Tilt Shift Lens

[Sir SpemzR]

http://www.vimeo.com/3156959

those are all real life sized objects....
interesting what a lens can do :D

[gatepc]

Indeed but they are awfully expensive. :(

[Sir SpemzR]

Indeed but they are awfully expensive. :(

I know! but if i had the money, id be down the street at the beach
taking photos all day to make one of those videos lol

[Stratification]

There's always rental. They're still not cheap then, but definitely more reachable, and you can have a lot of fun in a week's worth of lens rental.

[G5Unit]

Well there are ways of achieving this in Adobe After Effects, or of course Photoshop for single image.


Granted it will not look totally believable like this, but it would be much cheaper than a Tilt Shift lens[:

[gnd]

Well there are ways of achieving this in Adobe After Effects, or of course Photoshop for single image.

There was a thread a while ago about this:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=597931&highlight=tilt+shift

[wheezy]

They're a lot of fun, and pretty wonky. It's rarely sticking straight off your camera, the tilt and shifting just makes it look funny, but it's so fun. And for architecture it's incredible. I have the 45mm coming as a rental next week to play with with 2 weddings that I'm shooting, but I hope to get some good building photos in as well to put on iStock.

Lots of fun, I plan to buy one, I just need to figure out which one I want. First I rented the 24, next is the 45, lastly the 90.

[Patriks7]

Damn, those things are awesome! But first I have to get my basic lenses before I go into the specialty stuff :p

[object88]

Indeed but they are awfully expensive. :(

The only tilt-shift lenses that I'm aware of are the LensBaby series, and comparatively, they don't seem like all that much. What else is out there, and what makes them different?

[Sir SpemzR]

Canon Tilt Shift (http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-TS-E-24mm-f-3-5L-tilt-shift-lens-MINT-NO-RESERVE_W0QQitemZ330348991284QQcategoryZ3323QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC DD%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D15%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D54#ht_506 3wt_1167)

and they go up from there

[object88]

and they go up from there

That they do... eBay seems to have number that are quite a bit more expensive. So, what do they have that LensBaby doesn't? Is it a question of features, camera interoperability, or just image quality?

Edit: Start looking at wikipedia articles on tilt-shift, and I'm starting to get an idea. Looks like the Canon, etc. models do a lot more for you, and LensBaby's products are geared towards a more... toylike effect.

[SilentPanda]

You could always try making your own tilt shift lens out of toilet parts...


http://cow.mooh.org/2009/07/plungercam-2-cheaper-and-more.html

[Sir SpemzR]

quick attempt
not a great photo to test it on though

[Stratification]

The only tilt-shift lenses that I'm aware of are the LensBaby series, and comparatively, they don't seem like all that much. What else is out there, and what makes them different?

The Lensbaby is not really a tilt-shift lens per se. More of a specialty/artistic lens. The Lensbaby has a curved, spherical focal "plane" that you can play with, whereas tilt-shift lenses have a flat focal plane that can be adjusted to be inline, or not, compared to your subject. Good ones are extremely expensive.

Some info from Canon on their newest Tilt-Shift lenses:
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2826

[Ruahrc]

Tilt shift lenses can (and should!) be used to do much more than the fake miniature pictures. They are indispensible for architectural photography, make shooting 2-shot panos a snap (just shift the lens over and you can overlay the two images in PS with no distortion correction needed as the shifting effect gives a perfect overlay and no parallax errors), and also are good for landscapers looking to optimize their depth of field (Scheimpflug effect).

The thing I was always confused about, lensbabies can sort of do the fake miniature effect, but can they do the other things that TS lenses are used for?

Ruahrc

[AlaskaMoose]

The only tilt-shift lenses that I'm aware of are the LensBaby series, and comparatively, they don't seem like all that much. What else is out there, and what makes them different?

Canon has a couple of new tilt-shift lenses that are amazing, and so their respective reviews. But these are extremely expensive.
Here is the 24mm one, which is a little cheaper than the 17:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/12092-USA/Canon_2543A004AA_Wide_Angle_Tilt_Shift.html

[jampat]

The thing I was always confused about, lensbabies can sort of do the fake miniature effect, but can they do the other things that TS lenses are used for?

Ruahrc

Lensbabies don't do shift, just tilt. They can be used to isolate part of a scene, but not most of the things that make TS lenses great. They are less than 1/4 of the price of a real TS though and quick to work with. A real TS requires setting up shots where the LB can be used for candids (as long as you are happy with one aperture, changing takes time).

[Kebabselector]

But these are extremely expensive.

I noticed that. Anyway, I plan to get all 4 TS lenses next week as tonight is my turn to win the lottery :p

[Sir SpemzR]

I noticed that. Anyway, I plan to get all 4 TS lenses next week as tonight is my turn to win the lottery :p

i think the OP deserves u send him one his way :D

[munkees]

here is another make your own, seems a little easy, good clear instructions on build and shooting it after

http://www.creativepro.com/article/build-a-tilt-shift-camera-lens-peanuts

[Kebabselector]

i think the OP deserves u send him one his way :D

Cruelly for the 704th time, Camelot (UK Lottery Co.) have neglected to select my numbers once more.

If it happens Wednesday I'll post one. Based on current form I wouldn't get too excited!

[Sdashiki]

Thought Id throw out there that if you truly want to get into tilt n shift, you should save your $ and buy a medium format camera.

Most 4x5 press cameras have some movements, rail cameras have many movements.

And for the price of the digital lens, youve got a complete film system!

[wheezy]

Missed the Fed Ex guy, heading off to the warehouse to pick up my 10day Rental of the 45mm TS from LensRentals.com (http://www.lensrentals.com), I'll post to this thread any cool pics I manage to take with it. I hope after 10 days and 2 weddings I'll have something to show for it!

[Sir SpemzR]

Missed the Fed Ex guy, heading off to the warehouse to pick up my 10day Rental of the 45mm TS from LensRentals.com (http://www.lensrentals.com), I'll post to this thread any cool pics I manage to take with it. I hope after 10 days and 2 weddings I'll have something to show for it!

Try to get higher angles from what your shooting
i think it helps a lot more

[wheezy]

Try to get higher angles from what your shooting
i think it helps a lot more

Yeah, that's one of my plans. Not many highrises where I am... well, none actually. But the mountains get pretty high... however I don't know how well the 45mm will do at that. Oh well.

[wheezy]

Utilizing the Shift feature, lens rotated so the shift is pointing up, thereby blurring out the bottom half of the image. You could apply just a gradiant guassian blur via Photoshop, but I doubt you could accomplish the wide open (F2.8) light out-of-focus blur in the same way.

http://www.unculturedswine.net/online_files/heavenward.jpg

45mm, F2.8, iso 100, 1/6 Second, Tungsten WB

http://www.unculturedswine.net/online_files/ts_up.jpg

This is oriented in Landscape, but the whole base of the lens rotates so you can have it shift in any direction. The above picture was taken in portrait (obviously), so the base would have been rotated.