Correcting "Distortion" from the 18mm SEM

[lct]

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It's a pleasure to work on nice pictures like this but i just pushed a slider folks. Andy will certainly do much better.

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[Peter Branch]

Perhaps I did not make it sufficiently clear that I had an 18mm lens on the camera because I was photographing the Islamic architecture.

It was not a carefully considered choice in this particular situation - I just grabbed what is, as was pointed out, essentially a "Street Picture". 

It is difficult perhaps for those not used to using an 18mm lens to comprehend just how close, about 1.5m to 2.5m, the subjects are.

Using a 28mm, which I had in my bag, simply would not have worked.  Quite why they came and sat next to me in the way they did I will never know.

 

I'm fascinated by the various responses to the "improve" picture.  I've come to the conclusion that the original was perhaps as good as it was possible to get.

In the original the distortion is obvious, but so is its cause.  There is a coherence and lack of artifice about the picture.

The subsequent edits are in some, but not all, ways an improvement - but they don't look quite right and the reasons for this are not at all obvious.

Essentially they have an element of artifice about them.  Perhaps the lesson is that this sort of editing needs to be used very sparingly.

 

The comment that the editing had not only affected the apparent distortion but also seemed to change the perspective is, at least to me, very interesting.

The "Golden Rule" is that perspective is determined by the position of the entry pupil of the lens, i.e. the view point - nothing else. 

From this it follows that for a given view point the relative size of objects in the field of view are determined and also the degree to which an object in the foreground obscures objects in the background. 

Simple?  However the edits employed on this picture, whilst they preserve the degree to which some objects obscure others, have radically altered the relative size and shape of objects in the field of view.

In one respect at least therefore the perspective could be claimed to have been altered.  Food for thought.

[jaapv]

Interesting comment abut the original  perspective. It is probably best to use the distortion  tools and push  the back of the head and the shoulder lightly in to make it more natural and leave it at that.

[MarkP]

Interesting comment abut the original  perspective. It is probably best to use the distortion  tools and push  the back of the head and the shoulder lightly in to make it more natural and leave it at that.

Agreed.

[tobey bilek]

Now you know why Peter Karbe is a fan of 50 mm lenses.   They do not impart anything on the picture.

[Peter Branch]

Interesting comment abut the original  perspective. It is probably best to use the distortion  tools and push  the back of the head and the shoulder lightly in to make it more natural and leave it at that.

This is my take on applying your advice - thanks.

 

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[jaapv]

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The best one yet I'd take out the highlight in grandma's eye btw;)

[Peter Branch]

The best one yet I'd take out the highlight in grandma's eye btw;)

I agree. The strange thing is that it is much more obvious in the image on the forum than it is on my carefully calibrated monitor.

 

Nevertheless it will be suitably modified but I won't bore people by posting yet another image.

 

I wonder if there is some artefact associated with the image size reduction necessary to comply with the forum's limitations?