Managing Perspective

If you point your lens upwards, to capture all of a tall building for example, the resulting image will have sides sloping inwards looking towards a vanishing point in the sky. This subject was recently discussed on the Alamy (stock photography) web site where various "solutions" were considered. Perspective is a natural thing, railway lines appear to converge in the distance etc, but our mind knows that buildings should be vertical, and wants them to look that way, or almost that way.

Four solutions were proposed: -

1) Using perspective correction tools incorporated within image processing software, Lightroom, Photoshop etc. They work but there is some degradation of the image at the sides. This is my normal approach.

2) Using a shift lens - very expensive. Perhaps only for very wealthy amateurs or those pros who regularly get commissions to shoot architecture. Probably better than (1) above but still some potential degradation problems due to using a  lens very near to the edge of its image circle.

3) Shoot a rising stack of images and combine as a vertical panorama using the tools within Photoshop. Not tried this, but it sounds very interesting.

4) There are some third party software solutions which will take a completed image and attempt to improve the perpective. One such program is ShiftN and it's freeware. Intrigued I decided to give it a go and here is one result.

Without correction

With correction

This is using the automatic fix provided by the software - I've not yet dabbled with the various adjustments that are available.

The photo shows Appalachian dance group Step This Way performing at Durham County Cricket Club's Chester-le-Street ground.

I've now used this software on a number of photos, and the results vary from very impressive to distinctly weird. It's not a one stop shop solution, although, in fairness I've not experimented with the adjustments that are available. It's certainly worth having in your toolbox and you can decide in each case whether or not its application is appropriate.

Steam Train Specials

Why is it that there are very rarely any special steam trains running in the north east, but when they do arrive, like buses, there are two of them?  Yesterday saw "The Wansbeck" topped and tailed by two locos, 62005 and 61264, and "The Hadrian" hauled by 46115 Scots Guardsman.

The weather was horrible, totally unsuitable for photography, with mist, dullness, mizzle and not at all very warm. I stood for an age perched precariously on a wall in Chester-le-Street to capture the Wansbeck crossing the viaduct, and it arrived 30 mins late. By that time I had just about lost the feeling in my fingers, but managed to press the shutter. Having got the excuses out of the way, here are a couple of shots.

K1 2-6-0 62005 heads the train

B1 4-6-0 61264 brings up the rear

And so to Hexham to catch the Hadrian. The light was very slightly better and the train arrived a bit early, which meant that it was stopped in Hexham station to allow a local passenger service to get through. Unfortunately this meant that power was cut off before the station so my vision of a dramatic exhaust filled sky shot evaporated with the steam. However...

(Zuiko 50mm f1.8)

Royal Scot class 4-6-0 46115 Scots Guardsman

I enjoyed watching this powerful loco accelerate its heavy train away from the platform, sure footed without a trace of wheelspin,  from the viewpoint of the footbridge.  

Sony NEX 6 Pentax 28mm K f3.5 and Zuiko 50mm f1.8