Architecture: Recommend Three Focal Lengths

[Andre Noble]

I've owned appx 30 lenses in my life from 35mm, Med format, LF, toenlarging lenses. The vast majority purchased new: Nikkors, Bronica, Mamiya, Minolta, Sigma, Tokina, Schneider, and Rodenstock. I have seen fungus in 4 of them - all Nikkors -3 LF Nikkors (including a brand new 75mm I recently returned to the retailer, whence I picked up the 150 apo sironar instaed), and 1 Nikkor 50mm enlarging lens with fungus. The Nikkors with fungus were sharp as you-know-what.

I know fungus can grow in any lens, blah blah. But personally I'm not jumping to spend my hard-earned money on any more Nikkor LF glass.

Your Nikkor karma may very. I hope it is good.

[Kirk Gittings]

Many professional arch shooters use both roll film and sheet film for good reason (including such luminaries as Norman McGrath and Timothy Hursley). Like myself they find loading film holders or running out of ready loads a real pain on extended out of town shoots, many clients don't need the extra quality of 4x5, for magazine repoduction the difference is negligable and film costs are significantly lower. Also you tend to take more chances with roll film which can lead to spectacular results sometimes on a whim. When you don't have to worry about running out of loaded 4x5 film you tend to loosen up some. Also the 664 Poaloid packs are half the price of 4x5 polaroids. All my personal work is done still in 4x5 but most of my commercial work is done in 120 even for national magazines and other national clients. See my site www.gittingsphoto.com. All the recent architecture projects are shot on 6x9 roll film (Velvia for many magazines and Pro 160S for architect clients)

I use a 40 year old 4x5 adapted to readily use both 4x5 and roll film and which will take a 47mm on a flat lensboard (very important). The lens I carry are 47,65,90,120,150,210,305 (all fairly new Schneiders except for the 120 and 150 which are Nikons). For 4x5 the most used lens are 90,210 and 65 in that order. For 6x9 the most used lenses are 65,47 and 90 in that order. I also carry a 40 year old Hassleblad with a 50,80 and 250 lenses and 4 backs. I always carry at least two Calumet C2N roll film holders and one or two Fuji Readyload holders and a couple of boxes of film.

A big thing these days is competing with DSLR shooters who are flodding the market with low rates. As I prefer to stay close to home on commercial shoots, I must remain somewhat competitive in the local market though I turn dowm as much work as I take. One way to do that without going digital is to shoot 120 color negas, scan everything in house and hide your film, processing and polaroid costs in a capture fee. It is very cost effective in terms of materials.

[Jonathan_6488]

Don't underestimate the incredible usefulness of longer lenses. Any designs which are slightly more 'curvilinear' will GREATLY benefit from the control that a longer lens will give. This is because a wide angle lens will tend to make such curves even more greatly exaggerated and there won't be a logic to the curvature - relationships will be confusing. Take a look at the work of Paul Warchol, who is, IMO, the best architectural photographer that I know of. He has a website. You can see how he exploits this as well.

I've been exploring the use of longer focal lengths recently in my own work and have now come to the conclusion that shorter lenses are simply a necessary evil - and should only be used as a result of a lack of space. I personally strive to use the longest lens I possibly can in a given situaion. But - spaces are frequently so confined that one rarely has the luxury. As a result - my recommendation for ONLY three lenses would be: 58XL (for REALLY tight spots), 90, 150. Then infill with 75 & 240. Then 120.

that's my 2 cents.
Good Luck!

[Jonathan_6488]

By the way, Kirk - I meant to congratulate you on your work. I saw one of your site links posted once. I was a bit skeptical (only because there's NOT a lot of good architecture work out there). But was really impressed with what you've been able to do! Do you know Chuck Choi? He's really good too. You should check him out if you don't know him. Really nice. Head and shoulders above the Hedrich-Blessings and the Estos of the world!

[Kirk Gittings]

Jonathan,

Don't know Cuck Choi. I will look him up.

When I was younger, full of myself and stringing for Architecture Magazine, I got a couple of assignments to shoot buildings that had previously been shot by Nick Merrick and Peter Aaron (then with ESTO) for competing magazines. I have to say that it was a huge lesson in humility. Those guys at the big firms really know what they are doing. Their limitation is that they are exclusively commercial which limits their vision, but within that context they are hard to beat. I had to work my a-- off to come up with different and good, but I had the advantage of seeing their work first. I had the same humbling experience with Hursley. I have since got to know some of the guys at HB, because I take my class over there every year. I have developed the greatest respect for them.

[Kirk Gittings]

And thanks for the kind words Jonathan. Architectural Photogreaphy is my life, but I would give up the commercial work in a flash if I could make enough money off my personal work.

[steve simmons]

Anyone thinking of doing serious architectural photography should read

Photographng Buildings Inside and Out by Norman McGrath. It is the best book available.

My lenses were 58, 75, 90, 125, 180 and 240.

steve simmons

[Paul Metcalf]

"Thanks in advance for any tidbits, especially amongst our experienced fine art or professional architectural shooters out there"

I may be very loosely qualified in providing this advice, but here goes anyhow FWIW, mainly from "experience" (without the "ed" necessarily). I have a Schneider 72mm XL and it easily covers 4x5. In fact, I bought it to cover 5x7 for interiors of old structures. One thing to make sure of is that your camera can handle these short focal lengths. Especially if you're going to use rise. I find, even with a recessed lens board, that rise pretty much necessitates a bag bellows setup (normal bellows just can't bend sharply enough when compressed to near-zero length). The rear element needs room obviously, some cameras simply can't close enough to allow use of a lens that has very much physical depth. Additonally, watch those recessed lens boards (you will most likely need one), as they are mostly a PITA to use (my experience). There is very little room to get in and work the aperture and shutter-cocking levers, even with the small copal 0 shutters (a packard-shutter setup might be the preferred). I have to use a long narrow tool, e.g. a pencil. Reading the aperture scale is a wee bit of a challenge with recessed lens boards, especially in low light and when the tripod is elevated to it's maximum height and I'm standing on my tip toes trying to look through my cheaters from a couple of inches away! And, I know my 72mm has huge front glass (therefore filter). If I recall, it's something like 100mm. And lastly, the Schneider does not necessarily require a center filter (the reason I went with it) with the amount of rise I've typically used so far (but I'm shooting B&W, so it's easier for me to balance the tonalities), but some of these really wide lenses (Rodenstock included) need a center filter even with no rise. With big filter diameters = big (additional bucks) for center filter.

[Leonard Evens]

I agree with the assertion that you probably are better off with a center filter for the Rodenstock 75 mm lens and possibly also for the 90 mm lens. The 90 mmf f/6.8 and 75 mm f/4.5 both use the same 67 mm filter. That is particularly true for color work, at least when using color negative film. I haven't done much with my lenses with transparency film.

[Kirk Gittings]

Jonathan,

I was not blown away. I looked at Chuck's work and to be honest he is good, probably even very good, but he does not blow away the Hedrich-Blessing or ESTO guys. Every city has a couple of guys at this level and each big city has a dozen or so. It is not like in the old days when there were a handful of good arch shooters in the whole country. Now there are at least a couple of great shooters in every city. Like New Mexico, we have 4 0r 5 at any given time who shoot at that level and New Mexico doesn't even have 2 million people in the whole state.