Prime Lens Experiment – Week 16, 15mm lens

Nike used to have a major flagship store on 57th Street, which is not quite Fifth Avenue but is close to it in terms of retail cachet.  It closed some time ago and Nike opened at this location on Fifth Avenue last November. I think it was a Gap before this.  My understanding is that most flagship stores on expensive real estate tend not to be profitable.  I doubt this will be here in 10 years, which is not a comment on Nike. It’s just how these things tend to go. 

My exclusive use of the 15mm lens for a month pushed me to improve my ability to use the Transform Panel in Lightroom to correct major distortions.  Part of it starts in the field. It helps a lot if the camera is properly aligned to begin with. In addition, if you have to tilt the camera to get all of a building or other tall object, it helps to capture extra space around the subject, so when you adjust for the distortion the software has extra room to work with . Otherwise you end up needing to crop out parts of your subject if you want to present them standing straight. Here I definitely wanted to be able to include the Nike slogan “Just Do It” text on the top floor of the building, and managed to do that with just a few pixels to spare.