Vietnam Vet wrote:
So I have been house hunting. The first step is looking at photos of houses online. I saw a couple of houses that looked great and I drove an hour to see them. The reality is the houses suck. I know your job is to create interest in the property, but at what point do you call it photographic malpractice?
Vietnam Vet wrote:
So I have been house hunting. The first step is looking at photos of houses online. I saw a couple of houses that looked great and I drove an hour to see them. The reality is the houses suck. I know your job is to create interest in the property, but at what point do you call it photographic malpractice?
Vietnam Vet wrote:
So I have been house hunting. The first step is looking at photos of houses online. I saw a couple of houses that looked great and I drove an hour to see them. The reality is the houses suck. I know your job is to create interest in the property, but at what point do you call it photographic malpractice?
This is an unusual area to discuss. Malpractice means you have done something wrong intentionally. Misfeasance implies that you did something wrong unintentionally. And nonfeasance means you did nothing but could have changed circumstances to improve them. While I'm not an attorney I don't think that a photographer can be litigated for representing an object incorrectly. As for houses that "suck" that is a matter of opinion. No one should expect to live in a mansion and pay far less than the going rate. The reverse is also true.
The phrase "Caveat Emptor" applies here. Let the buyer beware.
When I was looking to buy a home (I own one in Brooklyn and one by Lake Wallenpaupack) I was very clear what I wanted and needed with the realtor. A couple of houses later, the real estate agent started showing my wife and I what we asked for. Then we made a bid on the house we liked. When the bid was accepted, we called a private engineer to survey the house. When the report was finished and handed to us I read it completely. I knew what was a problem and what will be a problem. I never used the report as a bargaining chip. The owner was given a copy of the report. If the owner chose to correct the problem they did so (Radon Remediation) at their own cost.
Photographs of a potential object for sale may not provide an accurate representation of the object. There is a simple reason why. A house is three dimensional, a photograph is two dimensional.
You must see the final item for sale and not go by the photograph.
Now for a photograph lesion in optics.
When you photograph something larger the the focal length of the lens there will be distortion based upon the lens. When the camera is tilted out of the level plane, the lens and its first element is skewed and not parallel with the object. This distortion is known as parallax. When I photograph small objects or buildings, I use a 24mm Tilt-Shift lens. This lens does as it says and will bend the light path. It is especially useful in architectural photographs. The object being photographed does not look as if it is falling backwards. This is known as parallax or keystoning. The mechanism is a little difficult to get used to and the lens itself is significantly more expensive than a comparable lens with the same focal length. If you decide on this route I suggest you rent one and do some test shots to get familiar with it.
Some Mirrorless cameras have Keystone Compensation imbedded in the onboard memory but I'm not sure which ones. (I'm still stumbling out if the 20th Century and into digital cameras.
Some final points. Don't use a fisheye lens as it will distort. Some photographers may photograph while standing on a tall ladder. This already sounds dangerous and can be a huge problem in the long haul.
As a hobbyist photographer, if some one wants to litigate for photographic malpractice let them. I think the judge would be laughing to hysterically to render a judgement against the photographer.
Just do your best to photograph an object. That is all we can expect of ourselves.
Happy Shooting!