Does anyone still use shift lenses?

[ryanflynn]

I use my 45mm tilt/shift lens (on the 5D) all the time. Although, probably not in the 'traditional' way...

 

[Spavinaw]

Yes! How you gonna correct perspective on 35mm transparencies without one? 'Nuff said.

 

[kram]

Corfield WA67 - waiting for the film to come back from the processor. I have to admit I am lazy with regard printing. Processing film - fine, but printing - I take ages cropping and getting the final print I want, so I let the commercial boys do it (apart from large format). I then reprint in I want a bigger print.

I purchase the coefield from Aperatures in London, it was a little more tahn I wanted to pay, but I have not seen any around on Ebay (or the net) for quite a few months. It came with a spare back, loupe, ground glass focusing screen and Lee filter holder and filters. i would have been happy with just the camera by itself. Cost £1300.

I have been looking for an Alpha, but the prices have gone up and second-hand they are eye watering prices. I would go for the Alpa 12 SWA - because I want the shift.
Hopefully the Corefield will satisfy my medium format shift lens requirement!

 

[Rob-F]

Follow-up to my original post. On a recent trip to colorado, my most used lens was my 28/3.5 PC-Nikkor. Runner-up was the 35/2.8 PC-Nikkor. The reason was that for this trip, I wanted to round out my slide show of pretty mountain scenery pictures with some shots of the towns; and I am a stickler for keeping verticals vertical! I scored shots of Salida, Gunnison, Ouray, Lake City, and Silverton with my PC-Nikkors.

I actually use them hand-held. My method is to first level the camera by eye, keeping the verticals parallel to the finder edges or the focusing screen grid. THEN I shift the lens up while holding the camera immobile, so that the verticals stay vertical. I shift until the bottom edge of the frame is just below the curb in front of the building. That usually allows me to include the top of the building and some sky and clouds headroom over the top.

 

[uhoh7]

nex + kipon Nikon to nex tilt adapter + nikkor PC 28/3.5

this setup allows tilt of about 15 degrees.

 

[AJS Lamb]

I've just bought a second-hand Schneider 28mm PC, in EOS mount to use on my 5D II and I'm delighted with the results.

I have also been testing out a Schneider 35mm f4 PC, in R mount, on the 5D II and am not quite convinced yet. I'm not sure if this because the lens is 40 years-old, compared to the 28mm being 5 years-old, or whether it is down to pilot error. I suspect the latter.

 

[kram]

I am using my Corfield WA67 hand held. It has the Copal shutter (up to 1/500 S) rather than the usual Prontor press shutter (up to 1/125 S). Just got the first film back Ilford XP2 super film- not bad. I am now looking for a hood for the lens.

 

[PDriscoll]

i use a 45 ts-e. last time i used it i shot this

http://www.patrickrdriscoll.com/files/gimgs/8_dylanblaty50-50.jpg

 

[HenningW]

Since most of the money I've made from photography has come from architectural and construction subjects, apart from large format I've used a lot of shift lenses. I still have a Canon 35TS from the 70's, a Nikkor 35/2.8, a Nikkor 28/3.5 which is now used on a 28/220 Roundshot, a Mamiya 50/4 for 645, and the Canon 17/4, 24/3.5 II and 90/2.8 TS-E's. Also my 150 Noblex has a shift lens. The 17 and 24 Canons prove that Canon can produce excellent wide angles, contrary to previous evidence.

Over the years I've used all shift lenses made, I think except the Schneider for medium format and the 35 for the Contax. Most were excellent, but a few didn't make it. The 28 Pentax, for example had a rather large amount of distortion, which is totally unacceptabe in a lens of this type. Until the recent 17 and 24 Canons and the 24 Nikkor came out, the best lens optically was the old Canon 35TS. I used that one on 35mm and a home made medium format, an it was the best mf lens I had for a while, although awkward to use. The 35/2.8 Nikkor, 35 TS Canon and the 50/4 Mamiya don't see much use now, but the others are employed regularly.

There is no way to digitally simulate the image of the 17 Canon with anywhere near the quality with any other setup, and to a lesser extent that also applies to the new 24. And if you need tilt, you can't really do without lenses like the 90/2.8.

Henning

 

[JohnTF]

If mamiya did a shift lens for the mamiya 7, I would buy it NOW. Out of all the lens omn my wish like (which is nowm quite small) this is the lens, 60mm would be ideal. But there no hope of that happening.

You might consider the 50mm shift for the Mamiya 645 cameras, the bodies are reasonable enough you can consider it a "dedicated" body for the lens, though you would sacrifice some format.

Regards, John

 

[JohnTF]

Several years ago I bought a beautiful Nikkor perspective control lens to do some architectural photography for my wife. I understand that they are functional only on slr cameras, but many on RFF use both rf and slr cameras. As it turns out, my p-c lens sits unused and unappreciated.

Even though digital processing provides quick perspective adjustments in an image, digital techniques still cannot perform the same way as a p-c lens.

Does anyone still use a p-c lens instead of digital processing and why?

I spent an evening with an architect shooting his work with a Nikon and shift lens, -- he made three exposures with the intent of stitching all in to a rather large file and prints. He was also using rather long exposures to catch the shadow detail.

Regards, John

 

[gavinlg]

To answer the original question - you bet people still use them! Canon just recently updated their lineup in the wide end of TS-E lenses.

I would looooove to have this one:

 

[L David Tomei]

I think my original question has been answered and I am pleased to see that it is widely recognized that this type of lens generates a modified perspective image that cannot be duplicated by simply performing a perspective adjustment on a normal image in Photoshop. My wife is an architect and the original reason I bought the Nikon lens.

The down side of all of this is the fact that I now see how much more can be done with the additional tilt function. I confess to having that terminal "gearhead" mentality.

Ciao!

David