DIY Network

Architectural Photography Capturing the majesty and detail of architecture in digital photographs. From "The Whole Picture" episode DTWP-202

Your job when taking architectural photographs is to take something on a huge scale and get it down to a size that is manageable to the viewer. And those manageable images often turn out to be works of art in themselves. In this lesson from DIY's The Whole Picture, professional photographer Erin Manning discusses how to capture the art in architecture.

Materials:

digital camera
telephoto lens extender
camera manual

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The time of day can greatly impact the appearance and quality of your photos. Often the best outdoor shots are made during the "golden hour" as the sun is setting. The lighting at this time of day often yields warm tones, pleasing colors and distinct shadows.

What's a Megapixel, Anyway?

In any type of digital photography, it's important to understand just what a megapixel is. Think of a megapixel as one of the tiny dots that make up a picture in a magazine. From far away, it simply looks like a picture, but close-up you see the thousands of dots that make it up. A megapixel is basically the same thing.

However, in digital photography, each of those dots is made up of millions of even smaller dots. One megapixel equals one million dots--therefore, a 4 megapixel camera has an image sensor that can capture 4 million pieces of information. The higher the megapixels, the more data is stored in the file. And data equals detail.

Where this really comes into play is if you are going to enlarge the image or zoom into one section or just work with an image a lot on the computer. Since you have more data to work with in a higher megapixel image, you'll be better equipped to get more detailed, better pictures.

	12 megapixels
	12 megapixels; cropped
	4 megapixels
	4 megapixels; cropped Note: You may need to enlarge this image to see the difference. Simply click on any of the images to enlarge.

Resoultion

If your images lack detail, check your camera's resolution setting--you always want it as high as possible. Media cards have come down in price so dramatically that you should purchase at least a 256mb card. At a resolution of 4 megapixels, that's about 240 images.

You always want to shoot at your camera's highest resolution. The higher the resolution the more information you will have to work with on the computer. Now you may say well i'm not ever going to?

That may be the case today, but with technology changing so fast you never know what kind of printing technology will be out next year. You want to have the ability use your photos for whatever the technology allows in the future.

Remember, you can always reduce the size of an image. But you can never increase the resolution and get the same quality as if you would have shot it at the top resolution in the first place.

One of the biggest misunderstandings with resolution is that more resolution will always equal more sharpness. That's not the case. Sharpness depends on a number of issues including the quality of your lens, the amount of light and how you output your photos.

Here are 2 different pictures of the same building. I took the one on the left with my 12 megapixel camera. The one on the right was taken with summer's 4 megapixel camera. They have essentially the same level of sharpness. You would start to see the benefit of the number of megapixels if you were to enlarge the print or zoom and isolate a section on the computer.

Take a look at the examples here. The same architectural subject was shot once at 12 megapixels and once at 4 megapixels. While both original images would look sharp as a 4x6 print, when we zoom in and crop it, notice how much clearer the 12 megapixel image is.

Remember taht the higher the megapixels, the more data is stored. The more data stored, the more detail you will have to work with when you put your digital pictures on your computer.

For architectural photography detail is king. You want to get as much detail as possible when shooting because often you can't get as close as you want to so you will zoom and crop your photos when you get them home and work with them on your computer.

To set your resolution, navigate your camera's menu to the quality or resolution option then choose the highest available setting on your camera. Press ok or select depending on your camera. Confirm that the camera is set right by looking in the viewfinder or display. There will usually be some indication of resolution.

Recommended File Sizes for Outputting

Resolution and maximum print size--

2 megapixels: 4 x 6 prints
3 megapixels: 5 x 7 prints
6 megapixels: 8 x 10 prints
12 megapixels: 11 x 14 prints

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