Some lone image of yesterday, when I was on my way to the lake. This is not far from where I lived for many years, thus I have taken images of this church more than once. I think this is the first on the blog though.
I was not sure if I should make this part of the lens review thread, but then, what I’m writing here is one solution to a typical wide-angle problem, and to a problem, that is only multiplied, when you use something as wide as the new Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM Ultra-Wide Zoom Lens for Nikon.
Basically that’s a fake. Even with the new Sigma 8-16 on its widest, I never could have taken this image, and if I had, it would have looked different, less natural.
There is a big sign directly at the stairs, totally ruining the view, thus I tried to take the image from between sign and stairs, basically leaning against the sign. This forced me to point the camera upwards, causing enormous distortions.
Later, in Photoshop, I used the PTLens plugin, not only to remove the linear distortions that this lens has at 8 mm, but also to correct the perspective and to slightly rotate the image. Doing so horizontally expanded the image at the top and compressed it at the bottom. I would have had to crop substantially from the sides, and the result would have looked very unnatural. Thus I decided to fake it.
The only thing that we really have an idea of how it should look like, is the tower of the church. The stairs, well, here was my lever. I selected the lower part of the image, copied it to its own layer, chose “Edit / Transform / Free Transform” and began to pull the compressed lower part to the left and to the right, careful to only pull at the lower segments of the raster, thus leaving the transition zone intact.
In the result, the stairs are similar to the original, but the church looks relatively undistorted and natural. Thus we still get the feeling of an ascent that goes steeply upward, while the church looks bigger. I think I still get away with it, and the reason is exactly, that only the background needs a correct geometry. The foreground is pliable.
The Song of the Day is “Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras” from the “German Requiem” by Johannes Brahms. My most favorite recording is that of John Eliot Gardiner, with Philippe Herreweghe not far behind.