Perspective Control (aka Tilt / Shift) Lenses

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  • #1464
    schnee
    Participant

    Tilt / Shift = T/S
    Perspective Control = PC

    I have one T/S Lens – the Canon TS-E 90mm f2.8.

    T/S or PC lenses allow a photographer to change perspective of a image by either tilting or shifting the front element of a lens relative to the image sensor. [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_correction_lens]Wikipedia[/url] explains this much better than I can.

    I tend to use Tilt more than Shift – creatively, I like to be able to pick out a region in my image that will render in sharp focus and put the subject in that region. Sort of like this image:

    (pops).

    Notice how the cypress trunk and reflection are in sharp focus, but the left and right elements are blurred. This image says “hey pay attention to the trunk – ignore the rest of the stuff”.

    This other image does the same thing, but not quite as noticeably:

    (pops)

    At some point, I’ll want to get into architectural photography. That’s where I’ll start to play with the shift movement. I’m pretty sure that point is next week when I start making some marketing collateral for these guys.

    I have some other example images.

    #19824
    corsec67
    Participant

    A cheaper kind of lens that has the selective focus ability is the Lensbabies, here the 2.0 ($150).

    Example:

    This is a much simpler lens, and lower quality, with the ability to replace the aperture with a star aperture for some special effects.

    A lensbabies can’t be used as a normal kind of lens, it only has a small part of the image in focus even when not tilted at all:

    That is at roughly f/4 on the 50mm lens, so in a normal lens almost everything would be in reasonably sharp focus. (Odd that my “walk 100 feet from my office and take a picture image would be of a cow…”)

    #19825
    Schnappi
    Participant

    Personally I do these types of effects in post with PS.
    First question: What am I missing by doing it in post and not with a hardware tilt/shift?

    Second comment: Schnee; my favorite thing to do with this technique is to take a shot of something from above and then “shift” so that it looks like a miniature.
    Hooray false miniature shots!

    /Where did all my fake-mini shots on photobucket go?

    #19826
    nobigdeal
    Participant

    Lenbabies seem to give more of a tunnel vision type DOF.

    T/S lenses tend to give a narrower more straight DOF.

    I had one in my hand at Ritz last week (Canon 90mm 2.8 ) but managed to restrain myself from dropping a g-note. ( I’m proud of me 🙂 ) for now.

    Good example of what I mean here.. Looks like a miniature movies set.

    http://static.flickr.com/44/117333308_54d19fdce2.jpg

    #19827
    corsec67
    Participant

    Lenbabies seem to give more of a tunnel vision type DOF.

    T/S lenses tend to give a narrower more straight DOF.

    I can agree with that. The Lensbabies DOF seems to be very spherical and quite a bit distorted, like in this picture(another cow and pine tree)

    Why would you get a 90mm T/S lens? I would think that something wider, like a 24 or 35 would be more useful. (Something like this 35mm f/2.8 T/S)

    #19828
    nobigdeal
    Participant

    Why would you get a 90mm T/S lens? I would think that something wider, like a 24 or 35 would be more useful. (Something like this 35mm f/2.8 T/S)

    That’s part of the reason I didn’t pull the trigger so to speak.

    I would rather have the 24 or 45. They had the 90 on the shelf marked down to $950 (open box)

    I think my wifey is going to get me a Lensbaby for Christmas though..so I got that going for me.

    #19829
    orionid
    Participant

    Oooooooohhhhh…….. drool…..

    Time to sell some old car parts…… Anyone want to buy an edelbrock perform intake for a SBC? Just came out of my ’79 vette.

    Seriously though, I need to find an excuse for one of these.

    #19830
    Killerclaw
    Participant

    They cost too damn much

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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