RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM Distortion Issue

[kghaviland]

I've been shooting with an R5 and a number of different RF lenses with no issues.  Everything is great. I recently purchased the RF 15-35mm F2.8 IS USM for landscape shots.  The pictures all show distortion where for example trees on the left are slanting to the left and trees on the right are slanting to the right.  This is after lens correction in Lightroom.  Is this normal for this lens?  Seems very odd for a lens made for landscape photography.  I'm thinking there might be an issue with this particular lens.  Any thoughts?  Thanks!

Examples...  note that I manually corrected (in addition to applying the lens profile correction) the last image to straighten up the trees but was unable to do it and have it look decent in the other pictures

[Tronhard]

 I agree with you.  That is why is specifically asked if the camera was level in one of my first posts, and the OP seemed to suggest it was. but certainly any tilt from horizontal will result in a dramatic degree of distortions.

In the example image below the shots were taken absolutely horizontal in all axes with a 10mm lens (on an aps-c body equivalent to 16mm)  their is no distortion of verticals

[Waddizzle]

We cannot stress enough the importance of leveling the camera to the horizon when using wide angle lenses.  The camera must not only be leveled side to side, but also front to back.  You do not want the camera pointing upward or downward.

This effect is especially noticeable when photographing tall buildings.  If the camera is angled upward, then the vertical lines of the building will tend to narrow the higher up the building you look.  The narrowing effect is above the horizon because the camera is pointed above the horizon.

The opposite happens when your camera is angled downward.  The narrowing effect is now below horizon, which is the shooting scenario that you seem to be experiencing.  Your horizon is above the center of the image, which tells me the camera was tilted slightly downward.

[ebiggs1]

At this point I agree. You are not holding your camera/lens square to the world. As FL becomes less, meaning wider, the very more important it is you make sure there is no tilt in any direction. Not up nor down or sideways tilt. If you are pointed down just a bit perhaps not even enough to notice when looking at the scene, you will get distortion like you describe. It is just the nature of a WA lens.

It is possible to add enough off axis distortion that LR or DPP4 can't correct it automatically.

[AtticusLake · Accepted solution]

Since I have the exact same camera and lens -- R5 and 15-35 f/2.8 -- I thought I'd give this a try.  Results attached.  These were shot with the lens at 15mm, in RAW, then scaled down and converted to JPEG for posting here; but no distortion correction has been applied, either in camera or in post.  No Lightroom was used (I don't even have it).

The first is with the camera dead level, front-to-back, as indicated by the built-in level gauge.  Trees look parallel to me.  The second has the camera tilted up a little; the third, a lot.  You can see that a bit of tilt has a lot of effect on the trees.

Your trees lean the other way, of course, but I do wonder if you weren't on higher ground -- just a little -- with the camera tilted down.  The lakeside shot, in particular, has the horizon WAY up the picture.

So how can you shoot trees like this?  1 -- keep the camera dead horizontal, and then crop the ground out in post.  2 -- get a tilt lens.  But those are expensive.

 

[kghaviland]

Thanks to everyone for your comments on this.  I think the issue is with the way I am taking the pictures.  Just was not used to this type of effect as I have not used a WA lens before.  I will pay more attention to leveling the camera and the effect on the image.  All of your input is much appreciated!

[kghaviland]

Thanks for the very informative input.  This is very helpful.

[Edward1064]

Thank you all for your thoughts on this original post. I learned some useful stuff from following the discussion.

Ed