Architecture, comparable Hasselblad SWC

[burancap]

Hi all,

I hope this thread is in the correct forum (MODs, please move if needed and my apologies in advance).

I am currently ramping up for an architectural photography project, primarily focused on front elevations of homes. The shots need to be as square/right-angled as possible to provide an almost "illustrated" shot of the homes. The verticals need to be as true as possible (requiring minimal lightroom correction).

In the past, I would grab a Hasselblad SWC or SWC/M and seemingly job done. Today, though, I don't have the lead time and would like to get results as soon as possible. So... my question.

What would be the digital and/or 35mm equivalent (modern or otherwise) to the SWC? Body, lens, etc...

My appreciation in advance!

Thanks,

 

[mfogiel]

I think you should simply look around for one of the PC 28mm lenses - they tend to have little distortion. I have seen some Nikon lenses of this kind on the bay for about 300-400 USD. With a camera like D700 you will have a fairly good set up. As far as 35mm lenses go, the only one which resembles SWC in the perfection, is the C Biogon 21/4.5 ZM, but then you will have the problem of the verticals, and also an M9 is quite a bit more expensive than a DSLR.

 

[sevo]

Well, what is your resolution target, and why did you use a SWC?

 

[Nokton48]

I used to shoot architectural interiors and exteriors with the 35mm PC Nikkor, and the 28mm F3.5 Nikkor, mainly Kodachrome 25 and Velvia 50 at the time. The Nikon FE2 was my preferred camera. I also had an Olympus 24mm F3.5 PC I had Marty Forscher convert to Nikon mount. I helped many architect friends win AIA awards with that equipment and even got some of my work into national design magazines.

 

[burancap]

I think you should simply look around for one of the PC 28mm lenses - they tend to have little distortion. I have seen some Nikon lenses of this kind on the bay for about 300-400 USD.

Well, that was quick!

To be perfectly honest, I was not familiar with the Nikon PC lenses. A quick search and that seems to be the answer I was looking for! At least, certainly a jumping off point!

Thank you!

 

[twopointeight]

There's a Canon 24mm PC lens, version 2 in the classified. SWC is 24mm equivalent. Full frame body of course.

 

[burancap]

Well, what is your resolution target, and why did you use a SWC?

Resolution is not critical for this project, distortion is.

SWC? IMHO, it was favorably distortion free and seemed to be the nonpareil choice for what I have in mind.

 

[burancap]

I used to shoot architectural interiors and exteriors with the 35mm PC Nikkor, and the 28mm F3.5 Nikkor

Thank you!

 

[BobYIL]

Six years long I have used the 35/2.8 PC-Nikkor. It has slight barrel distortion. The 28/3.5 PC is the same. The former is relatively cheaper.

Forget about the SWC.. the only Nikkor you can find with least distortion is the 24mm PC-E. and it costs something like $2K.

The best way for you to deal with distortion at PP.. the other alternatives with retrofocus lenses are real costly.

 

[rogue_designer]

Both canon and nikon make a few PC lenses that are quite good. There are, of course, also technical cameras and digital medium format backs that will accomplish the same thing. The hasselblad arcbody with a good back, for instance, would be a killer rig for such a project. Albeit, slower to use than the PC lenses and dslrs.

 

[Rob-F]

I think you should simply look around for one of the PC 28mm lenses - they tend to have little distortion. I have seen some Nikon lenses of this kind on the bay for about 300-400 USD. With a camera like D700 you will have a fairly good set up.

That is my answer, as well. I use a D700 with both 28mm and 35mm PC-Nikkors. They are very good lenses!

 

[burancap]

That is my answer, as well.

This is the direction I have headed.

Torn between the two focal lengths, leaning toward the 28.

About ready to pull the trigger, but I saw one seller list incompatibilities... which I am having difficulty with! They are all F-mount, no? I see no differences (uniqueness) to any of the flanges nor with over-penetration into the body.

 

[nlubis]

I use D700 and a 28 PC lens. But consult your manual before you buy a lens, not all 28/35 PC lens is allowed on the D700, only the later model. Of course there's the 24 PC-E, mmmmm.

 

[rxmd]

Canon and Nikon have perspective correction lenses that are pretty much similar. Canon's are a bit better mechanically in that they are more flexible, you can freely rotate the tilt and the shift plane vis-a-vis each other. Also Canon has a 17/f4 tilt/shift lens, which is very nice if you have very large buildings or if you are in tight spaces.

I use a Canon 24/f3.5 tilt/shift lens a lot, for architecture, but also for landscapes where the tilt function allows you to do lots of useful things with the plane of focus, like having in sharp focus a flower 20cm in front of the lens as well as the mountains at the horizon. Image quality is absolutely impeccable with respect to distortion, field flatness and flare resistance.

Here are a few images taken with the 24/f3.5 tilt/shift:

The classic application of a shift lens: preserving straight lines when standing in front of a building. This was taken freehand, so the perspective is not entirely perfect, but already quite OK (shifted up some 5mm):

When done right, you can use it for very precise compositions that still look natural (taken off a tripod with a spirit level in the hot shoe, shifted up some 4mm):

There is certainly a danger of overdoing it, though, at which point it begins to look unnatural. This was taken from a tripod in front of a Gothic cathedral, with not too much space to move and lots of vertical lines. You can see the two most common problems: the perspective at some point looks "too straight" and unnatural, and the 24mm wideangle is at its optical limits here, shifted up the full 12mm that the lens allows. We can see from the slight blurring in the top corners that we are at the limits of the image circle (there is still no vignetting, though!)

Here's another example of tilt/shift and landscapes. I was standing on an embankment with an ugly piece of concrete sticking out, so I shifted the frame to the lower right, in order to move the concrete out of the frame. At the same time, the lens is tilted down a bit to get both the close pond and the faraway mountains in focus at f/8. For changing the relative angle of the directions of tilt and shift (here: shift right, tilt down), you need to be able to rotate the tilt axis and shift plane separately. Discounting lensbabies, the only lenses that will let you do that are the Canon 17/4 and 24/f3.5 TS/E lenses, as well as a few "Super-Rotator" type lenses built by Hartblei; at the moment, this is impossible with the Nikon PC lenses unfortunately.

Here's another example for controlling the plane of focus. This was taken from a tripod with a little bit of downshift. The plants at the front of the picture were less than two feet away from the camera, the mountains in the distance some twenty miles. The shot was taken at f/8. In order to get everything in focus, the lens was tilted some three degrees downwards; this was enough to get the plane of focus almost parallel to the ground.

Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

 

[rlouzan]

You could also use a telephoto from far away.
Don't forget a good bubble lever + a focusing screen with greed.

 

[burancap]

Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

WOW!

Great stuff. Thank you so much for posting that very informative piece! I am researching as much as I can right now and your post is very helpful. I see that PC lenses may afford much more opportunity beyond architecture! I had always considered the concept of tilt and/or shifting to be for radical DOF control rather than my intent. This project has become very enlightening, and why I love RFF.

 

[FrankS]

Why not fix in post processing?

 

[varjag]

For low distortion the best options are symmetric non-retrofocus designs. Biogon 21mm (essentially same design as your SWC Biogon), Super Angulon, Russar, and their Japanese clones. Those lenses have photogrammetric levels of geometric distortions.

 

[rxmd]

Why not fix in post processing?

Well, the main pictorial uses of a perspective correction lens are three, IMHO:
1. Controlling straight lines (shift)
2. Getting rid of junk in the foreground by shifting it out of the frame (shift)
3. More freedom for getting things in and out of focus as you want them (tilt).

You can do the first of them (straight lines) in post, but you take a quality hit and you lose a bit of usable image angle, forcing you to use more extreme wideangles for the same perspective. For the cathedral shot I would have needed something like a 15mm lens. These more extreme wideangles are then often not as well corrected, while PC lenses tend to be excellent wideangles all by themselves, even if you don't shift them at all; the 24/f3.5 is the best wideangle I've ever used, on any system.

The other two uses are more difficult to replicate in post; for the second you have to crop your picture and throw away a lot, and doing the third is impossible - you can fake out-of-focus blur, but that's it and even that gets tricky.