A complicated landscape question

[MICHAEL_61]

T/S lenses are great and very useful. However, a T/S would not help
with the sample photo from the OP since the near objects are directly
in front of the far objects. Unfortunately, apart of software
solutions, this becomes a DOF issue.

• But why? With 12mm focal length stopped down to 1/22, shouldn't DOF be enough to cover almost everything? Besides, it seems to me that ugly streaking occurs independently of the problematic part of the picture being sharp or not quite...

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[MICHAEL_61]

is something like 0.3 m (one foot) with f/16 aperture (assuming that
circle of confusion is 0.03 mm).

Check this link:
http://photoinf.com/Tools/Don_Fleming/Depth_Of_Filed_Calculator.html

• Those calculations are, unfortunately, not supported by my real life experience. I think it is something to do with the construction of an extreme wideangle - try focusing yours on something very close and something further away from the same point and watch how the whole scene warps depending on where you focus.

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[MICHAEL_61]

is time to bail on trying to make the impossible happen and instead,
go out and allow nature to show you what really matters...

• But what I want is not something weird, it's a very logical thing. A wideangle shot looks most dramatic if you've got something real close in the foreground:

What's wrong with trying to get this perfect?

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[Joergen Geerds]

well, it seems to me that you are getting into a serious lens-fever.

the lenses you have a pretty good lenses, and of course the corner mtf is lower than the center mtf, but that's not the point. i think you are critizising super wide angle lenses for stretching the outsides too much, but that is just the nature of the lens projection. and you are critisising the lack of dof at f16. as another commenter said, at f16, pretty much everything from 0.3m to inf should be in focus if you focus on something roughly 1m away (for your 12-16mm lens). of course, the experienced photographer that you are, you know how to do that.

but, in some images you have stuff that is closer than 0.3m, and that would be oof. you can not complain about this, those are optical basics. but you could try focus blending, i.e. with helicon or something in that direction. pick f22, and start manually focussing from the closest setting to the infinity, and then focus blend the 3-12 images in the stack. of course, if something moves, you are screwed (again).

--
Joergen Geerds
http://luminous-newyork.com

 

[MICHAEL_61]

Answering the 2 last posts, I'll show this photo again - it looks like some people here (thank you all guys very much for input) don't bother to check all the previous posts:



Are you guys saying that it is possible to make something like this perfect by combining panorama stitching with focus stitching? Regardless of wind + warping when focused at different distances?

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[jgb]

It's not a panorama you are looking for, it's focus stacking, just as another poster has suggested.

http://www.photoacute.com/products.html

Answering the 2 last posts, I'll show this photo again - it looks
like some people here (thank you all guys very much for input) don't
bother to check all the previous posts:



Are you guys saying that it is possible to make something like this
perfect by combining panorama stitching with focus stitching?
Regardless of wind + warping when focused at different distances?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/

--
Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jon_b

 

[Joergen Geerds]

from what i've seen, your 12mm has an issue: the corners shouldn't be as mushy as they are. i would take it back to the shop, this isn't right. your other lenses don't seem to have the same issues in the corners, and if they do, then maybe, and that is a capital maybe, your 5d has an issue (very unlikely).
and if your lens is buggy, then focus blending will never work.

have a look here: http://www.juzaphoto.com/eng/articles/sigma_12-24_review.htm
the sigma produces quite good images, pretty sharp into the corners.

--
Joergen Geerds
http://luminous-newyork.com

 

[MICHAEL_61]

would be oof. you can not complain about this, those are optical
basics. but you could try focus blending, i.e. with helicon or
something in that direction. pick f22, and start manually focussing
from the closest setting to the infinity, and then focus blend the
3-12 images in the stack. of course, if something moves, you are
screwed (again).

• I tried that. It's tricky not only because of something that could be moving, but mostly because when a superwide lens is focused at different distances, it warps the whole scene in different ways. Know what I mean?

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[MICHAEL_61]

from what i've seen, your 12mm has an issue: the corners shouldn't be
as mushy as they are. i would take it back to the shop, this isn't
right.

• Initially I thought so too - until I actually tried and compared it to other lenses. They all seem to be doing this in the particular situation we're discussing.

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[Joergen Geerds]

i can understand if you have one bad copy of one lens... i had the same, but 3 different lenses from 3 different manufactures all bad? no way.

here is a theory, and please don't be offended: did you ever cleaned your sensor with a tissue? you might have cleaned the middle of the sensor, but smeared something into the corners (which are hard to reach by finger). if you did, you should see the same blurr with a standard lens also. if you didn't. i am at a loss. wide angle lenses (as a group) don't do what you are showing us here. click on the link in the previous post. they are pretty good in the corners.

--
Joergen Geerds
http://luminous-newyork.com

 

[Dan Nikon]

• But why? With 12mm focal length stopped down to 1/22, shouldn't DOF

be enough to cover almost everything?

You are hitting the limits of everything.

F/22 the diffraction limit on all but L/F lenses.

Going so wide that the light rays coming in from the corners of the lens are coming in at as steep as angle passible.

And then you are simply pushing the limits of the laws of physics and optics. The objects are simply that distant.

The problem you have presented is indeed a fundamental one. If it were easy to attain, then it would have been done decades ago.

 

[Dan Nikon]

Good example.

There is nothing wrong with it. But just be aware that you are darn near asking for macro to infinity to be sharp.

So without employing the use of stitching, some custom built algorithm in both a "smart" lens and specific post processing technique, about the only way you are going to see everything in this frame in focus is to use a large pinhole camera.

I have to give you credit though, you have presented a refreshed look at an age old problem so "Good-on-ya".

If you come up with some zany new way of attaining it that does not involve an entire work day at a computer, I would love to see it.

Good Luck Michael..

is time to bail on trying to make the impossible happen and instead,
go out and allow nature to show you what really matters...

• But what I want is not something weird, it's a very logical thing.

A wide-angle shot looks most dramatic if you've got something real
close in the foreground:



What's wrong with trying to get this perfect?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/

 

[cdanjo]

Obviously you can't shoot straight into the exterior of a shiney sphere or your camera will be in the photo. So here are other options:

If you shoot down into a convex mirror tilted at 45 degrees, you can get you camera out of the way, but you will need a convex mirror with two different radii of curvature (toroidal section) to keep the scene undistorted. When you tilt a curved mirror, the effective radius of curvature, Rc, is modified by Rc/cos(x) or Rc*cos(x), where x is the tilt angle, depending on whether the tilt is in the sagittal or meridonal plane. This is easier to understand if you imagine looking down a pipe of Rc=1". As you tilt the pipe away from your view, the curvature eventually becomes the flat top of a cylinder (at x=90 degrees) with Rc=infinity, hence in that plane Rc(effective)=Rc/cos(x) .

Or just use a convex mirror of equal curvature in both planes (like a sphere) and try to correct the distortion in photoshop.

-c

 

[MICHAEL_61]

here is a theory, and please don't be offended: did you ever cleaned
your sensor with a tissue?

• I never cleaned my sensor at all. Didn't really need to yet.

if you did, you should see the same blurr with a
standard lens also.

• No, that looks just fine:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Misc/slides/LIDSI_MISC%20 (1).html

if you didn't. i am at a loss. wide angle lenses (as a group)
don't do what youare showing us here. click on the link
in the previous post. they are pretty good in the corners.

• I've checked that link. My lens is as good as:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/City/slides/LIDSKI_URBAN%20 (43).html

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/City/slides/LIDSKI_URBAN%20 (27).html

The problem starts when you get CLOSE:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/City/slides/LIDSKI_URBAN%20 (28).html

See top right corner?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/

 

[gdanmitchell]

Answering the 2 last posts, I'll show this photo again - it looks
like some people here (thank you all guys very much for input) don't
bother to check all the previous posts:

ALL 74? Of course not!

Dan

--
---
G Dan Mitchell
SF Bay Area
http://www.gdanmitchell.com/

 

[gdanmitchell]

To echo another poster:

There are limits to what any gear can do, and there are tradeoffs among the various solutions.

Ultra-wide angle lenses by their nature will "distort" the image to a certain extent. It can't really be any other way.

Small apertures (I'd try as small as f/22 on FF) can extend your DOF greatly, but that doesn't mean that you can get everything from the tip of your nose to infinity in focus.

Corner sharpness degrades in ultra wide angle lenses. (Though I hear that Nikon may have somehow miraculously denied this reality in their new ultra wide zoom.) Stopping down helps. Sometimes a lot.

If stuff moves in the frame (and I don't know if that is what happened in your shot or not) you'll have to use a faster shutter speed. Of course if you are shooting at small apertures for DOF you'll need to use a high ISO. Sometimes life sucks that way.

A T/S lens can be used to get good focus on objects both near and far, but only by tilting the focus plane. This works if stuff in one part of the frame is close and stuff in another part is far away - it won't work if the close and far stuff are in the same part of the frame. Like in your original example.

Software solutions that combine frames shot at different focus points can work in some situations. They aren't perfect but they can do a good job. If stuff moves in between exposures you have a problem. (The tree trunk example might work with software.)

Sometimes you might have to give up some sharpness in the far subjects in order to get better sharpness with close subjects. Perception being what it is, it may not matter if the distant objects are a tiny bit soft if the foreground objects are sharp.



There isn't a lot more to say about this.

Really.

Dan

--
---
G Dan Mitchell
SF Bay Area
http://www.gdanmitchell.com/

 

[MICHAEL_61]

Sometimes you might have to give up some sharpness in the far
subjects in order to get better sharpness with close subjects.
Perception being what it is, it may not matter if the distant objects
are a tiny bit soft if the foreground objects are sharp.

• great picture Dan! "a bit soft" I don't mind, but I do mind ugly streaking...

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[Christopher Gibbs]

I would like to describe my problem in the hope that somebody went
through this before me and would be able to suggest a solution. How
do you do a wideangle land/cityscape WITH SHARP DETAIL CLOSE TO THE
LENS (sorry, not shouting, just emphasizing) - with good sharpness
and detail all over?
1) Good quality wideangle in the range of 20mm is not wide enough;
2) Fisheye is not orthogonal;
3) Extreme wideangle produces disgusting out-of-focus corners in this
situation, at any aperture:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Landscape/slides/LIDSKI_LANDSCAPE%20 (75).html

4) Panorama stitching - is it the ONLY solution? Couldn't very well
work for the sample posted above, now, could it?

Have you got an answer?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/

I'd say Canon is the wrong tool for your job and you'd be better served taking this question over to the Olympus forum! There are some absolutly stunning examples of what you're trying to achieve over there.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/358162-REG/Olympus_261009_7_14mm_f_4_0_Zuiko_ED.html

Do a search for images shot with that lens on a 4/3rds sensor (more, vasty more DOF) and a lens that I'd bet would make even Nikon blush.

Looking at your style of imaging, Olympus would be a real plus........

Cheers,
Chris

--
http://www.chrisgibbs.com