.

Ever since cameras were invented, when aimed downward, verticals fall outwards and when aimed upwards, verticals fall inward. This is why you see so many pictures which have buildings, walls, etc. which look as if they are falling down.

I use a wide-angle lens and put the camera on my tripod, which has a head with leveling bubbles. I make sure it is perfectly level and then take my pictures. She and the other agents in her office have been quite impressed with the results.

If using the D2X or D300, I use the Nikon 12-24mm lens, which sees about a 99 degree angle of view at 12 mm (18mm equivalent). If using my D700, I use either the Nikon 24-70 mm f2.8 sees about an 84 degree angle of view or my 14-24 mm F2.8 which sees a 114 degree angle of view at 14 mm.

For light, I use one or both of my SB-800 flash units with the deflectors mounted on them and bounced off of a wall or ceiling. Most ceilings I've encountered in residences are whitish in color and work very well as a bounce surface. I did once encounter a black ceiling, but believe it or not, it actually reflected enough light to illuminate the pictures while requiring only minor color balancing in Photoshop.