Perspective and Distortion

[Ben730]

There are cases where you just have to live with distortion because there is no other way to get a certain shot.

This building is the "Umlauftank 2" in Berlin by the architect Ludwig Leo. It is a research building that was built between 1969 and 1975. The large tube is coated in pink polyurethan foam, inside they accelerate water to 10m/s that goes round in circles through the tube. The blue box is 5 floors high and at it's bottom there is a basin where you can put in ship models in the accelerated water to test their shapes for flow resistance. I took photos after the renovation. The machinery is still functional. Look at the scale of the lorry in front of it to see how large this architecture is. The tube has an overall length of 120m and contains 3.300t of water.

If you look at the first shot – yes of course, the tube segments are heavily distorted, they have a circular section in reality. And the shot was very wide with a lot of shift. To reduce distortion I got as far back as possible, but behind my position there were dense trees. And I tried to get a bit higher, so I stood on a houseboat that lies in the canal next to the building. And I used a large tripod.

A drone might have helped to get even higher. But I had the intention not to get away too far from a pedestrians perspective.
So I live with the distortion. Because this shot is basically the one I wanted.

On the second image you can see how this building is situated at the edge of "Tiergarten", the large central park in Berlin. I took it from the roof of a university building nearby. A loooong focal length with no distortion ;-)

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In my opinion, the short distance to the object in the first picture increases the drama and emphasizes the size of the building.
I find this "effect" very useful here. Wide-angle distortion can also be used positively.

I am pleased to see that in Berlin, too, there is a white delivery van in almost every architectural photograph.

 

[diggles]

There are cases where you just have to live with distortion because there is no other way to get a certain shot.

This building is the "Umlauftank 2" in Berlin by the architect Ludwig Leo. It is a research building that was built between 1969 and 1975. The large tube is coated in pink polyurethan foam, inside they accelerate water to 10m/s that goes round in circles through the tube. The blue box is 5 floors high and at it's bottom there is a basin where you can put in ship models in the accelerated water to test their shapes for flow resistance. I took photos after the renovation. The machinery is still functional. Look at the scale of the lorry in front of it to see how large this architecture is. The tube has an overall length of 120m and contains 3.300t of water.

If you look at the first shot – yes of course, the tube segments are heavily distorted, they have a circular section in reality. And the shot was very wide with a lot of shift. To reduce distortion I got as far back as possible, but behind my position there were dense trees. And I tried to get a bit higher, so I stood on a houseboat that lies in the canal next to the building. And I used a large tripod.

A drone might have helped to get even higher. But I had the intention not to get away too far from a pedestrians perspective.
So I live with the distortion. Because this shot is basically the one I wanted.

On the second image you can see how this building is situated at the edge of "Tiergarten", the large central park in Berlin. I took it from the roof of a university building nearby. A loooong focal length with no distortion ;-)

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These are both excellent images Marc, neither bothers me in the least bit.

 

[corvus]

There are cases where you just have to live with distortion because there is no other way to get a certain shot.

This building is the "Umlauftank 2" in Berlin by the architect Ludwig Leo. It is a research building that was built between 1969 and 1975. The large tube is coated in pink polyurethan foam, inside they accelerate water to 10m/s that goes round in circles through the tube. The blue box is 5 floors high and at it's bottom there is a basin where you can put in ship models in the accelerated water to test their shapes for flow resistance. I took photos after the renovation. The machinery is still functional. Look at the scale of the lorry in front of it to see how large this architecture is. The tube has an overall length of 120m and contains 3.300t of water.

If you look at the first shot – yes of course, the tube segments are heavily distorted, they have a circular section in reality. And the shot was very wide with a lot of shift. To reduce distortion I got as far back as possible, but behind my position there were dense trees. And I tried to get a bit higher, so I stood on a houseboat that lies in the canal next to the building. And I used a large tripod.

A drone might have helped to get even higher. But I had the intention not to get away too far from a pedestrians perspective.
So I live with the distortion. Because this shot is basically the one I wanted.

On the second image you can see how this building is situated at the edge of "Tiergarten", the large central park in Berlin. I took it from the roof of a university building nearby. A loooong focal length with no distortion ;-)

View attachment 209648



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It works quite impressively for this technical building - very telling of the use of a wide angle of view. What lens/format combination did you use, Marc?
I wonder if - contrary to my previous expectations - something like this could perhaps also work in narrow street spaces for buildings with rectangular or even square openings, or whether the distortions that can then be perceived in the upper corners would again lead to other considerations of the viewpoint? There are also many such buildings in the center of Berlin, sometimes even without white delivery vans

 

[marc aurel]

It works quite impressively for this technical building - very telling of the use of a wide angle of view. What lens/format combination did you use, Marc?
I wonder if - contrary to my previous expectations - something like this could perhaps also work in narrow street spaces for buildings with rectangular or even square openings, or whether the distortions that can then be perceived in the upper corners would again lead to other considerations of the viewpoint? There are also many such buildings in the center of Berlin, sometimes even without white delivery vans

Thanks to everyone for the comments and the nice words. The feedback is quite interesting for me.

The image was taken with the GFX 50s and an adapted Canon TS-E 17mm. But it did not use the full image. I cropped to a focal length of about 21.5mm. The part I used is just a little wider than a full frame sensor. The full frame equivalent focal length is around 15.5mm. Pretty wide though.

I tried to reconstruct the amount of shift: about 8mm rise, and 3mm of lateral shift to the right. I'm not sure anymore why I did not position myself in the exact centre of the blue box. I think it was a combination of two things: a) the boat on which I stood was not as long as I wished & b) I wanted to be closeer to the axis of the green chimney, otherwise it's top would have diagonal distortion too. I don't remember. You can see that as a result the tube is more distorted on the right than on the left.

About the vans:
There may be a lot of buildings without white vans in front of them in germany. They usually are of a wider variety of colours. And they have advertisments for the company on them

 

[corvus]

About the vans:
There may be a lot of buildings without white vans in front of them in germany. They usually are of a wider variety of colours. And they have advertisments for the company on them

That's right ... There's always something ...

 

[Ben730]

About the vans:
There may be a lot of buildings without white vans in front of them in germany. They usually are of a wider variety of colours. And they have advertisments for the company on them

Side topic "white vans":
I know there are numerous variants. With "white vans", I am deliberately lumping all diversifications together.
For me, "white vans" are the umbrella term for all annoying vehicles that are "just quickly" in the picture...
As a cyclist, however, I'm biased when it comes to vans anyway.
The vans with advertising are at least identifiable, you can find the driver and ask him to drive away.
With a written order confirmation from the client/owner, this almost always works.