Best Wide Angle Lens for Architectural Photography

Photographing Architectural calls for Tilt-Shift lenses – most of the time. These lenses correct perspective distortion. Yous can think of this as making certain that the vertical lines of a edifice actually look vertical, and not slanting towards each other. In the past, this may have chosen for a 'technical camera' or a 'bellows' attachment, merely tilt-shift lenses are easier to manage in the field.

Sometimes, photographers may use an extremely wide-angle lens, or a special-effect lens to photograph compages, only these instances are extremely rare because near architectural firms want to come across their work the way that it was envisioned. These lenses are mentioned below, but their usage is rare. Advertisements

Why Architecture Photographers Love Tilt-Shift Lenses

Architectural photograph. A building against the sky.
Photo by Danny Saltaren

Essentially, the problem with taking pictures of tall buildings from the ground is that as their pinnacle increases, the summit of the building gets further away from the camera, introducing 'perspective' into the photograph.

How tilt and shift movements are used in lenses, for architectural photography
An Analogy of how Tilt-Shift Lenses piece of work.

A tilt-shift lens (abbreviated to TS and besides called a Perspective Correction – PC – lens) enables your SLR photographic camera to operate similar it has bellows or like a technical camera, and fixes this perspective baloney. The effect is an image with perfectly vertical lines, and that'south how architects similar to encounter their buildings – without whatsoever boosted distortions added.

TS lenses allow you to keep the lens' axis parallel to the ground while shifting the view in the required direction. This makes vertical lines appear to be straight. See the image to the right for an explanation.

In short, the TS lens helps past assuasive y'all to proceed the camera perfectly level with the horizon but 'shifting' the view of the lens upwards… Accept a wait a the illustration…

Here are some links to interesting photographs taken with Tilt-Shift lenses: Charminar by Sabir, CIS building by fotofacade and Full Shift Boogie past iso100.

Perspective Correction Lenses are truly specialised architectural lenses, and they're a must-take slice of photographic gear for any professional person architectural photographer.

Tilting & Shifting are Ii Different Functions of the Lens

All the tilt-shift lenses mentioned here are manual focus lenses. They permit for very fine command over perspective and focal surface area. Tilting and Shifting are ii distinct controls that are adjusted past turning knobs on the lens.

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What Does the Tilt Command do?

The Tilt Command Knob allows you to move the bending of the front grouping of elements. This changes the aeroplane of focus of the lens – it will no longer be parallel to the plane of focus. The Tilt control tin permit for less than the normal depth of field (miniature effect), or to arrange for tilt, to bring fifty-fifty more than of the image into focus.

What Does the Shift Control Practice?

The Shift Command Knob moves the lens parallel to the focal plane. This allows you to a) shift the framing of the shot without having to turn the camera (shift-panoramas are possible in this way), and b) correct for perspective distortion when photographing architecture.

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Here is a List of Tilt-Shift Lenses:

Tilt-Shift Lenses for Canon

Canon makes TS lenses in a wide range of focal lengths. All the same, it's the broad-angle lenses that we are most interested in as architectural photographers.

These are the two lenses that are the virtually relevant for architectural photography.

  1. Catechism TS-E 24mm f/three.5L Two Ultra-Broad Tilt-Shift Lens
  2. Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L UD Aspherical Ultra-Wide Tilt-Shift Lens

Canon too makes 'macro' TS lenses, but those are more than valuable for production photography. We volition wait at them in another commodity.

Tilt-Shift Lenses for Nikon

Nikon besides makes some excellent Tilt-Shift lenses (Nikon calls them 'perspective correction' PC lenses). They also brand some macro PC lenses that are better suited to production or nevertheless-life photography – PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8D ED and the PC-Eastward Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D lenses.

  1. PC NIKKOR 19mm f/4E ED
  2. PC-Eastward NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED

Third-Political party Tilt/Shift Lenses (Lenses for Canon, Nikon and Sony)

  • Venus Laowa 15mm f/4.five Zero-D Shift Lens
  • Samyang/Rokinon Tilt-Shift SYTS24-C 24mm f/three.5 Lens

Ultra Wide-Angle Lenses – Prime and Zoom

An architectural photograph of a rock face carving in Petra, Jordan.
Photograph past Spencer Davis

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Sometimes the space being photographed needs to exist shown in a dramatic mode. That's when ultra-broad lenses enter the scene in architectural photography.

These lenses need to be used with care as fifty-fifty slight tilts accept a dramatic issue, and tin can sometimes wait unsettling.

Hither are three lists of selected Ultra-Broad Prime number and Zoom lenses for Catechism, Nikon and Sony cameras. Sigma and Tamron lenses have not been mentioned as they come in either Canon or Nikon mounts; however, hither is a listing of all Sigma broad-bending lenses and Tamron'south lenses folio.

Ultra-Wide Catechism Lenses

  • Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
  • Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM
  • Catechism RF 15-35mm f/two.8 Fifty IS USM

Ultra-Wide Nikon Lenses

  • Nikkor AF 14mm f/2.8D ED
  • Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.eight South
  • Nikkor AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/ii.8G ED

Ultra-Wide Sony Lenses

  • Sony Fe 12-24mm F2.8 Chiliad Master (SEL1224GM)
  • Sony Atomic number 26 12-24mm F4 G (SEL1224G)
  • Sony 20mm F1.8 G (SEL20F18G)

Special-Furnishings Lenses

A fish-eye view of the interiors of a building.
Photograph by Marius

Fisheye Lenses bring a very different view to any photograph.

A fisheye lens has very very limited apply in architectural photography, because of the way that it distorts straight lines. They bring in a totally different aspect when it comes to architecture.

It enables the photographer to explore architecture as patterns and shapes, distorting them – sometimes beyond recognition – so that the viewer is as well forced to look at architecture in a new fashion.

Would you apply a fisheye lens for architecture? Weigh in with your comments beneath.

Here are Some Fisheye Lens Suggestions:

  • Nikkor Fisheye and Fisheye Zoom Lenses
  • Canon Fisheye Zoom Lenses
  • third Political party Fisheye lenses

What is Architectural Photography?

Photographs of Buildings, Arches, or any other architectural structures are called architectural photography. They may be interior or exterior photographs. Specifically, the challenge is to portray the architecture in the best possible manner and to convey what the architect may take originally envisaged when they designed the construction, frequently trying to replicate the mode the edifice was drawn on paper, with verbal elevations.

A photograph of a skyscraper in one point perspective.
Photo past Jesse Echevarria

Why is Photographing Architecture Such a Challenge?

The chief challenge is to united nations-run across what we come across with our optics. Our brain tells us that the lines that converge at a signal in single, two or three-betoken perspective are actually parallel. When we expect at a photograph of that same building on paper, it looks very different. It looks like the building is leaning backwards.

If we can acknowledge that our brains are 'fixing' perspective and allowing us to empathise the earth regardless of what nosotros see, we can and then move on to agreement how to portray these big 3D objects on a small-scale 2nd plane.

More than Lens Information

These lists are by no ways exhaustive. Rather, I intend them as a guide to requite you a fair thought of the kinds of lenses that tin can exist used in a challenging profession, to get pictures that bring a viewer back for a 2d look.

If you're interested in improving how you expect at photography, visit our Photo Projects series.

If you're interested in reading more about lenses that can be used for different kinds of photography, cheque out The Lens Resources alphabetize post.

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Published: April 29, 2007 | Last Updated: August 8, 2021

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