On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:53:49 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
wrote:

On Feb 25, 3:43*pm, "dadiOH" wrote:
Charlie Groh wrote:
*I'm getting into architectural
photography and one of the *big* deals is converging lines...how to
*not* get converging lines is a tough...and expensive...nut

Tough, no; expensive, can be but not necessarily.

All you need is a view camera with tilting/sliding/rising/falling front and
back. *Biggest problem IMO is that when you correct for converging lines you
get a "flat iron" appearance. *My preferance was/is partial correction -
after all, lines *do* appear to converge when we look at them - to avoid
camera induced accentuation of same.

As far as expense goes, you can easily find a decent used camera such as
Cambo/Calumet, Omega etc. *with* lens for around $500. *Toyo too but
probably a bit more. *One does not *have* to have a Sinar *


A set of rubber tanks, some 4x5 hangers, a big enlarger... *drools*. I
loved that hobby.

The 'correction' of the cabinet posted by the OP I did in Photoshop.
Very sloppily done on the fly with the 'distort transform*

And you are correct. It looks way nicer to do a partial correction.
Btw, Nikon and leica and i believe Contax all made (or still make) a
lens or two with mechanical correction capability. I think the Nikon
had a focal length of 35 mm.
I have also seen mini bellows used on a Contax RTS.

....I've gotten a decent wide angle that will do for now...doubt if
I'll ever go the bellows route, there's some nice software to help
correct, too. You guys sound like you know the biz...I tend to spend
money when I think it'll solve a problem, not at the expense of
knowledge vis-a-vis the goal, but to achieve maximum speed...and
maximum may be minimum in many circumstances...

cg