Tilt-shift techniques and lenses

stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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Davidson, NC
I have not mastered this lens for interior shots. I would not use this lens for real estate work, although I understand there are pros who do great with it. Here are a couple of bad photos of small rooms in my house:

bathroom.jpg

IMG_2577-Pano.jpg

Were I to buy either of the lenses, I would definitely choose the 24mm. But I have mostly satisfied my curiosity about them, and would find it hard to justify the cost for the small amount of use they would get. If I still got work from realtors, for example, then the situation would be different.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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I have not mastered this lens for interior shots. I would not use this lens for real estate work, although I understand there are pros who do great with it. Here are a couple of bad photos of small rooms in my house:

Were I to buy either of the lenses, I would definitely choose the 24mm. But I have mostly satisfied my curiosity about them, and would find it hard to justify the cost for the small amount of use they would get. If I still got work from realtors, for example, then the situation would be different.

There is no doubt the 17 is much more difficult to use effectively than the 24, indeed I use the 17 with a 1.4TC giving me a 24 more often than I use the 17 alone, but I need 17 often enough to justify it over the 24.

If people were looking at the TS-E's primarily for landscape I'd say get the 24 and when you want wider stitch, if you are real estate/architectural shooter and can only afford one then get the 17 and TC's as the IQ from that combination is plenty high enough even for particular clients. One of the downsides of the 17 is the cost, hassle, and bulk of filter solutions which are much more widely used by landscape shooters than real estate shooters.

I was very deliberate about getting my TS-E lenses, I can't justify more than two and I already had both 1.4 and 2x TC's and I shoot a lot more real estate and architecture than landscapes, so for me the TS-E 17 was the obvious choice. I have now augmented the 17 with the TS-E 50 which I use for real estate exteriors, product and macro shooting, with those two lenses and TC's I have ended up with very high quality 17mm, 24mm, 34mm, 50mm, 70mm, and 100mm TS-E's.

I'm glad you ended up having fun with your rentals, always good to push ourselves in whatever we have an interest in.
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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Davidson, NC
Back when I shot a few houses for a realtor, I used my T3i and the EF-S 10-22mm lens. The results were fine. Now I could use the 16-35mm with my FF camera for very similar results. I didn't need anything printed to large sizes, so the resolution lost by using Photoshop to straighten perspective didn't matter. I was pleased with the results, and the realtor was even happier with them.

I did really enjoy my lens "staycations," and look forward to renting something else exotic and interesting some day, maybe one of the macro TS-E lenses, once I figure out what I'd want to do with it. I might eventually think of some more things to try with the 24mm and get it again. With both lenses I really liked how shifts made panoramas that Photoshop had no trouble lining up without curving straight lines. Maybe I'll try a nodal thingy (pardon my technical language) and how that works for shooting to stitch. For wide scenic vistas with my G7X II, since there were no straight lines involved, I found stitching shots together almost always worked great. The camera is so small, I may well be rotating pretty close to the nodal point of the lens anyway. I hadn't thought of that before.
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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Davidson, NC
Some G7X II stitched panoramas:

The original of this one is 14,589 x 4607 pixels:

canyon1.jpg


And this one is 15,784 x 3678 pixels. Both look spectacular full size on my monitor, and both would make great prints on roll paper.

canyon2.jpg
 
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Some G7X II stitched panoramas:

The original of this one is 14,589 x 4607 pixels:

canyon1.jpg


And this one is 15,784 x 3678 pixels. Both look spectacular full size on my monitor, and both would make great prints on roll paper.

canyon2.jpg
If you ever want them printed on roll paper let me know...
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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Davidson, NC
If you ever want them printed on roll paper let me know...
Thanks. I can do roll paper in my Epson R3000. Over my mantel I have a framed 3' wide panorama of pictures I stitched together from shots of mountains and glaciers made near the triple continental divide between Jasper and Lake Louise.

Four years ago a neighbor gave me a short video he had made panning across a ski resort and wanted me to make a panorama of it for him to hang on a wall at his mountain home. I told him I'd try, since I had never heard of anyone doing that. I had Photoshop save stills from the video, and than I chose ones to try stitching together in different combinations. We picked out our favorite choice, and I printed it out for him. I think it turned out a little wider than my Canada panorama. I haven't been up to his mountain home to see how it looked framed, but he was happy with it.
 
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