Show me some tilt shift photos!

[RbnDave]

Hey, does anyone on this forum use the Canon tilt shift lenses? I would really like to see some examples. Tilt shift seems like a great solution for landscape photographers. I am kicking around the idea of getting a 24mm TS, but I heard rumors Canon will be coming out with a 17mm TS lens. I am using a 10D so obviously wider is better for me.

Show me some photos.

Thanks

Dave

[Scottes]

A few here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/galleries/southwest/gc-il.shtml

One here - the stripe in the road:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/35mm.shtml

[PacAce]

A few here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/galleries/southwest/gc-il.shtml

One here - the stripe in the road:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/35mm.shtml

I don't know. Tilt-shift may be great for correcting the perspective distortion of tall buildings but on landscapes, it makes them look so unnatural and/or diminishes the "grandness" of such sights are a high waterfall or a deep canyon. Or maybe it's just me. :)

[KennyG]

A friend of mine uses TS lenses for photographing luxury cars for luxury magazines. I'll see if he can let me have some samples to post.

They are best known for architectural photography, but they are also used a lot in what may be called 'large product' shots, such as cars and boats where there is also a need to correct perspective.

[Scottes]

[quote=Scottes]I don't know. Tilt-shift may be great for correcting the perspective distortion of tall buildings but on landscapes, it makes them look so unnatural and/or diminishes the "grandness" of such sights are a high waterfall or a deep canyon. Or maybe it's just me. :)

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/perspective.shtml

[RbnDave]

Thanks for the info guys. I don't plan on doing on large product shots or architectual photography so maybe I don't need a tilt shift. I did see some cool tilt shift photos in a landscape photography book. The example they used was a picture of a meadow and mountains in the distance. The entire photo was in focus from front to back. It was really impressive. I thought maybe a tilt shift would help me get sharper large prints of landscapes. I am not to keen on doing a bunch of geometery calculations so maybe I should steer clear of TS?

Anyone hear anything about a 17mm TS from Canon?

Dave

[c0ntr0lz]

wow kool i was wondering about these also

thanks for the info guys

[Andy_T]

I did see some cool tilt shift photos in a landscape photography book. The example they used was a picture of a meadow and mountains in the distance. The entire photo was in focus from front to back. It was really impressive. I thought maybe a tilt shift would help me get sharper large prints of landscapes
Dave

From what I recall from my photography books (meaning: I haven't tried it myself), if you use a tripod and f/16 or f/32, this should also help you to get much of the picture in focus.

Best regards,
Andy

[DaveG]

A few here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/galleries/southwest/gc-il.shtml

One here - the stripe in the road:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/35mm.shtml

I don't know. Tilt-shift may be great for correcting the perspective distortion of tall buildings but on landscapes, it makes them look so unnatural and/or diminishes the "grandness" of such sights are a high waterfall or a deep canyon. Or maybe it's just me. :)

"Shift" corrects for "falling over backwards" from tall buildings and gives them a more natural look. Sometimes you DO want to have the falling-over since it's kind of a photojournalistic approach. But the shift lens tends to be a one trick pony and I found that I didn't have much use for my Nikkor 35mm shift lens.

But "Tilt" is a whole new kettle of fish. It's primary function is to make the depth of field take a new angle. Briefly, the D of F from every camera you've ever used is a plane that's parallell with the back of the camera. So anything in front of, or behind this plane of "in focus", will be blurred. We can use the aperture to increase this D of F but only to a point.

With tilt we take that plane of depth of field and "lay it down". For example you tilt the lens down and the D of F follows the plane of the front of the lens (more or less). Subsequently you get the foreground in focus, at the same time that the background is in focus and often with a large aperture.

Imagine that you are in an alpine meadow and want to get flowers in the foreground to be sharp, along with the mountains in the background, and f22 won't do it. If you were to look at a sideways drawing of this example you'd have a horizontal line with you and your camera standing at one end. In front of the camera would be the flowers and then further along the line would be the mountains. You tilt the lens down and adjust it back and forth until the new plane of D of F cover the flowers and the mountains.

It's easy enough to do. You just keep an eye in your viewfinder and play with the amount of tilt until it looks good since "The groundglass is truth".

This is all view camera technique and a very useful tool. Sideways tilt is called "Swing" and is used to change the plane of D of F from being foreground to infinity, to left to right. Say you are standing next to a brick wall which is on your left. You want the bricks to be sharp in focus and once again aperture alone won't do it. You focus about a third of the way down the wall and see that the foreground and background are soft. You then "swing the lens" left and the whole wall will come into focus.

There is no distortive effect of using tilt or swing on the image. In fact you see shots every day (commercial table top food shots, for example) that would use some type of lens movements.

[Andy_T]

Dave,

your post somehow gives me the impression I'll need an engineering degree if I want to get great photos with that lens :lol:

Best regards,
Andy

[DaveG]

Dave,

your post somehow gives me the impression I'll need an engineering degree if I want to get great photos with that lens :lol:

Best regards,
Andy

Not at all. It's very simple since you can SEE what it's doing. You need to use the camera's depth of field preview button so the lens stops down.

Try looking at some site that talks about large format/ View cameras, which may have schematic drawings of how tilt/shift and other camera movements affect the image. In real life this is not rocket science since - one more time -you can see what's going on. But by god if you read the theory behind it you'll want to slit your throat! The math IS rocket science - and as an aside to LF photographs out there, explain to ME the hinge rule in less than twenty pages!

But with the Canon tilt/shift lenses you look through them, adjust the lens in a way that will become second nature very quickly and leave the theory to others.