Camera Lens for texture reference

[SpaXe]

It depends. If it's flat textures you want, I'd try to use a lens as sharp as possible, and avoid any lighting information on the texture. (ie sunlight, direct light, or anything that causes strong light and shadow shift.) Overcast or shaded area is best.

So, stay sharp. Avoid as much lens distortion as possible, so you may want to use a longer lens instead, if you're shooting, say, a wall across the street. If it's just ground plane, get to a second floor if possible, but generally looking down and shoot with your 35mm or 50mm should be okay.

If you do have [good] lens to chooses from, look up lens reviews and find one that suits the best for you. Low vignetting, low chroma aberration, and most of all, try to get the sharpest lens possible. If you have a zoom lens, generally around 1/3 of your beginning zoom range it has the sharpest, around f/6 or f/8 if you can avoid camera shake on that aperture.

And the end of the day, you'd need to go in and edit the image and flatten it out, undistort the perspective, and paint out all lighting information anyway; it's really not that big of a deal. =P

[Marcel]

Hi, i was wondering what the best lens/focus length for capturing texture photos? I would assume something around 50-55mm being that it normal human vision and has minimal distortion.

50mm comes close to human vision only if you use a full frame camera (most SLRs have a crop factor, so a 50mm is more like a 80mm lens).

For noth Nikon and Canon the cheap 50mm f1.8 are great for shooting textures. No distortion, super sharp and only 99$.

[Oddgit]

yeah, i know of the APS-C or what ever it is called n my 40d, i was going to t0 get either a 28mm or 35mm prime cause of that 1.6 multiplier.
Thanks for the input, i appreciate it. I have never really taken texture pictures before, just texture reference and photo reference. But for my thesis i have to make a ton of textures so its time to get gathering =D

[SpaXe]

For noth Nikon and Canon the cheap 50mm f1.8 are great for shooting textures. No distortion, super sharp and only 99$.

Mmm. Love it. But I think you can get one for $70 if you live in the states =p.

[Oddgit]

I wound up getting a 35mm f2.0 lens, it was 300us, but its a little closer to normal on my 40d, so far i love it, the autofocus is a little slow and loud compared to my lenses with the ultrasonic motor but the images so far have been very bright and crisp, and have minimal distortion. And i have been having fun using at as a lens for non texture stuff, it has such a nice focus range and the DoF blur looks very nice!
now to save my pennies for the Canon 70-200mm f4 L lens, i want to out do my dads telephoto lens when we go camping and hunting =D

[SpaXe]

Congrats.

I'm still waiting this coming September for a canon 5D upgrade. =)

[Oddgit]

yeah the 5d is really nice, i almost bought it instead of the 40d. im still glad i got the 40d, its amazing, it feels so much better then my old 300d.

[Dtox]

I don't know how experienced you are with the camera, so you might know all this.

Make sure you use the light meter mode and the histogram, don't just shoot what looks good through the LCD.

But try to shoot on overcast days, use a tri-pod(even if its a cheapo or tiny one) and try to snap the picture remotely if possible.
If not, use the timer, and use a low ISO speed.

It's good practice to try and underexpose the shot very slightly if you're in a situation where the camera can't capture the range.
Since underexposure can be fixed where overexposure can not.
Also, use the bracketed exposure feature to get the same image at several ev's apart so you can choose, and even combine to achieve the look you want.

Always shoot and capture in RAW mode, it allows you to change the white balance and gives you much more image data in the file to edit with.

In addition to a good lens it's good to have a couple filters like an ND, a standard diffuser and a polarizer.

Also, shooting a B&W image "in-camera" using RAW mode gives you alot of contrast to work with when creating bumps.

[Oddgit]

hmm, thanks Dtox, i just got my 40d and have not really played much with it yet. I always used the bracket and raw capture, because raw is amazing. =D I will surely remember the in-camera black and white for bump maps.
A tripod is next on my list.
I always get a good haze filter because i am paranoid about scratching my lens, i would rather replace a 50-100 dollar filter then a 600 dollar lens.
Along with a tripod i also want to get a nice macro lens and the 70-200 f4.0L IS.

[Quadart]

Along with a tripod i also want to get a nice macro lens and the 70-200 f4.0L IS.
The best lenses to shoot flat surface textures (textures in general) with are ‘true’ flat-field, ‘true’ macro lenses, IMO. A true flat field lens focuses sharp out to the edge of the image plane at near and far focus distances, which is obviously important for textures you want to tile. The majority of lenses out there, your 35mm included, are curved-field designs that will focus out acceptably sharp to the edge only at focus distances equivalent to 8x the focal length of the lens. (from what I’ve read). The one possible plus with the average DSLR sensor is the sensor image area will crop off some of the actual lens image periphery, so the worst amount of edge blur and possible barrel distortion will be cropped off when using a lens not designed for flat copy work.
Canon has some great macros. I have Nikon gear and use a 105mm Micro-Nikkor (true 1:1 macro) for occasional textures but mostly for insect photomacroscopy.

[Oddgit]

The tele and the macro were more fo fun and other picture takin then texture stuff. I have a feeling the prime lens i got will worrk pretty well, i looked at the images i took and they were very sharp and bright. I took a bunch of pictures of the drift wood and burnt wood at ocean beach in SF. And like normal, it was overcast =D

[jeremybirn]

Another thing: many of the tips posted here are ideals, not strict requirements. Often, many of them can be broken, and you still can create high quality textures that can be used in realistic film-res rendering.

Shooting on an overcast day is nice, but often on a sunny day you can find a side of a building or something where the light is very diffuse. As long as you don't have details of the surface casting dark shadows onto other details of the surface, many kinds of lighting conditions can be used in making good texture maps. Uniform lighting is better than varied lighting, but often some corrections can be made in post to even things out.

It's better to shoot a big variety of potentially useful shots, and build a diverse collection of textures, than to wait and worry too much about it being the wrong weather or not having a tripod, etc. Once you get some practice going through the process of adjusting things in a paint program, mapping them on, and getting final appearance, you'll get a better sense of where you can cheat a bit and which shots will meet your needs.

-jeremy

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