Interior real estate photography question....

[Bill W]

Root for question; when I have a small room to shoot, e.g. bathrooms, I can

[Dave Johnston]

I have come to find wider is better in my experience. I have done some interior photography with a Tokina 12-24 and been pretty happy with the results. I think I may have liked to have those extra 2 millimeters on the wide end though. So maybe the 10-22 is the way to go?


I just used a tripod and put at max DOF with respect to the DLA of my 50d and it went pretty well.


I have never used a tilt shift lens, so someone else will have to chime in with regards to that.


Good luck, Bill


Dave.

[neuroanatomist]

Hi Bill,


The pano heads look interesting, but other than that I have no comment as I've never used one.


For a lens solution, I'd suggest the EF-S 10-22mm for your shots - it will give you the most flexibility and is substantially cheaper than the TS-E lenses. Distortion is present with the 10-22mm, but it's quite well controlled - the 10-22mm at 10mm actually has less barrel distortion than the 17-55mm at 17mm.


I'm now a big fan of the TS-E lenses, having recently acquired one. But there are several reasons I don't think one would be your best option for this issue.


Since you're considering the TS-E lenses, which are no wider than your 17-55mm in terms of focal length, I assume you're talking about shifting those lenses for your panorama shots. As Bryan points out in his review, that can still result in parallax errors if you keep the camera fixed (likely noticeable in close foreground elements, which are probably common in interior shots); ideally, you'd want the position of the front element of the lens to remain constant (meaning you'd have to shift the camera equal and opposite to the lens shift applied).


For that use the 24mm TS-E may still not be wide enough - it depends on how much wider than 17mm you need to go. A full shift pano from the TS-E 24mm will give you about the angle of view of a 14mm lens. The TS-E 17mm would give you the needed width - a full shift pano from that lens gives about the same angle of view as a 10mm lens (so you'd be spending a lot more to get the same angle as the 10-22mm). In addition, keep in mind that although the TS-E lenses are optically excellent, their performance degrades a bit when fully shifted, and you also get some vignetting with max shift.


One of the main reasons that TS-E lenses are ideal for architectural shooting is the perspective correction that shift provides. However, if you use shift to create a panorama, you lose the benefit of the perspective correction. You can see that in my shots in this linked thread, where the building "leans back" in the shot with the 24-105mm (left), and that is corrected by shifting the TS-E 24mm (right), but in the merged panorama (below) you can see that the "lean" is there again. So, if you want to use a TS-E lens to correct your perspective, the lens needs to have a wide enough angle of view so that you don't need to pan/stitch. So if you need that ultrawide angle and want to correct perspective, you'd need a FF camera to go with the TS-E 17mm.


TS-E lenses are also more cumbersome to use (although if you're considering a VR/pano head, I expect you have time to set up your shots). A TS-E lens pretty much requires a tripod (or more hands than normal humans possess), and the movements affect metering, meaning more time to set up each shot.


So, bottom line is that while the TS-E 17mm could do what you want, I think the EF-S 10-22mm is a much easier and less expensive way to get there. Just to give you an idea of the FOV, at 10mm on your 7D you can fill the frame with 13.5 feet of wall width and a 9-foot ceiling, while standing just 6 feet from that wall.


--John

[neuroanatomist]

Bill, here's a relevant local deal.

[Bill W]

Dave and John....thank you for your input concerning the 10-22 lens.


John thank you for the detailed input about the TS-E lenses. It sounds like I