Warped lines?

[NewCreation517]

Hi folks,

I shoot with a Canon 20D and am just beginning photo world ...

Question ... is it normal for photos to have warped lines?

Example:

http://identity.smugmug.com/photos/92806280-S.jpg

The box she is sitting in is completely square in real life. Is this just a fact of photo life, and is there a way to correct it? Or is this a problem with my lens (stock 18-55mm).

Thanks!

[Shay Stephens]

Yes, this is a fact of life with lenses. You do have two options to prevent or correct. You can use a tilt/shift lens or you can adjust the distortion in your image editor.

You can minimize the effect by getting the lens square with the frame you are shooting. Any tilt of the camera lens up/down/side-to-side will amplify the distortion.

You can also minimize by using a longer lens from farther away. Wide angle lenses have more distortion in that regard than longer lenses.

[spider-t]

There are probably a lot of software products that fix distortions, but one I use and love (for lots of reasons) is dxo.

http://dxo.com/intl/photo


it actually builds a package that matches your specific camera and lens. I tone down their default sharpening and white balance fixes. They are a little much for my taste. But the batch processing is great.

And they have a demo version.

cheers,
Trish