The many half-timbered facades are a characteristic feature of Oberkirchen. Photographing them is an essential part of village photography. However, if you stand close to a building with your camera, the building often looks crooked in the photo. In technical jargon, this is referred to as "falling lines". They often have a disturbing effect.
Professional architectural photographers use so-called shift lenses to control the perspective. These are very expensive and are therefore only worthwhile for photographers who take a lot of architectural photos. Another option is to edit images with image editing programs and straighten the lines. This inevitably leads to a loss of image resolution and often to strange image sections. Hence my tip for two simple ways to deal with this effect:
Way 1:
Make sure to hold your camera exactly vertical when taking pictures. Do not tilt the camera backwards. If the image sensor is exactly parallel to the house facade, there will be no cascading lines. However, you will often not get the entire façade in the picture. Three tricks can help:
- Use such a wide angle that you still get the whole house in the picture, and crop off the bottom half of the picture later in the computer. (However, you will also lose a lot of image resolution with this technique).
- Find an elevated camera position - preferably half as high as the façade of the building you want to photograph.
- Move as far away from the building as possible and then zoom in on the building. The further away you are, the less you have to tilt the camera and the less the lines will fall.
Way 2:
You simply accept the falling lines. In this case, make absolutely sure that you photograph the building exactly in the middle and that the lines fall symmetrically. If the falling lines are also uneven, they are doubly distracting.
Task:
Photograph the most beautiful Oberkirchen half-timbered facades. If you can't avoid falling lines, make sure that the lines fall symmetrically. Take your time and try out different locations for each façade.
Share your results!
Would you like to share the images on social media? Use the following #hashtag and compare your results with those of other photographers: #oberkirchenerfachwerk