Rich, Thank you. This is an interesting comment. One of the advantages of us lake huggers compared to land lubbers is we always have a precise horizon, and you are right if the horizon is off by a couple degrees, you see it, and it bothers you about the photo. If I don't have a waterbody horizon, I always base my image on the strongest and most central vertical line (knowing that sailboat masts are never vertical).

On this image, with a flat level lake, and no lens distortion (Sigma 150-600@600 adjusted and in Camera Raw), the light house is not vertical, straight or even parallel. I could spend some time and alter the perspective on the lighthouse to get rid of the trapezoids, and square all the verticals, but should I? It is interesting to note that the middle horizontal line of the pier is synonymous with the top of the lake, and if I rotate to straighten the flag pole, the remainder of the picture goes out of kilter. Some of the out of Kilter you are seeing may be perception as well, in this image, I overlaid perfectly vertical and horizontal lines.

In my area, we have a lot of barns that were old before I was born (44), and few, if any of those barns are rectangles - some are parallelograms, while some are trapezoids - I aim to achieve the least offensive viewpoint achievable, often leveling on the bottom chord of the roof.

I would be interested in what you would do.