If everyone is the same, Photobucket should be good for ages yet!

I checked mine for the first time after reading this, and was pleasantly surprised:

Total Pictures and Videos: 357
Monthly Hits: 4660

Album Size:

98 MB (9%)
1 GB

Monthly Bandwidth:

342 MB (1%)
25 GB

I'd say about 85-90% of what I have stored there relates to Photo a Day.

I'm just thinking of getting a digital slr. I got my eye on a Nikon d40x. 18-55 lens.
Any thoughts?

I'm not sure if I can post images here so I'll use a link until I'm told otherwise.

This photo is a perfect example of the shortcomings of digital photography. As well as the euphemistically named 'noise', the random spots that appear on many photos in poor light as the program can't cope with it regardless of pixels (I've tried it with 5 million and makes no difference), here is what digital lenses do to parallel lines.

dodgy photo

As you can see, the bus stop is vertical but look at the building on the left. It slopes. I get these regularly and this is a perfect example. Using a normal SLR lens this won't happen except on a wide angle but it's very common on standard digital settings.

If anyone knows a way I can avoid it I'd be very happy as it seems to be a built in fault.

I suppose this probably happens because a digital camera lens has to capture the image and project it onto an area very much smaller than that of a 35mm film frame. A more demanding job for the lens' optics I'd think. It may also be affected by lens quality. The distortion can be corrected in a photo editing program. There are also various bits of software available that are dedicated to the job. Type 'photo lens distortion' into a search engine for information.

Correction nearly always means losing at least some of the photo and/or reshaping a little. How much this happens depends on the amount of distortion present in the original photo.

This is my attempt at correcting the photo done with Corel Photo-Paint 9. A program designed specifically for the job might have done better but probably not that much. I'm going to show the photos here because it better demonstrates what's been done if the steps can be viewed together. I think it will be OK to show things like this in the name of discussing problems (unless Admin thinks differently?) but keep the images to the usual size for the reasons given in the photo posting guide:

The original photo


The photo is put onto a background larger than the photo itself so that there was an area big enough to tug at the corners until the building is upright.


Finally, the photograph was cropped square.

Lovely job there Martin, I knew Picasa could do it for ones I bent myself by accident but wasn't sure if there were any buttons you could press on the camera to stop it happening in the first place. Luckily it only affects some and this was such a clear example it needed checking. I haven't been able to get Picasa to open on the new computer, it loads but just gives an error message. I got it to work on my 9 year old laptop but gave up after about the 4th time on this. But if I have any nice ones ruined only by bent lines I'll get something else so they can be used properly.

I'm glad you could display it as you know what Telly Savalas said about pictures saying more than words

Taking another look at the original photo, I wonder if any camera might have given the view some distortion. The camera is pointing upwards, so it could be just a perspective issue. It would be interesting to see the same shot taken with a 35mm film SLR camera.

Perhaps the dragging out of the corners at the 'straightening' stage could have been less. It might be better to compromise, allow a slight lean of the uprights and lose less of the photo. Another option is to cut off less of the building at the 'cropping' stage and artificially add some extra hedge by cloning in a bit from another area of the photo. This might be considered making the photo artificial though.



I know some cameras are better than others when it comes to 'barrel' distortion. I have an older program called 'PhotoGenetics' (unobtainable now I think) that can correct that. I don't know if you did that search for programs but there are a few that will correct it.

That's a good compromise there, and can hardly notice the bends. I could take it again with my slr, it would be an interesting test. But I can't think of any that ever came out like this on it, even when pointing upwards.
I would have fixed them if Picasa had worked, but will see what else I can discover that does it. Otherwise I often go back and take them again and sometimes they seem OK. I know if you move it can do that as well on digital photos.
It doesn't often happen thank goodness so don't often need to straighten them, but when they go wrong they really go wrong!

Hello everybody

Hello and welcome DaleV17 - We have 'The Welcome Center' at the top of the FunTrivia forums (Main Index). This is a good place for new members to drop in, say hello and introduce themselves. I'm sure a warm welcome will be given if you go there. Once settled in, come back here with any questions or comments you may have about taking photographs. Perhaps also learn how to show photographs in our photo threads.

All the best

tellywellies