The attractions of architecture
Architecture has many attractions for the new photographer. Buildings don't usually move much, are generally fairly easy to find and will seldom complain when you try to take a picture - or at the results. However it's main attraction has to be an interest in the built environment. We all live in buldings, most of us work in them, see them every day.
Despite this, buildings are difficult to photograph well, presenting a number of challenges that make life interesting for the photographer. It is often very hard to produce exciting images that make your work stand out from other people.
Technically it can also be a demanding area. Professional photographers of architecture usually work with medium or large-format cameras, producing work of high technical quality. With a 35mm camera you cannot hope to equal this, but you can certainly produce respectable images, and may well have the advantage of a wider choice of focal lengths giving more precise framing.
This feature will look at the subject for people with an interest in photographing buildings using ordinary photo equipment, whether film or digital. However it will at times mention the increased potential of professional equipment.
Cameras for architecture
Professionals generally prefer to use technical cameras taking 4x5" or 6x9cm images. These are large cameras that take some getting used to, and film costs are high. Their great advantage is in having camera movements, but the down side is that this makes them slower and more difficult to use.
In a normal camera body, the lens is mounted so its axis is perpendicular to the film and at its centre. For photographing buildings it is mainly used with the camera held level on a tripod. If the camera is tilted up (or down), then the vertical walls of the building start to converge towards the top of the picture (bottom if tilted down.)
Occasionally such converging verticals add excitement and interest to a picture, but more usually they simply look wrong. For normal building images we are used to seeing verticals kept upright.
Assuming that you are not going to make the step immediately to professional equipment, the best camera for the relative beginner is a 35mm SLR. However you can take good pictures of buildings with any camera.
Tripods and lenses
Other desirable equipment would be a good tripod - as large and as heavy as you want to carry - and zoom or fixed focal length lenses to cover from extreme wide-angle to a reasonable telephoto. In 35mm terms, the most useful focal lengths are from 20mm to 200mm. You can still make good pictures with only a standard lens, but your options are more limited. Wide apertures are seldom needed, but it is vital to have lenses with little or no pin-cushion or barrel distortion, as this is very apparent on the straight lines of many buildings. In general, zoom lenses are more likely to show unacceptable distortion than fixed focal lengths.
Although there are advantages in using an SLR camera, some of the best lenses I've used for their overall sharpness and also good drawing with little or noe distortion have been made for the Leica M. There are good SLR lenses as well, but if you want to do much architectural photography, test any lens if possible before you buy, shooting a building with a good grid of straight lines more or less full frame. Either make a large print or project the image with an enlarger and put a ruler on these lines, espwecially those that go near the edge of the frame. If there is more than a mm or so of a gap in the middle between ruler and line it will probably show on your pictures.
Tripods are something photographers tend to both love and hate. They certainly can be a pain to carry. Good tripods need to be strongly made to hold the camera entirely firm; most are normally now made of aluminium, which is a fairly light metal, but will still weigh four or five pounds or more. Cheap lighter tripods usually either lack sufficient height for many shots or are not solid enough when extended. You can cut weight by using materials such as carbon fibre, but this makes them more expensive. A good tripod head makes using a camera on a tripod much more pleasant. The heads that come with most cheap tripods are barely adequate and seldom particularly easy to use.
Look for a tripod that is usable up to around 5 foot from the ground or more. Don't rely on the specification, set it up in the store and try it at this height and see if it is firm. If it relies on a long centre column to get the height it probably won't be. Most tripod heads are of the 'pan and tilt' or 'ball and socket' type. Cheaper tripods almost always have an integral pan and tilt type, while expensive tripods usually allow you a choice of heads. Most who have tried the more expensive ball types prefer them for still cameras, but cheap versions tend to be unreliable.
If you want to be able to make panoramic photographs by stitching together a number of shots, a head which incorporares a panoramic scale is worth considering; however good ones are extremely expensive. More generally useful for architectural work is a head with built in spirit levels.
Cable Release and Mirror Lock
As well as the tripod, you will also need a cable release so that you can take a picture without having to push the shutter button. The time-release feature of most cameras can also be used, but this doesn't allow you to control precisely when the picture will be taken. With SLR cameras on a tripod, you can also make use of the ability to lock up the mirror to reduce vibration from its movement if your camera has this facility.
Eye-piece leaks
Some SLR cameras can give incorrect exposure in bright light if you take a picture without your eye blocking out the viewfinder. It's a piece of inexplicably poor design present on some of the most expensive cameras. I remember my disgust at first discovering this, unpacking the camera which had just cost be a small fortune and finding a small plastic bag with a black rectangle of plastic for use in these circumstances. Of course, within a week or two I'd lost it, and now carry a short length of black adhesive tape stuck on the camera body ready for use Choose your subject
It is a great idea to start by deciding which building you want to photograph (rather than simply happening to come across something you like the look of and doing it.) Make your photography a deliberate and thought out event. The best choice is something interesting and reasonably local, so you will be able to visit it on several occasions.
