Lightweight camera for Architectural Photography

Welcome Claudia! It can be a challenge to find the perfect camera, as they all have their ups and downs. Considering we primarily shoot from a tripod, weight shouldn't be too important when choosing bodies. Mirrorless systems with a tilt-shift isn't much lighter than a DSLR anyhow, especially when factoring in the weight of the tripod and an incredibly heavy gear head - Manfrotto's 405 is heavier than my camera + lens! The plus side of weight is that it helps to stabilize shots with long exposures during twilight.

The one thing I like to stress is sticking with an optical viewfinder. What many don't realize is how amazing our eyes are at evening out luminosity extremes. With an electronic viewfinder, daylight interiors can often look very dark while the windows are blown out. With an OVF, the interiors are bright and the skies are are nice deep blue. This visibility can greatly influence composition choices, so using the best tool available - your eye - will lead to better shots. The luminosity issues of the sensor can be dealt with in post using bracketing and luminosity masks.

After saying all of that, I'd recommend the Canon 5D series - whichever Mark you can afford. The primary reason is Canon's tilt-shift glass. As much as we try to avoid using the 17mm TS, there are plenty of situations that demand it and no other manufacturer has a TS that wide. Nikon just released a 19mm TS but it costs 50% more than the 17mm and doesn't shoot as wide. So Canon is still leading the game in the architecture world. Rumor has it that Sony is working on a tilt-shift lens for 2017, but then you run into the EVF issue...

Welcome Claudia! You're about to learn one of the most fundamental aspects to this industry. And that is... there is no one tool for the job. There are lots of tools on the job though. :-D

Each body has it's plusses and minuses. In Architectural photography the lens or lenses are arguably more important than the body. As the body will have to sit on a tripod and largely live in manual mode most of the work is done with the lens. For a long time Cannon has had a number of great perspective control lenses but recently Nikon has updated and added to their lineup as well.

I would recommend renting various lenses and bodies and get a feel for the focal length(s), resolution, flair characteristics, distortion, and body functionality before you commit to a platform. -Most good rental shops will apply some or all of the rental fees to the purchase so it's not lost money. Buying something because you where told it was good only to find if does not fit your style, is fussy and unreliable, or busts your budget IS wasted money.

As to weight I would recommend looking at the bigger heavier bodies as they tend to dampen vibration better than a smaller lightweight one. This is key in the world of longer exposures and image compositing. Also they tend to be a bit more robust and that will matter to you in the long run. CODB!!!

Though you will probably be working with some sort of EVF most of the time, either in camera or some sort of tablet, having the ability to see the details in an optical view finder is very important too.

If you have not already done so I would recommend checking out Mike Kelley's great tutorial https://fstoppers.com/product/mike-kelleys-where-art-meets-architecture-2 for many great tips on kit as well as much much more. What's truly refreshing about his work is that he is not a techie but places the emphasis on, where I think is should be, the eye. Definitely worth the money!!!

Best of luck!

Hi Claudia.

I agree with E Port's recommendations on lenses for real estate. We cover hotel architecture rather than real estate so we rarely remove the 24mm TS-E, but you'll be forced to go wider with small properties. 24mm gives a much more natural perspective than 17mm. So don't forget the 1.4x extender if you get the 17mm.

I would however say that - particularly with interiors that include exterior views through windows - dynamic range is the primary concern when choosing a body. We are trading the convinience of 5D series OVFs for the image quality improvements that come with Sony's sensors. Our final reluctant decision to move came when the 5D mk4's dynamic range still didn't exceed that of the soon-to-be-superseded A7R mk2.

While it's easy to just go wider, the end-user of your images is often disappointed when the rooms seem so much smaller in real life than your photos. So you want to move back as far as you can to use the least wide lens possible. Doing this, I imagine the number of times you can't even fit your head between the camera & wall to use an OVF must be even higher with real estate than it is with hotel architecture. So I'd just learn to compose with an EVF and your exposure compensation dial or HDR preview.

Claudia
I was on December 6, 2016 in a Canon instructional Seminar in Costa Mesa, California. The class was taught by Dave Henry who previously worked for Canon. He worked for newspapers for 20 plus years shooting Architecture of Europe, Hotels, Universities elegant and impossibly expensive mansions. I was in a daze. He teaches architecture like math in absolute terms.

This is what he recommended :
Manfrotto 055 with 814 head. This tripod comes in 4 and 3 legged versions. 4 legged one is easy for transport on aircraft , 3 legged easy for setup. Life is nothing but a compromise. He has tried, bought and rented many many tripods. This in his opinion is the best practical choice.

For Camera (Obviously Canon)
Canon 5D Mark IV (30 Megapixel). This camera has even less noise than Canon 5Ds /rs which is 50 Megapixel. I guess shooting at fairly high ISO is the norm and not the exception in architectural photography. He would take three photos of a building and connect three files together and come up with a three times large files in most situations.

His lenses were: (All are tilt shift)
Canon 17mm
Canon 24 mm
Canon 35 mm ( I think)
Canon 45 mm
His recommendation was rent a lens on weekend. Make sure you like it. Go for rent to buy program. Buy one lens first. He recommended 24 mm for the first one.

Email me. I will try to get more information from him.

Claudia, Your 1200D is more than adequate for starting out with real estate photography. I would recommend you get either the Canon EF-S 10-18mm or the EF-S 10-22mm. Keep in mind that your camera has a crop sensor so the 10-22mm is the full frame equivalent of 16-35mm. Canon's crop factor is 1.6. With either of those lenses you will want to avoid using it at 10mm as that is going to cause unwanted perspective distortion (stretching at the edges) and you want to avoid that. I suggest you try to stay at 13mm or longer.

The best resource for all things real estate photography is http://photographyforrealestate.net/. Suggest you subscribe to that blog site and join the associated Flickr group.

To build a system for the future the weight of the camera should be the least of your considerations. Old adage that a camera is an expense and lenses are an investment and it certainly holds true for architectural photography. You will want to have the option of using tilt shift lenses and for this the most economical while providing pro quality are the ones from Nikon and Canon. Canon tilt shift can have the shift orientation changed in the field by the user whereas the Nikon usually need to be sent into their service department to be changed as the ribbon cable needs to be swapped out for a longer one. For architectural work the shift orientation does not need to be changed with either system.

For a basic DSLR I would want a full frame camera that provids Live View and one that has digital indicators for both level and forward tilt so you can be sure the orientation is dead level which saves time in post processing later.

My choice for the best available tilt shift is the Nikon D810 which has a split rear display option so I can check focus both near and far at the same time when using a tilt shift lens. Canon may also provide this feature in its one or more of its cameras.