Project: Walnut tree in the yard (wide angle lenses)

[Cobram]

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Dear All,

I would like to ask you for advice regarding my current photographic project. The village I used to live as a child is known for walnut trees. Almost every house has at least one walnut tree in the yard. There are so many walnut trees that the name of village is a word derived from a word "walnut". My plan/project is to take photos of all trees with houses behind and family members in front or under the walnut tree. Somehow I want to portrait families and trees. 

I already performed some preliminary shots in order to understand sun/light position, composition and also to understand which wide angle lens will be the most appropraite for the task. To my surprise, there are many small yards with really tall trees that can not be photographed with 21mm lens (Color Skopar) so I decided to try wider lenses.

I was thinking in two directions: L-mount lens for my SL or M-mount that can be used on M-E220 / SL. Don't want to spend huge amount of money so current list of possible candidates:

 - Voigtlander Heliar 15mm v3

 - Zeiss ZM 18mm 

 - Laowa 14mm F4 (M mount)

- Laowa 15mm F2 (L-mount)

 - Sigma 12-24mm L mount

 - Leica SEM 18mm

 

Do you guys have any experience with befor-mentioned lenses related to trees, foliage photos? The ideal lens shall exhibit minimal distortion due to persons photograped under/in front of the tree and also nice sharpness with minimal chromatic abberations and flare. Based on preliminary shots it is also important that the lens exhibit nice rendering of green colors.

Photos will be printed in a book related to our village. 

Any info/insight/comment are be highly appreciated.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Cobram

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[destination-world]

Look at the painting "American Gothic". Add Hazel trees and a house to the background. 

You don't always need an ultra-wide-angle lens. Just find another approach

Edited June 2, 2021 by destination-world

[jaapv]

An interesting project with great potential. Have you considered the use of a shift lens or stitching images? That would avoid the ultra-wideangle perspective. If you rely on many wideangle shots it might impact the variety that we look for in such books.

[Cobram]

29 minutes ago, destination-world said:

Look at the painting "American Gothic". Add Hazel trees and a house to the background. 

You don't always need an ultra-wide-angle lens. Just find another approach

Indeed very interesting remark. Thank you for your useful comment. I was not thinking in this direction but now, looking at the painting you mentioned, I recognise maybe a different approach will be even better...

[destination-world]

The difference in thinking. Technical thinking versus creative thinking.

[Cobram]

50 minutes ago, jaapv said:

An interesting project with great potential. Have you considered the use of a shift lens or stitching images? That would avoid the ultra-wideangle perspective. If you rely on many wideangle shots it might impact the variety that we look for in such books.

Thank you Jaapv for your comment. I have never used a shift lens but I will check this technique/option. Seems very interesting. Thank you for helpful advise. 

[mmradman]

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2 hours ago, jaapv said:

An interesting project with great potential. Have you considered the use of a shift lens or stitching images? That would avoid the ultra-wideangle perspective. If you rely on many wideangle shots it might impact the variety that we look for in such books.

Takes me to childhood, my grandfather had a pair of walnut trees in front of his house.

T/S lens crossed my mind, it is no doubt excellent for accomplished technical photo where perspective may be a challenge, i.e. tall trees in front of typical low-rise house.   With T/S only the result may end as a catalogue of all walnut trees.

Creatively any lens ought to do the job with obvious limitations of its wide or narrow focal length.  I would try to balance project combining wide with normal and detail pictures, either using telephoto or macro or both.

[Danner]

Just a thought, ...

I was shooting a 6x7 format wide angle lens (Mamiya 7 with 43mm lens) in a project I called Fort Worth at Street Level.  I meticulously leveled the camera so the film plane was perfectly vertical, and then cropped the final image to remove most of the lower half of the frame.  This gave me the effect of the T/S lens, while the MF negative gave me enough film "real estate" to produce sharp, detailed prints.

[Jean-Michel]

Hi Cobram,

Since you end use is a  book, I would not overly worry about extreme technical qualities of the lenses. Even at a large book size, the individual leaves of your walnut tree will not show any veining! I happen to own a WATE and at the 16 mm end it can show rather tall trees in full from very close, but not without keystoning. Using a shift lens to correct tilts really only works if  the image circle of the lens produces adequate image quality at the outer edges of the circle; that kind of work was usually done with large format cameras. I rented a shift-tilt lens for a Canon dSLR some years ago and was not particularly impressed with it. 

I hope that you enjoy proceeding with your project – which sounds very interesting.

Jean-Michel

[crony]

Hi, Cobram, of the lenses mentioned I only have :

- Voigtlander Heliar 15mm v3

 - Zeiss ZM 18mm 

But I also have the VOIGTLÄNDER Ultra-Wide Heliar 5,6/12 screwmount. I attached this to my M9 and went into the garden, taking a practical approach.

At the border there are tall trees, ca. 12m. 

At 7m (10 paces) distance, camera held vertically :

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

At 12m :

 

At 15m :

 

I do not know how much room there is, so I would take my 12mm lens.( I would be very careful taking pics of people with UWA lenses. They can distort,

and the ladies in the pics will never forgive you, for looking ugly ...  )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stef63]

Interesting project !

To avoid extreme distortion of the people in the foreground of your composition you might want to use a stepladder and position yourself above your main subject (people).  

From my lens collection I would choose the Leica 18 SEM for this project .

[Cobram]

15 hours ago, mmradman said:

Takes me to childhood, my grandfather had a pair of walnut trees in front of his house.

T/S lens crossed my mind, it is no doubt excellent for accomplished technical photo where perspective may be a challenge, i.e. tall trees in front of typical low-rise house.   With T/S only the result may end as a catalogue of all walnut trees.

Creatively any lens ought to do the job with obvious limitations of its wide or narrow focal length.  I would try to balance project combining wide with normal and detail pictures, either using telephoto or macro or both.

Thank you for your interesting ideas. Indeed I was afraid to produce just a "catalogue" photo book. I shall check other equipment as well as creative options in order to make engaging final result - book.

[Cobram]

11 hours ago, Jean-Michel said:

Hi Cobram,

Since you end use is a  book, I would not overly worry about extreme technical qualities of the lenses. Even at a large book size, the individual leaves of your walnut tree will not show any veining! I happen to own a WATE and at the 16 mm end it can show rather tall trees in full from very close, but not without keystoning. Using a shift lens to correct tilts really only works if  the image circle of the lens produces adequate image quality at the outer edges of the circle; that kind of work was usually done with large format cameras. I rented a shift-tilt lens for a Canon dSLR some years ago and was not particularly impressed with it. 

I hope that you enjoy proceeding with your project – which sounds very interesting.

Jean-Michel

Dear Jean-Michel, I was a little bit worried about technical aspect... and your comment reassured me. Maybe I'm just too much engaged in LUF technical sections where almost every one is talking about megapixels, lens resolving power, LoCa 🙂 , etc... And after all hot threads regarding quality of the equipment I was getting more and more worried about mine modest M-E220 (only 18 MP 🙂 ) and cheap Color Skopar 21mm F4...

[Cobram]

11 hours ago, crony said:

Hi, Cobram, of the lenses mentioned I only have :

- Voigtlander Heliar 15mm v3

 - Zeiss ZM 18mm 

But I also have the VOIGTLÄNDER Ultra-Wide Heliar 5,6/12 screwmount. I attached this to my M9 and went into the garden, taking a practical approach.

At the border there are tall trees, ca. 12m. 

At 7m (10 paces) distance, camera held vertically :

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

At 12m :

 

At 15m :

 

I do not know how much room there is, so I would take my 12mm lens.( I would be very careful taking pics of people with UWA lenses. They can distort,

and the ladies in the pics will never forgive you, for looking ugly ...  )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great. Thank you for your helpful test. Indeed I own M-E220 (like M9) so it is a very useful comparison. Belive me, I'm already a little nervous regarding this project because every one in the village knows me and almost all families agreed to participate in this project... I must be prepared... that's why I'm asking for advice, new ideas, warnings...

[crony]

Hi, real-world distortion of the Voigtländer Heliar 15mm v3 on the M9 in Wiesbaden-Biebrich/D ... :

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Left-side crop :

 

Right-side crop :

 

(The Heliar shows CA, and distortion. - Distortion is typically tested with 2D charts. The world is normally 3D, so this can happen with an UWA lens ... )

 

 

[jaapv]

Did you notice that the cars in the background and the buildings are far less distorted?

[250swb]

21 hours ago, Cobram said:

Dear All,

I would like to ask you for advice regarding my current photographic project. The village I used to live as a child is known for walnut trees. Almost every house has at least one walnut tree in the yard. There are so many walnut trees that the name of village is a word derived from a word "walnut". My plan/project is to take photos of all trees with houses behind and family members in front or under the walnut tree. Somehow I want to portrait families and trees. 

 

 

A great idea but I think if you use a very wide angle lens you risk losing the identity of the people. Like any project there will be compromises and you need to prioritise what's important, the people or the trees. I'd say the people, we all know what a tree looks like, more or less. 

[Cobram]

Interesting video about ladder and angle of view etc.

https://fstoppers.com/education/one-piece-equipment-every-portrait-photographer-needs-367079

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[crony]

37 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Did you notice that the cars in the background and the buildings are far less distorted?

Yes. - This is what I tried to show ... The background is more or less a plane, 2D. But when other objects are in the picture, like the white Mercedes, you have more spatial structures.

Not a big deal, but this can happen ... ---

[a.noctilux]

This may be a fun project.

As @jaapv, I'd use a shift or PC lens as I  have 24/28/35 shift lenses, I think PC 28mm or PC  35mm to try depending on the height of trees.

I'd use in vertical and shifting up just enough, not to "minimalize" people in the picture and the whole elements in picture still straight

(not perturbing perspective as with SWA lens).

this old PA 35mm R lens would be a good candidate as it is not expensive and available in most places

(I don't have this PA lens but in another brand 35 shift lens)

one of PC Nikkor 2.8/35mm ...

Edited June 3, 2021 by a.noctilux