Originally Posted by Diapositivo View Post
I totally agree.

There are circumstances, taking pictures of architectural features, where straight lines are important and distortion, if present, can be very evident and quite disturbing.
Quote Originally Posted by benjiboy View Post
These distortions are a red herring, because they not because of inherent lens aberrations but because the camera has been pointed upwards to cause perspective distortion because it wasn't capable of lens movements in relation to the film plane.
Actually benjiboy is incorrect. Diapositivo was referring to barrel or pincushion distortion, where straight lines bend due to lens distortion.

Converging verticals, a result of the angle of the camera, is not 'distortion', it is just perspective. The lines of a building will still be perfectly straight.