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Architecture/Interior Design - Tech or that camera!

Don Libby

Well-known member
Tech cameras can be a huge PITA however you can get mine if you can pry it from my dead cold fingers.

Tech cameras take much more deliberate thought in setting up; likewise they are slower to shoot with nothing automatic about them. But the images are out friking standing. I can set the WRS up and have it ready for the first shot just in time to hear Sandy saying she's done with her shot (1DsIII). However, I have the ability for flat stitching which gives me a much larger image file to work with when doing a 60' plus panorama. Okay, slightly off point.

I stumbled on what I feel (at least for me) is the ultimate system. I'm now using a DF body which gives me that DSLR quickness for when I need that fast down and dirty fast capture as well as the Cambo WRS for when I want/need the slower deliberate capture. The best part of all this is that I'm using the same digital back so no matter the case I'm using an IQ160 for everything I shoot.

So my suggestion is stay with medium format using two systems that use the same back.

Don

reread the previous comments. I've been using a 35XL for as long as I've had the WRS and totally agree that this is one super sweet lens.
 

PeterA

Well-known member
You can pick up outstanding backs between 33-40 megapixels for <10K from peeps who MUST have elephant gun type backs to shoot landscapes and print huge

for architectural work (or any work really) using a tech cam - you must match back to lens capabilities. I have just finished checking out the new Rodenstock 90 which delivers 100line pairs and is probably the only lens good enough to extract the best from an 80megapixel back - and because these dudes are now releasing a new range of super lenses - I might get interested in an 80 megapixel back.

If you shoot with 33-40 megapixels - your lens choice is far greater and easier to match to back - PM me if you want specifics . The DSLR route is only cheaper on paper for a little while - in the end you will write off a fair bit of cashola I reckon.
 

Aryan Aqajani

New member
You can pick up outstanding backs between 33-40 megapixels for <10K from peeps who MUST have elephant gun type backs to shoot landscapes and print huge

for architectural work (or any work really) using a tech cam - you must match back to lens capabilities. I have just finished checking out the new Rodenstock 90 which delivers 100line pairs and is probably the only lens good enough to extract the best from an 80megapixel back - and because these dudes are now releasing a new range of super lenses - I might get interested in an 80 megapixel back.

If you shoot with 33-40 megapixels - your lens choice is far greater and easier to match to back - PM me if you want specifics . The DSLR route is only cheaper on paper for a little while - in the end you will write off a fair bit of cashola I reckon.
Thanks for suggestion but I am not in a position to get a quite modern back over 22MP like P45+ less than $15000 here in Australia! So, either I have to use my current DM22 back or opt out for a DSLR system! As mentioned before, there some serious limitations to my back when shooting long exposure so that is why I was eager to ask folks who has worked in Architecture if they have faced any difficulties regarding the exposure and workflow tempo with a back like mine!
 

Flynnyfalcon

New member
Thanks mate for the sharing your experience, appreciate it. In my situation, I think it would be easier on my pocket to start with a DSLR setup and if need arises, just hire a tech system for a while! Again, have not decided yet but if I had a back like yours, decision making would be much easier for me!
Hi Aryan, I agree. The 35mm path is a reliable, cheaper (still not cheap!) and high quality route to take. My wife is also a photographer, so investing in a digi back, while it has extended me financially, I found relatively easy to justify. My accountant may not agree though.

What I did find though, was operating with a single 35mm SK allowed me to shoot almost everything! The 40Mb back has plenty of resolution to crop into (akin to a longer 47mm+ lens) and stitching takes you comfortably to 24mm (and a little beyond) if required. Making "virtually" 3 lens.

But this still obviously requires a significant outlay:
10-15K for a P45+ (for arguments sake)
3.5-4.5K for a WRS w/digi plate & viewfinder
2.5-3.5K for a 35mm SK

= 16K-23K

This, for similar money in Canon terms would give you basically a complete setup:
Canon 5D mkIII or maybe 1Ds mkIII
Canon 17mm TSE
Canon 24mm TSE
Canon 45mm TSE
Canon 90mm TSE

I'm sure you know the sums, but their is no denying, the MFD path is expensive.

Add another couple of lens' to your Cambo, which you will no doubt do and you're pushing 25-30+K. I don't want to add up my receipts, but I'm sure it's in this general ball park :eek:

Keep in mind though, come tax time, it can be very helpful with a lot of gear to write off and a lot to depreciate in the years to come.

Food for thought....
 

Flynnyfalcon

New member
Sorry I can't add anything regarding your DM22, I've never used the back before. I shoot a lot of long exposures and find the P45+ (and from what I hear P25+/P30+ is the same) exceptional.

Would a P25+ be an option? I'm not certain on pricing, but I believe they can be had for the $5-6K mark.
 
I shoot with a Cambo Wide DS and a Hasselblad H3D 39. The Wide DS has more rise and fall the the RS (40mm rise and 20mm fall) This comes in very useful for architectural work. ( I shoot architectural and landscape work)

I probably stitch photos in one shape or form in 80% of my photos. For me the pros of the tech camera setup far out weigh the ease of use of a 35mm camera. Initially I bought the Hasselblad/Cambo mainly because of the image quality. Now that I use the back on the Cambo the number one reason I use a tech camera is because of the vastly superior shift/rise/fall of a tech camera system over a 35mm system. For an architectural photographer it is a hugely useful tool. There are tilt shift lenses with 35mm camera systems and you can do the (cough spit) correction in photoshop but this does not give a satisfying result. For example if you were close to a sharp corner of a building and you used perspective correction in CS rather that rise on a tech camera you will be much more limited in what you can do and the result will not be nearly as pleasing.

One of the great advantages of the movement on the view camera is that once you visualize what the scene looks like and set up the camera, most of the time you just tweak the rise and shift to get that perfect angle. There is less of the moving around than you would do otherwise if you were to correct in photoshop or to use a 35mm with lesser movements (Although not all of the time. As an architectural photographer I'm sure you're aware of the give me 1ft more syndrome. Why is that fecking wall behind me!!!)

The shooting process with the view camera does take more time but you become much more involved in the scene. Especially with panoramics because you have to have a very clear idea of what the final image will look like. I don't use a ground glass. Way to time consuming and the last thing you want to be doing is messing around taking things off and putting things on the camera when shooting landscapes or externals. I expose the sensor to the elements as little as possible and as a result my sensor needs fairly occasional cleaning. I use the laptop tethered for internals if not much moving about is needed. Otherwise I use Quantum turbo 3 to give me at least a full days juice without need for a recharge. Really useful knowing you will not need to replace a battery all day in the middle of THE shot. I use the viewfinder to set up the job. It's a guestimate and than the shot is tweaked using either the screen or if tethered, with the laptop. I have never used the iphone so can't say anything for or against. Although realistically if your out and about using an iphone app during much of your shoot how useful can it be. The iphone battery isn't exactly know for it's battery life if it's getting a lot of use and the screen is active. Either it works all of the time or it doesn't work at all for me.

I shoot using only Schneiders. The 24mm, 28mm, 35mm xl and the 47mm. The quality of the glass is just ridiculous with only negligible distortion. My favorite lenses are the 35 and 28mm (The 28mm has unbelievable movements on a 49 x 37mm sensor.) You mentioned the 35mm xl and it is probably the best all round lens for architecture if you have a tightish budget. The 28mm is amazing but substantially more expensive. Also the perspective is more distorted because of the wide angle. The 35mm has a more natural perspective and works beautifully for stitching. The 24mm lens is razor sharp but you don't get much movements. It's still really useful for tight single shot compositions. The 47mm is also a beauty for the less is more panoramic internals. I am sending a bunch of shots captured with the 35mm xl as that's the lens you are looking at. A centre filter is absolutely vital if you are using shift on the lens. You can shift up to 19mm although it does start to go soft after 14 or 15 but I just apply extra sharpening if needed.

It is a bit of a pain to take a calibration shot with a semi opaque white disk/card for every new lens movement but as an architectural photographer you will know the difficulty in white balance. The beauty of taking a calibration shot is that you not only remove the colour cast but you can also use the white picker on the calibration shot and apply it to each subsequent shot. Every time I move the camera, irrespective of changing the lens movements, I take a calibration shot, remove the colour cast and correct the white balance.

There was some mention about issues with long exposures. Most of the enclosed shots are over 30 seconds exposure. Some go up to 80 seconds (somehow I can get 80 on the Cambo even though the official max with the H3D 39 is 60 seconds!!) Most of the time I shoot at iso 50. I can only speak for myself with the Hasselblad but noise is not really an issue. If you are blending exposures the underexposed shot will have noise which must be reduced.

I have printed images using the 35mm up to 2.75m wide (9ft and the sharpness is still unreal. One of the images below of the man and dog is an example. I also recently shot 360 degree panos using the Cambo/28mm/H3D39. At ht bottom you see 2 of these. They were 13m wide. The detail of the image even at that size was still really nice.

Hope that helps. As an architectural photographer I would have no hesitation in recommending the tech camera setup. I definitely didn't buy because it made financial sense. I bought it because I wanted it and I felt I needed it even though I couldn't afford it but sure feck it.
































 
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Beautiful work Enda. I'm using a DS with 24XL and 35XL lenses and a P45+ back. It's an excellent combination though I find the stitching problematic when shooting into the sun (as I do a lot) - just too much flare. Good tip about using LCC for every shot - I've been trying to avoid that but I can see that it's useful. I'm not even using a viewfinder or a laptop with my setup - it's remarkable how quickly you can get used to judging, despite the relatively poor screen. Also, the ability to crop means that for some interior shots, I just leave the 24 on and crop down as needed - useful especially on the smaller jobs where it's just documenting lots of rooms rather than the sexy stuff.

A lot of my images are printed as full-height wallpaper and glass walls - the difference in resolution of the technical camera images over 1DsIII or even AFD/P45+ images is stunning. I couldn't imagine not working a tech cam now.
 
Thanks Richard. The ould view cameras doesn't like direct sunlight alright. There is a grace period shortly before sunset and after sunrise where you can do it and I also have done it, where it is just to the side without hassle.

That trip with the 360 shots, the bloody viewfinder fell into a we waterfall. Plonk, plonk down the rocks and into the murkey water below. I spent 3 days without any viewfinder including those 360's and you're right I didn't miss it too much. I do find it much more useful for architecture though, especially internals. More so for stitched shots just to give a starting point, because the subject matter can be very close to far where even 10cm movement of the tripod makes a big difference to get the exact composition.

The 24mm is a sweet lens though, pin sharp and is fine on a 49mm x 36mm sensor like the P45 or H?D 39.

Here are examples of images I took into or near the sun. The 1st one has a bit of flare, which I left. I wanted to give a real sense of 9070's coca cola adds for an unorthdox subject. :eek:))







 
Good tip about using LCC for every shot - I've been trying to avoid that but I can see that it's useful. [/QUOTE said:
Ya it might sound like a bit of a pain but it means a most of the time you get a perfect white balance without any messing around. I know you can set custom white on the screen with a phase one IQ but it won't be as accurate as doing a picker on a custom from a calibration shot which was captured in the same light as the final images. I remember with the Schneider 28mm prior to the lens centre filter I had to use the digital centre filter. Than I had to do the calibration shot AND take a note of every lens movement, which I had to key into the plug-in in photoshop AFTER doing the usual processing in Phocus. It was so time consuming and if you do a lot of shift as I do, you could end up with a fair bit of noise in the corners, which had to be removed. Grand if you're doing landscapes but for the architectural commissions it just wasted too much time. Some photographers blend exposures to counteract the vignetting but that sounds insane to me and again more time consuming. Everyone to the own though:)

A wee tip with the calibration shots. If the exposures are quite long ( and the calibration shots would need about another 2 stops on top of that because of the semi opaque card) open up the aperture and increase to iso 100 or if need be 200 for the calibration shot. It saves a bit of time and also allows you to still take calibration shots when the light levels are quite low.
 
Nicely held Enda - love the last one. I would struggle to restrict myself to magic hours, especially on trips but it would certainly make post-processing easier! Here's a few recent shots, mostly with the 24XL:

Richard Osbourne Art Images | Latest Images

One thought: it's hard to see your great images with the watermark. Have you considered perhaps making it a little fainter? They'd still be protected but the quality of work would be clearer.
 
Thanks for the tip about the LCC shots - sometimes I'm standing there for 30 seconds or underexposing because it's going beyond that. Crazy to take those kind of shortcuts though - it potentially screws all the other images up! I use the dust delete in Capture One, which is mostly excellent, so it's harder to use generic LCC shots for each lens.
 

jctodd

New member
I've seen the tip about using the LCC frame for white-balance before, but doesn't it give you a problem with strongly-coloured subjects? Surely, you end up correcting for the light reflected off the subject, not the light falling *on* it (as you would with a traditional white-balance or colour-checker in the scene)?
 
I've seen the tip about using the LCC frame for white-balance before, but doesn't it give you a problem with strongly-coloured subjects? Surely, you end up correcting for the light reflected off the subject, not the light falling *on* it (as you would with a traditional white-balance or colour-checker in the scene)?
I forgot to mention it isn't suitable for everything...because sometimes you don't want perfectly white balanced shots. Sunset or street lighting for example.

I must say I have never had any problems with strongly coloured objects. I can't see how it would affect through a semi opaque card unless the subject was very close. However dappled sunlight can be problematic (through leaves for for example). Barn doors come in handy to keep direct sunlight off the lens in those cases. If you have light and shadow on the card the calibration tool will try and even it out and the subsequent images to be corrected.
 
I know guys about the bloody watermark but I have already found several images on the web, which were grabbed. One tool was selling my images as "high res digital images" even though the image taken was probably 1100 pixels wide. With CS5 and 6 it is becoming easier and easier to remove stuff. Other images were grabbed with subtler smaller watermarks but only appearing as 500 pixel wide images on the screen so they managed to remove the watermarks and at that size, they were invisible. It's the nature of the beast at the moment. I could of course have the images smaller but I shoot mostly panoramics and you just don't get them unless viewed large. That's why after viewing my images on the website at 750 pixels, there is an option to view it at up to 1800 pixels. I hope most people buying the images can see what the image is about with the watermark. There is no magic solution but for me it's the best of a bad lot. It will piss off some people I know.
 

Abnilo

New member
i agree with "Guy Mancuso". i am new in photography and here i learn many things related to digital photography and interior designing. Also the photos which some guy pasted above are really very awesome.
 

torger

Active member
Swedish architecture photographer Åke E:son Lindman (Lindman Photography, he's Sweden's most famous architecture photographer) worked with large format film for many years, but nowadays uses mostly Nikon D800 with the three tilt-shift lenses for commercial work. He also owns a Sinar Arctec camera with a digital back but according to what I've heard has only used it once on commercial jobs, as he prefers the quicker workflow and lighter gear of the Nikon. Note that his style is to shoot only with natural light, ie he does not bring any lighting equipment which makes the advantage of the smaller/quicker Nikon appear stronger. As I understand it he still shoots large format film for artistic work.
 

rsmphoto

Member
Yes, I've done a similar thing, 30+ years shooting architecture worldwide and I've settled very nicely into a Leica S2 system with an HTS and various S and a couple of HCD lenses. Nothing I can't do with this that I've done in the past with a view or tech camera. In fact, it's far better in dust, rain, snow, etc. S lenses are in a world of their own.

R
 

Ben730

Active member
Beautiful work Enda. I'm using a DS with 24XL and 35XL lenses and a P45+ back. It's an excellent combination though I find the stitching problematic when shooting into the sun (as I do a lot) - just too much flare.
I use with the 24XL and 35XL to avoid flare the Rodenstock Centerfilter E67 with a B+W step up ring instead of the Schneider CFs. It's 0.5 F-stops darker but much better in these extreme situations.
 
I agree about the photos and about the watermark: the nicer the photo, the more intrusive the mark.
Agreed. Look at the works of photographers who might have something to worry about. Household names in the art world, people whose work sells in the tens of thousands at auctions. I don't think you'll find any watermarks.

What can someone do with a screen image of your work? Print a postcard for their fridge? I would be flattered. As it is, people hot link to my site all the time. In all but one or two cases ever, they've credited me. All I can say is, thanks.

Even unobtruive watermarks make a very, very negative first impression for me.
 
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