Saturday, February 25, 2012

Photo tip: Avoid the ‘zoid

It took a while, but eventually I noticed that in many of my photos, rectangular gravestones were looking a bit trapezoidal.

Hmm.

Was it my camera? Did I need a better lens? A bigger lens? A better camera? (Confession: I use the camera on my phone to take cemetery photos.)

No, it was my knees.

I (mostly) corrected the problem of “converging verticals” simply by bending my knees and getting down to the level of the gravestone so that I did not tilt the camera up or down (forward or backward).

To illustrate the difference, I took two photos of the same gravestone: Standing (left) and kneeling (right).


  
  

See the difference? I prefer the kneeling photos, don’t you?


James Baker, Sunbury Memorial Park, Delaware County, Ohio
Alford Butters, Jr., Butter Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio


7 comments:

  1. Kneeling is appreciated more by the dead ;-)

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  2. Yes, I prefer the kneeling, too. It took me a while to notice the problem when I was photographing documents, and then I fixed it by changing the angle. I hadn't thought about it with gravestones. (But then I haven't photographed many gravestones.)

    It was great to meet you today, Amy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hope to see you next month, Nancy. Fun group!

      Delete
  3. I agree that the best pictures are the kneeling ones. My problem is that once kneeling, I need help standing back up.

    ReplyDelete

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