first of all, please pardon my ignorance as i'm new to photography and using dslr's. so if what i'm posting is either common sense or just , sorry.

i bought my dad's old nikon D70, and it's my first DSLR.

a lot of the pictures i take turn out crooked.

when i look in the viewfinder, the image i'm trying to take looks straight and balanced. but when i see the picture on the LCD screen and computer, they're tilted and crooked.

so in order for me to take a straight picture, i'll have to tilt the camera a bit so that what i'm looking at through the viewfinder is tilted.

i noticed it during night time pictures and when i was using a slower shutter speed. so i thought maybe i was moving the camera too quickly, but it's like that with daytime pictures. it's more noticeable when i'm taking pictures of a fixed object like a building.

i'll post pictures of examples when i get home. but does anyone know what the problem might be?

thanks for your help.

 

Sounds like you are using a very wide angle lens, which can cause distortion. Lens info. or better yet photos w/ exif would help more.

 

thanks.

i'll get the info when i get home.

 

Something doesn't sound right. Either there is something wrong with the camera (what, I don't know) or you can't tell what is level when looking through a viewfinder.

How far off is it?

 

it's not too far off. but it's noticeable.

i'd say maybe 5-10 degrees?

the only time i really used the camera a lot was when i was in DC a few months ago. and it was more noticeable on shots of buildings that were far away than, say, portrait pictures.

 

Are you maybe referring to something like a horizon being sloped? If so, and you have Lightroom or another program, you can straighten it out.

 

Another related thing to keep in mind is that certain three dimensional perspectives simply do not look the same when the camera "flattens" them to 2D. I've diagrammed an example below. I was shooting a mountain across a lake that had a shoreline which curved away from where I had the camera positioned.

I know for a fact that I had the camera perfectly level. When you look at the resulting picture, however, it appears that your looking at shoreline which is equidistant from the camera across the frame and tilted by a few degrees.



Here's the actual image. It's a bit hard to see the apparent tilt at this small size but it's quite noticeable at larger sizes or on a print.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billiam...7601931971996/

 

but i don't have lightroom.

interesting.

thanks for the example.

 

Picasa (which can be downloaded for free) also has a straightening tool.

 

thanks. i'll check it out.

here's the lens i have:
sigma
filter size 63
18-200mm f3.5-6.3 dc

here are some examples of pics that came out crooked but were straight when i looked in the viewfinder:







(sorry for the amateur-ish pics)

 

Erm. That's kind of weird. That's not distortion (I'm not saying there might not be slight distortion). It's definitely tilted. I'm not sure. I'm sure some of the experts on here might have some advice.

 

Do you have a tripod with a level? If so, try that to see what you get. If it's still messed up then I'll pass to someone that knows what they are talking about.

 

It's entirely possible that the viewfinder needs service. I remember when the D70 came out a few years ago that a handful of the first buyers had this problem.

 

no tripod.

thanks.

if that's the case, how can i get it looked at? should i send it to nikon even though it's an older camera? or just take it to any camera shop in town?

 

If you don't have a tripod, set it on a level surface like your dining room table, and fire a couple of shots across the room. Your eye is probably telling you the truth, but it can confirm you're not

 

good idea.

i'll try that tonight.

and yes...i do feel like i'm going

 

The tilted D70 viewfinder problem is hotly contested. Some people say it exists, others don't.

Here is a link (in Korean) with some documentation:

http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?i..._nikon&no=6060

I have never owned a Nikon, so I just know what I hear from friends.

But anyway, looking at your pictures, I see elements that are perfectly level. I would suspect that when you took the pictures, you lined up using these elements instead of the subject itself.

For example in the picture of the capital building, half of the shore is perfectly straight.

With the Lincoln Memorial, the base of the stairs was perfectly straight.

With the aerial shot, the line of trees is very straight.

Since all of these things can be distorted relative to the horizon, and the amount of sloping is not consistent, I am going to suspect user technique.

 

thanks.

also found this:
http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/0092Wx

 

It seems you are slightly right-leaning. :rimshot:

 

To be sure, put a small level on the table to make sure the table's level.

I checked w/ PSP and used a straightening tool and all 3 seemed off. Dan might be correct w/ the viewfinder recommendation.

 

thanks.