Chameleon Photography

New work for national magazine - Kitchens & Bathrooms Quarterly

On architectural jobs like these the combination of using 'Live View' on the 1DX LCD screen and the new 17mm TS/E lens is as perfect as you can get at the moment with Canon equipment. Using the large LCD monitor on the back of the camera allows the viewing of a much larger image than the viewfinder. It also allows the overlaying of a grid on the screen, which allows for the lining up of vertical lines to keep everything straight which is a must in architectural photography. Another benefit is that you can zoom into the image on the screen to precisely check the focus of the image. This is very useful when using a manual focus lens like the tilt and shift lens above. This lens again allows for movement of the lens to keep verticals straight and allow precise framing and focus control throughout the image.

With many architectural jobs, the range of light in the image can be very wide, from full sun to dark shadows. Whilst modern cameras have very wide dynamic ranges, it is still impossible to capture all the tones in one image without using quite powerful and expensive lighting. A way around that is to take a series of images and combine them to create one picture. Using a program such as HDR Efex from NikSoftware, allows the combination of a number of images (I use 5) ranging from correctly exposed highlights through correctly exposed midtones to correctly exposed shadows. These are then combined to create an image that best represents the complete scene. Note: care must be taken not to overdo the effect which can lead to an unreal and false looking image.