Lens Distortion 3

Stefan Jansson suggested in a comment on yesterday's post that a good experiment would be to shoot a panorama using a standard lens and that was precisely the thought that occurred to me as the next step. The photo above of the Empress Hotel was shot using a 35-70mm zoom at 35mm. The panorama consists of 9 shots altogether - 5 across the bottom and four on top. I wish I had included a bit more foreground but most of the foreground was Government Street with busy traffic and wouldn't have improved the photo. Also I would probably have needed a third strip of photos across the top if I had aimed lower for the bottom strip of photos. Aside from that, the distortion in the above photo certainly is less than in the single 10mm wide shot below, although the latter (shot several years ago) is much more dramatic. However, when all is said and done, it seems to me that some level of distortion is inevitable because of the nature of lenses. Even our eyes distort reality. In fact, we probably never know what anything really looks like. However, it behooves a photographer to at least have some awareness of how his or her equipment is affecting the image being created. This series has helped me to understand a bit of what happens when you point a lens at something.