Little annoy with my ultra wide angle photos

During my visit to Paris/Brussels/Bruges/Ghent this summer, kind of the first time I took my Rokinon 12mm F2 (manual focus for E mount) for some real travel.

As phones nowadays are so powerful, most of the newer ones have ultra wide angle lens ( 13mm, 120 degrees field of view ), it seems like the pictures (my wife is using iPhone 13 Pro) are similar to the 12mm lens on my A6500. Sometimes I think it would be easier to use a phone + A6500 with 16-70Z instead of changing lens. And the photos from her phone is so vibrant and sharp while I will need to process my photos to get that colors.

And I look at the wide pictures and I do not get those wow factor much. I know it is probably my skill on using the lens not correctly, but luckily once in a while I would get something I think are pleasing.

Here are some photos (non processed) to illustrate what I am not happy about




Here is a photo of the Abbey at the top of Mont Saint Michel, I have no room to move back, all I can do was point up to get the whole scene. When I do that, the object/building in the picture is like a triangle.



Next, same location in portrait mode, seems a little better with more foreground, but still the same point up view.



Grand Place, seems okay but the tall tower is not straight. Not sure if shooting from a higher place will help but that is a luxury that I did not have.


This one from Bruges, was able to capture everything in, but the Belfry is bent


This next one is much better, with slight rotating the alignment, I might get a straight Belfry.


Paris Opera House, standing further away, I got the building straight, but lots of foreground and lots of people.


When I stand closer, again the triangle/trapezoid effect.

I was doing some research on fixing lens distortion in photoshop, seems like it can straighten the things. But I am cheap and my version of photoshop does not have that Adaptive Wide Angle filter. I tried to use the lens distortion filter and seems like I might be able to use the vertical perspective tool to make the building look straight, but I will need to have a much wider shot such that main building is inside the adjusted and cropped image. I guess in the future I will need to remember about this.

Any other tips that you have that could help me ? I kind of think when using UWA, try to keep the object in the top half might help, but I am not too sure now.

Try to shoot vertical.

T Snijder wrote: Try to shoot vertical.

I do this often when I want the building straight. Or I lean into the distortion.

Straight vertical:

Sony A7r4 | Sony/Zeiss 16-35/4 | 22mm | f/7.1 | 1/320s | 100iso

And leaning into the distortion:

Sony A7r4 | Sony 20/1.8G | f/1.8 | 1/60s |

As everyone else has posted, this is a natural consequence of using wide angle lenses and not shooting to the same horizontal plane as your image. When you tilt up, you introduce distortion that you see. You can correct this in post, but it can be time consuming and there are always inaccuracies to the correction due to the correction. The best solution is to go to a building or structure across your subject and get to a level where you can shoot without tilting the camera. Easier said than done (not possible most of the time). If you do decide to correct in post, add a lot of space around the subject since the correction will eliminate quite a bit of the scene.

The correction can make the image better. Or worse. It's a personal preference. I had to correct my indoor church pictures (and outdoor church pictures) in this manner. I sort of enjoy doing this (not really), but it can be worth it. I learned so much from seeing the work of others here in this forum. And, nice pictures.

Those of us who still use film can easily correct this when we make prints under the enlarger -- tipping the easel in the opposite direction.
Without that option, others have given good suggestions.

XKAES wrote: Those of us who still use film can easily correct this when we make prints under the enlarger -- tipping the easel in the opposite direction. Without that option, others have given good suggestions.

Film still rules But yes, this is an advantage of the film workflow.

You might need to use a wider-angle lens than you thought -- in order to keep the camera level AND get all of the subject in the scene. The only other option is to move further away -- or move UP.