Aerial Drone Architectural Photography

Some recent good examples of Aerial Drone Architectural Photography show how getting up just 10 or 20 feet can make all the difference in an exterior of a building. These are both apartments complexes. The Lyndon pool is in San Marcos and the 959 Franklin images are from Eugene, Oregon. In those you can see that it was raining but I had just enough time to launch the Mavic Pro and shoot these two angles. The sky was ugly so replacing the sky in Photoshop was easy and necessary.

Aerial Drone architectural Photograph of 959 Franklin angle 2

Aerial Drone architectural Photograph of 959 Franklin

Aerial Drone architectural Photograph of The Lyndon San Marcos

Sunset rule wins again.

At June 27, 2018
By Johnny Stevens
In Aerial photography, american campus, austin architectural photographer, Austin photographer, Fine Art
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The 20 minutes after sunset rule wins again.

I was shooting an exterior of this apartment pool in Tucson last week. I always ask the client to arrange with maintenance to have the pool lights in the pool and the perimeter lights forced on at least 30 minutes before sunset. Normally these lights are on solar cells or light sensors and turn themselves on when the sun light dissipates and the ambient light gets dark enough to trigger them on. Inevitably, they turn themselves off way after sunset and too late for the perfect twilight shot. I was watching the sun go down and as it approached 20 minutes after sunset, I was concerned that this scene was going to be boring. The sun must not behave the same in Arizona. But I shot my bracketed shots anyway, and because I was so close to the pool, I decided to shoot and upper image and then shift down with my 17mm tilt shift lens and shoot a lower image so I could stack them together in Photoshop to get more room for the top and bottom of the image.

Entrada Real in Tuscon twilight exterior real estate student housing photography

Architectural Spot Lighting saves the day in student housing photo project

At June 24, 2017
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, architectural photos, editing, Photoshop, real estate, real estate photography, speedlights, spot lighting, student housing
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While shooting at NEIU in Chicago, I took the time to do some spot lighting on this scene. In this first image you can see what the camera sees and there are lots of lighting problems. The window is easily 8 stops hotter than the couches in the foreground. The windows are almost blown out and couches are dark. I could have fused 5 bracketed photos as I often do, but I wanted to test this approach to lighting.

The Nest architectural photograph out of the camera image

The Nest at NEIU architectural photograph out of the camera image

I walked around and used a Canon 600 ex rt speedlite with no modifier on it to spot light 6 areas. I triggered the camera from my Ipad which was loaded with the Cam Ranger software. The camera had the Cam Ranger unit attached to the fire wire port. This gives me the freedom to walk around and spot light and change the settings on the camera or on the flash without having to walk back to the camera.

Spot lit scene of The Nest

Then I painted in those lit areas in Photoshop. Even with no modifier on the flash to soften the shadows, I ended up with a much more appealing architectural photograph.

Final image of The Nest with spot lighting done in Photoshop

Architectural images that take a bit more work in Photoshop

At June 23, 2017
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, architectural photos, editing, Fine Art, Photoshop, real estate, real estate photography, student housing
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Some architectural images take a bit more work. Occasionally as a professional architectural photographer it is necessary to dive into Photoshop to do painstaking hours of retouching. Here is an example of one of those architectural images that requires just sitting down at the computer and digging in. Knowing the nuances of Photoshop helps. Here are some of those tricks. First a single exposure of the building right out of the camera.

1200 West Marshall UVA singe exposure out of camera

The after shot after fusing 5 exposures, cleaning up the wires and poles, adjusting color, cleaning up the pavement and replacing the sky.

1200 West Marshall after retouching

Telephone pole wires are easy but not easy. The look straight but they are not – they droop. With the spot healing brush set to just a bit wider than the diameter of the wire, if you click on an edge of a window or some type of hard edge and then click as far at you think the wire will be straight enough to be contained in that healing path, and click on a final spot that also has a clean edge, you can make lots of progress cleaning up wires – even wires that cross windows and other parts of the building. Invariably there will be spot runs like this that will not work and you just have to pull out the clone stamp tool and do your best to match the length of the wire. Telephone poles will need the clone stamp tool – they are too wide for the spot healing tool. The spot healing too works as a content aware tool so it is looking for information around it to replace the selected area. Unless your telephone pole is sitting right over a nice clean stretch of brick, none of the healing or content aware approaches will work. Replacing the sky in this image is not too tough because there are no trees poking up over the roof line. A clean roof line is easy to select and then drop in a new sky.

Stacking Architectural photography

At May 21, 2017
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, Fine Art, Photoshop, real estate, student housing
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Stacking Architectural Photographs for property developement clients

Here is my main use of stacking architectural photographs. Often as professional architectural photographers we get frustrated as we are shooting a scene because even with a wide angle lens, we cannot see enough of the top or bottom of the room or the building. The ceiling architecture of rooms are often the calling cards of the architects and the builders, and they want to see their work in the photograph. Shooting with any lens under 17 mm will really start distorting the image on the edges, as a fish eye lens will do. In order to provide my architectural clients with a larger image, I will merge an upper image which features the ceiling, and a lower images which features more of the floor and the foreground. I can do this with the Canon 17 mm tilt shift lens because all I have to do is shift the lens up and down to get these two images.

Univ Crossings student housing upper image

Univ Crossings student housing bottom image

Photoshop then merges the two seamlessly.

Univ Crossings merged top and bottom big

Now I have a master image that is not a 3×2 landscape aspect ratio, which is what comes out of the camera, but instead, depending on my final crop, I get a 1×1 or square image – the same width as the native capture but taller, and often a much taller image than square like a 1 x 1.3 aspect ratio. Suffice it to say that stacking architectural photographs provides my clients with more “real estate” in the image and gives my cleints’ advertising and marketing design team me more latitude to crop vertically or horizontally depending on the need of the ad layout. The images also now has the feel of the kind of image that might come from a medium format camera.

Flying with Photography Equipment

At December 10, 2016
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, architectural photos, Austin photographer, real estate photography, student housing, travel
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Flying with Photography Equipment

Being a photographer with clients across the U.S means flying with my photography equipment. I prefer to keep all my camera gear on me as a carry on while traveling since my equipment is particularly fragile and valuable. I have heard too many horror stories about musicians with broken guitars or photographers with broken lenses. Since carry on space is limited to one smaller bag and a personal item, I take great care in picking the equipment that goes with me to provide the mobility I need with the quality work I demand from myself. If I am on a small plane, occasionally I have to gate check my Tamrac Speedroller bag. As tough as it is, I have indeed had some damage to my gear due to mishandling of the luggage underneath the plane. Here is an example – my backup camera 5D Mark II got a punch in the face and the top window is cracked. All works well but dangit guys, do you have to toss the bags?

5d mark II backup camera with a cracked window

So here is my travel gear:

Camera:

Canon 5D Mark III SLR
- shoots about a 23 meg raw file
- makes it easy to bracket my exposures by setting it up in a custom function
- not too heavy
- tough as nails

Lenses

Canon TSE 17mm f4 (tilt shift lens)
- This is a great lens for making small spaces look a bigger. The trade off is that when you shift down, items in the foreground start getting distorted.
Canon TSE 24mm f3.5 (tilt shift lens)
- This one is great for exteriors
Canon 24-105mm f f4.5 zoom lens
- I was carrying the 24-70 f2.8 lens but it is so heavy, I opted for this one
- Versatile and optics are great

Accessories

Two Canon 600 EX RT speedlights
- Canon ST-E3-RT Wireless trigger for the speedlights. Though you can use one of these speedlights on the camera to control the off camera 600, it sure is nice to have the ST-E3-RT trigger to control both of them off camera. And it is lighter and easier to use as a master trigger.
Manfrotto Neotec Pro tripod and Manfrotto with 494 ball head
- Nothing is more valuable to me than this tripod. It sets up and breaks down by just pulling and pushing on the legs. No clips to undo first! It is expensive but worth it.
Small speedlight modifiers
- When I am spot lighting with my speedlights, I need a modifier to soften the shadows and spread the light. Otherwise I will get hard shadows as the light falls off the subject.
Cam Ranger software on my Ipad
- For remote camera triggering. This is very helpful to be able to walk around a room and trigger the camera to shoot while I am holding a speed light to light a specific area. I can see the image on my Ipad, make f stop or shutter speed changes from the ipad and keep moving around, not having to go back to the camera after each shot to look at the results.

And of course I bring my laptop loaded with Photoshop and Photomatix so I can process the photos on the plane.

Here it is laid out:

Camera gear for traveling

And packed up in the bag

travel bag packed for flying on airlines

travel photography gear packed up in the Tamrac travel bag

OK so your camera hits the concrete lens first – lens damage!

At November 27, 2016
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, architectural photos, Austin photographer, real estate photography, student housing, travel
0

What to do when your camera and lens hits the concrete floor – lens damage…

Just last week I was shooting for American Campus at one of their properties at Florida State in Tallahassee. My camera with my Canon TS-E 17mm tilt shift lens was mounted on my Manfrotto Neotec tripod. One of the legs of the tripod decided to get in the way of my foot as I leaned forward to reach for my cup of coffee. Down goes the whole rig – lens first – and of course this lens is like a huge eyeball – all round glass on the front with nothing to protect it. The front of the lens was greeted by a lovely tile floor. This is not the image you want to see when you turn around after hearing that horrifying sound similar to someone stepping on a wine glass.

tilt shift lens hits the tile

After inspection I noticed that the lens fracture was an interesting pattern. The cracks in the glass were constricted to the outside of the lens. I also noticed that I could not turn the focus ring. It was lodged tight as a coon’s ass. $2,000 buck down the drain. If the camera was damaged, I would be doubling my pain. After regaining my senses, I tested the camera and it work perfectly. Why not shoot a test shot and see what I get? Amazing! The fracture in the glass did not show up in the shot, and the focus ring had locked up at a focus of about 12 feet which for a 17 mm lens still delivers lots of depth of field. I decided to shoot out the project with that focus setting with and take a chance – with the camera lens damaged.

Sure enough, my shots were clean. Some of the exterior shots were bit fuzzy at the farthest points but a bit of sharpening in camera raw fixed that.

What I appreciate:

The indestructibility of the Canon 5D Mark III camera. This is not the first time it has meet the earth.

What I learned:

Carrying an extra lens was still a good idea.
Having gear insurance was a good idea. Mine was through Professional Photographers of America.

Architectural photographer for American Campus Communities

At October 23, 2016
By Johnny Stevens
In american campus, architectural photos, real estate photography, student housing
0

For 11 years I have had the honor of being the architectural photographer for American Campus Communities properties and traveling around the US. It requires patience with airports and car rental lines but it is worth it to see some of the most intriguing, cutting edge contemporary architecture and interior design for high end student housing complexes. This one is from Momentum Village in Corpus Christie, Texas. This image was shot at twilight. That magic moment happens about 20 minutes after the sun sets.