Tilt/shift lenses

[frydham]

What do you guys think of tilt/shift lenses? The miniature effect is kinda cool but it gets old. I've heard it's good for landscapes but have never seen any examples.

What do you guys like/dislike about them?

[RecurrentNerve]

Relatively spe******t stuff really, mainly used for architecture shots to correct perspective. Considering they're pretty expensive I think they're more or less a pro-only tool. Photoshop et al can do a pretty good job of replicating their effects as well.

As for their use in landscape work, scroll down a bit on the thread here, a couple of stunners.

[OsmosisStudios]

Landscape and architecture, as mentioned, but the same technique used to get the "miniature" effect can be used in other ways to get very selective focus for portraits, and its a great way to add to a look.

Theyre a challenge, for sure, and being so expensive they're definitely a rent. Unless youve won the lottery.

[inkista]

Or you got a cheap Russian one. I think you can still find the Arax/Arsat ones for relatively cheap, although, of course, the optical performance won't begin to rival the Nikon or Canon tilt-shifts.

Traditionally, a tilt-shift's tilt is used to extend DoF, not decrease it. So, for landscape photography when you want to use a smaller aperture, or for product photography when working at macro distances forces a smaller DoF, even with smaller apertures, you can use tilt and the Scheimpflug effect to places the DoF where you need it.


Canon XT. Hartblei Super-Rotator 80mm f/2.8. extension tube. iso 100, 1/80s, f/8.
No movement added.


Same exposure settings with 4° tilt down added.

Shift is used for perspective correction, so for architectural shots to correct for keystoning, or to keep the photographer/camera out of a mirror shot, or to create easily stitched panoramas that require no warping of the member images to stitch cleanly, you can use shift.

However, compared to the view camera bellows that tilt shifts imitate, the degree of freedom isn't nearly the same: you're usually limited to only 8 degrees of tilt, and only a little bit of shift, and of course, you only have lens movements, without the ability to add image plane movements, too.

As everybody said, these are spe******t exotic lenses, and typically very expensive. But they can accomplish a lot more than just the toy-model effect. The two articles I'd most recommend reading if you're interested in tilt-shifts are the ones at Cambridge in Colour:

Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Perspective
Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Depth of Field

[ravncat]

They're also brilliant for stitching. Though I'd rather use a camera with lens and film plane movements for tilt shift. The minature effect is rather popular for some reason but doesn't invoke shift

Perspective control is the real reason for tilt shift, I think