Dragonophile

I take pictures of large commercial ships. Sometimes the only place I can take a picture is uncomfortably close to them. I sometimes can squeeze a shot in with my Canon 24-105mm lens. Since I use a APS-C camera, that's about a 37 or 38mm equivalency. But more often I have to go to my Olympus 14-150mm or my Sony RX10m3 with its 24mm equivalency.

My question: is the distortion I get due to the laws of physics or can I get lenses that are better than the ones I use to give me less distorted pictures. I know I could stitch photo sections together to get a less distorted image, but that is not my question. Thanks.

BebuLamar

It's simply the law of physics. Your eyes don't have a very wide angle of view but you can see a wide view because they scan the scene by moving the eye balls. Perhaps you can do a stitched panorama which is more like what your eyes see.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

The appearance of distortion is partly due to the laws of optics. Go wide enough and you will have a fisheye effect. However different lenses have different degrees of curvilinear (pincushion/barrel) distortion, which exacerbates the effect.

For the most distortion free results, you will need to keep the back of your camera perpendicular to the ground and parallel to the ship. You can correct for errors in post processing, in some cameras' "distortion control" settings, or with a PC (perspective control) lens. In pre-digital days, all we had was the latter, plus tilting our easels during the process of making enlargements. It's a much easier world today!

I am curious, however, as to why you don't want to create panoramas by stitching together images taken with a slightly longer focal length. I've seen some beautiful ones posted here and in hard copy versions.

Andy

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

The problem is that when you are using a wide angle lens, objects at the edges and in the corners are simply a lot farther away than those in the center. So they appear smaller, creating the appearance that the ships (in your case) are curved away from the camera at the ends.

Unfortunately, creating a panoramic view from a single shooting location will create the same effect, because in the end, your camera will still be seeing the various parts of the ship from the same range of angles and ratios of ratios of distances, creating the same distortion. You might be able to limit it a little bit, but not much. There might be a way to use an architectural shift lens to help with this when making the individual exposures, but if you are having to stand fairly close to the ship, it may not have sufficient range of adjustment to help enough.

I've been working to develop a technique of what I call "transverse panoramas," where I move incrementally in a direction parallel to the face of what I am photographing, then stitching the exposures. I'm still working on this, because the fact that background objects move differently than they do in standard panoramas seems to create indigestion for the stitching software. It looks like I may have to clone out the background in each component image before stitching.

Dragonophile

Just a feature I have never attempted. Might have to one day. I just wondered if there exists a lens solution or if laws of physics predominated.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I have not been called upon to photograph large ships since my time in the military when I was assigned to photograph a number of warships and troop transport vessels in Viet Nam and later on- State-side at the New York Navel Shipyard. At that time I was restricted to existing issued equipment- hand held 4x5 press cameras and medium format systems with normal and moderately wide angle lenses. The last shot I did a the Brooklyn Navy Yard was done with a view camera so perspective was controlled via the camera's movements. All of theses occasions require single shot captures as there was no facilities or technologies for panoramic assemblage post production. Back in the day- some panoramas were assembled form sectional images which were made of adjacently mounted prints or display transparencies.

With the aforementioned restrictions, this is the experience I can relate to you. Where the was not ample space or backup distance to make a wide angle shot without excessive distortion, I had access to small craft, such as a patrol boats, that enabled me to shoot form the water in toward the harbor or dry-dock situation of the vessel. Sometimes a shot from water level or land level was not adequate to include detail of the decks or masts so I would shoot form an elevated platform on land or from a helicopter over the water. If you are shooting commercially for the shipbuilders or owners of theses vessels, you may be able to access some of theses facilities and secure the necessary permissions, funding and services.

It is not mentioned if you are doing this work in an official or commercial capacity and what, if any, facilities or services are available to you and/or what post processing procedures you intend to apply. On the shots I was called upon to make "in-country" I don't, to this day, know exactly what the final usage was- it may have been classified at the time but the order did call for "no disproportionate perspectives". The shot at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was made for the Naval Architects where perspective management was essential.

If none of the aforementioned remedies are available to you, other than panoramic stitching etc, you may consider managing distortion by careful camera positioning whenever possible by maintaining parallel and level camera positions, centering the subject the cropping out excess land/water and sky or negative space in your editing. You may try to use even a wider focal length thereby leaving more space around the main subject. Most high quality wide angle lenses have good rectilinear properties, however, certain intrinsic distortion is more likely to occur at the edges of the field. The latter methods may cost you a few pixels but won't create an issue at moderated degrees of final image enlargement.

In terms of perspective control. you may want to consider a PC (perspective control) lens that enables some perspective image management at the time of original photography.

I hope this helps.

repleo Loc: Boston

'Back in the day' we used a similiar technique for doing measured surveys of long buildings like shopping centers. We would take a line parallel with the face of the building and take a shot every 10' or so moving a 1/4 of a frame at a time. Then we would overlay the prints, tape them together and slice through the overlayed prints to get a continuous string of butt jointed prints. We could create pretty accurate survey drawings from the the photo composite plus a few key dimensions.

Nowadays, we just send out a guy with a 3D laser set-up and he can do the whole thing in an hour.

mel Loc: Jacksonville, Florida

If you use your Olympus I would get the 9-18mm. No distortion to my untrained eye.

Dragonophile

I am a serious hobbyist. I have submitted over 500 pictures to a site called marinetraffic.com. I take pictures from ferries, water taxis and land (usually public parks and occasionally private property with permission). I have no private boat available for use. Most of the time I can get far enough away to take good pictures but there are a couple small parks where there is simply little room to maneuver - only a small waterway separates me from a 300-400 meter long ship.

I appreciate your response.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

It’s worth the effort, IMHO.

Andy

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Precision is key. Pictorial appearance is a different kettle of fish.

Andy

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Five pages of responses to the same question you asked on July 23rd 2017, and you are still not getting it?

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-475008-1.html

Better lenses will not help, with the exception of a just a couple of lenses that I can think of - the 38 mm Zeiss Biogon, and one the wide Leitz lenses - which are corrected for volume anamorphosis, which fixes a part of the distortion you are seeing. For all intents and purposes, a longer lens will have less of this type of distortion, and stitching an image may be a better solution, as long as they aren't moving.

Dragonophile

Sorry, I did not remember asking this formally here before. Yes, guess I am dense. Sorry for wasting your time.

jcboy3

It's called a "parallel motion panorama". Microsoft ICE can handle it. I just do it manually, after squaring up each image and aligning them. It's quite useful for long murals or street scenes. You can also use the technique to remove distracting foreground objects. Background objects tend to shift around, and can require some tricky editing.

For example, I've used the technique to remove utility poles and even cars from the foreground. Frequently do it with just 2 photos; take a picture, step sideways, take another and it's easy to remove a distracting and obstructive foreground element (like a sign).

If your motion is not parallel, then you have a tricky edit to deal with perspective changes. I think a ship would be very difficult, due to the inherently 3-dimensional nature of the ship and the perspective. Basically, I don't think there is any good solution.

BTW, the difference between using an ultra-wide lens and shooting a multi-row panorama is that you can choose your projection with the panoramal, which can reduce the edge distortion. But your final result is still a 2-dimensional projection of a 3-dimensional image, so you are going to get distortion that increases as you increase the angle of view.

I would look for more creative ways to get some distance between you and the ship; shoot it when it's out away from the dock; shoot it from a boat, use a drone, etc.

cmc4214 Loc: S.W. Pennsylvania

Being that the OP got very different responses this time, I think the question was worth re-posting