Whether you’re just starting out or already a seasoned pro, you may find it difficult to fix and correct the distortion you see as part of your real estate photography business.
The issues and corrective measurements are actually quite simple, but you need the right knowledge and know-how to consistently fix this distortion. This guide will help you understand what lens distortion is and how you can fix it during your everyday life.
What is Lens Distortion?
Lens distortions can actually be used artistically when working on a film or a television show, but most find them undesirable and unsightly when used for marketing and real estate purposes. There are several different types of distortions which can arise from using different lenses for the houses you’re shooting.
Distortions are caused by the curvature of the lens and the focal length of the camera you’re using, and while they’re perfectly natural and difficult to avoid, real estate customers generally avoid houses with distortion in the images, both online and in physical forms.
Forms of Distortion
The most common types of distortion when shooting houses are barrel, pincushion, and mustache distortions. These distortions arise most commonly because of the types of cameras and lenses used to shoot houses. Barrel distortion occurs when straight lines near the edge of image begin to bend or wobble outward.
Pincushion distortion is used to describe a similar distortion, although the lines will bow or curve inward instead of outward. Finally, a straight line may actually do both, in which case your photograph has what’s known as “mustache” distortion.
Correcting Lens Distortions
There are two primary ways skilled and experienced real estate photographers use to correct the distortion they encounter because of their lenses. First, you can use an affordable and simple postproduction software to correct the distortion, using different profiles and options within the software.
You can also correct it manually, however, although this is usually not necessary, as many different lenses have a correction profile pre-set within many different types of postproduction software. For example, tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Photomatix will allow you to easily correct for distortion. Not only that, the profiles can be turned and left on by default so you never notice the distortion in the first place.
Keystone Perspective Description and Avoidance
The final type of common distortion has nothing to do with your lens, but is actually a natural property of the houses you’ll be photographing. If you’re shooting from a high angle and looking down on your subject, vertical lines will often seem to converge in a V shape. If you’re shooting from a low angle, while looking up, these lines will usually converge in an A shape.
In ordinary or artistic photography, this convergence pattern is not much of a problem, but real estate photographers need to portray the most accurate possible picture of their houses, and therefore need to eliminate this type of convergence. To fix this type of distortion, you have two options. First, you could buy a special lens and set which takes the distortion into account and corrects it automatically, in an analog manner.
However, these lenses are sometimes expensive and difficult to find. You can achieve similar results with one simple trick in the postproduction bay. If you use Lightroom or Photomatix to develop and augment your pictures, you can straighten out these lines before finalizing your photographs. In Lightroom, the “upright mode” is a great tool to fix your distortion.
The Bottom Line
As a real estate photographer, you want the most accurate and true-to-life depiction of your properties possible. This approach means eliminating any forms of distortion and focusing on what makes your house unique with optical illusions or lens-specific visual elements. To correct lens distortions, try to shoot your house from an angle which is straight-on and use post-production tools in software such as Lightroom and Photomatix to correct your images.
