OT SLR: Does Tilt/Shift do anything for you?

[SteveM(PA)]

I know I've seen some tilt/shift lens examples here, particularly when Lensbabies are mentioned. I've been thinking about other avenues to explore, and I've become quite captivated by the use of tilt/shift lenses for fake miniaturization effects. I know these lenses are expensive, and I have no SLR, and I also know people are trying to do this stuff with lens blur gradients in Photoshop, but that seems fairly labor intensive. Here is link to some work by a Tokyo photographer named "jyune." They all seem to be related to a band called "The Bitter Girls." These are among the best examples of the genre I've seen.

I like macros...I like glorifying tiny things. But this...shrinking big things into little toys, I find utterly precious, and it just looks cool.

Any thoughts about this? Seems to be a slight trend on flickr as of late.

http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/photolog/archive/c22183

 

[Carrotblog]

The work is fantastic! I really like this.

Thanks for linking Langdon.

How do they do it?

xoxoxo

Miffy

http://carrotblog.livejournal.com

 

[rxmd]

That looks interesting!

I guess mainly they apply some perspective correction by shifting (for the miniaturization) and tilt the plane of focus so that only a very small section of the scene is in focus, leading to a visual impression like a macro shot. You can see that each image was taken either with a Canon TS/E lens or with a Zoerk MFS adapter plus enlarger lens.

Maybe I'll eventually get down to building that tilt/shift enlarger lens adapter for my Canon FD that I've been planning for years 😉

Philipp

 

[Ronald M]

Yes, 28 and 35 pc for the Leica R. I can fix perspective in PS, but it is much harder in the darkroom and then I have to get the enlarger all realigned again. You have to twist the head, slide and twist the lens stage, and prop up one corner of the easel. Then figure how to correct the exposure fron one end to the other.

Buy a view camera if you wish to do screwy macro stuff. They are eminently suited to moving the plane of focus around.

Another option is to get a Phillips enlarger and distort rather than correct perspective.

 

[SteveM(PA)]

Yes, 28 and 35 pc for the Leica R. I can fix perspective in PS, but it is much harder in the darkroom and then I have to get the enlarger all realigned again. You have to twist the head, slide and twist the lens stage, and prop up one corner of the easel. Then figure how to correct the exposure fron one end to the other.

Buy a view camera if you wish to do screwy macro stuff. They are eminently suited to moving the plane of focus around.

Another option is to get a Phillips enlarger and distort rather than correct perspective.

That sounds completely non-fun.

 

[julianphotoart]

Great to have this OT come up; I have a thing for 35mm and MF shift and tilt-shift lenses. The Bitter Girls' stuff is tilt as opposed to shift. Lots more shift lenses than tilt-shift. Nikon has an incredible 85mm T/S micro lens. Canon has a 24, 45 and 90 T/S non-macro lens. The 24 is an "L" lens to boot. Canon also made, I think, either a 28 or 35mm T/S lens in FD mount. Arsat makes cheap lenses, but if memory serves they're only shift not tilt-shift. I could be wrong. Arca-Swiss makes a ridiculously priced bellows mechanism you can mount on 35mm bodies that allows tilt-shift. I also think the Schneider lenses for Leica-R are shift only.

Pentax made shift lenses in 35mm and MF (Pentax 67 75mm). Olympus had at least a 35 shift lens for OM, and I think a 28 too. Nikon made shift lenses in 28 and 35 as well. Mamiya has an adapter for RZ that can make a lens shift. Mamiya 645 has a shift lens too.

Obvioulsy there are others that I just don't know about.

The Nikon and EOS tilt-shifts are each maybe $1,000 or thereabouts. You can create subtle or wild affects. LensBaby is obviously a small fraction the price of these other lenses but the sharpness of the lens that IS in focus is compromised by simple lens quality. I know the EOS 24 T/S is stunningly sharp.

 

[whitecat]

The best I ever used was the Olympus 24mm PC. A real gem. I have been asked more than once what type of large format camera I used on some shots from a tripod.

 

[whitecat]

OOPS! I forgot, I also have a Pentax 28mm PC lens brand new and never used with a K 1000 body 100% new. I might sell in the future.

 

[jlw]

The work is fantastic! I really like this.

Thanks for linking Langdon.

How do they do it?

The easy way to do this is in Photoshop, using the Lens Blur filter. Using Photoshop also lets you apply other filters to obliterate fine details, increasing the sensation of looking at a model rather than a real scene.

Although I got tired of looking at the Bitter Girls portfolio pretty quickly (like any purely technically-based effect, it doesn't take long for it to turn into a gimmick) the "toylike" effect is an interesting psychological/visual trick.

My theory is that we're accustomed to real-life scenes having significant depth of field, and close-ups having very limited depth of field. So, when we see an outdoor scene with very limited depth, we assume it's a close-up photo of a model, rather than a manipulated photo of a full-size scene.

 

[Bryce]

Well. I like it! Here's a list of what I think makes it- First, the artificially distorted DOF, whether from a P.C. arrangement or via Photoshop. Next, the images are all taken from well above the scene, giving a feeling of looking at a teeny set. Then there's the outrageous color saturation- only toys are painted so brightly in real life! And they say it's all been done... Say, maybe this is what war footage looks like from the White House?

 

[bobomoon]

Here's a short tutorial on the fake miniature effect:

http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

 

[David Goldfarb]

I think that most people who get these lenses don't realize that they could get started in large format for substantially less than the cost of a T/S lens, and will have a much more versatile tool that will produce a vastly better result, unless they are really tied into the 35mm format or using a DSLR.

 

[tetrisattack]

Awww, movements for small-format cameras! How cute!! ^_^

 

[JonasYip]

I use the Nikkor 85 T/S and a Ukranian(?) Arsat 35 T/S on my Nikons. I do wish Nikon would come out with a wide T/S, though the Arsat is actually very nice.

This is one instance where the 1.5 crop of my DSLRs actually bugs me, since the area of maximum out-of-focusness (which is what we're going for here after all) gets cropped off... so I usually actually use the T/S lenses on my FM2n.

I think there are probably some examples on my photoblog.

Also, I don't think large format really is a direct alternative since the shooting style is so different. I have a 4x5, but I don't think I would have used it in the situations that I've used my T/S lenses on 35mm, though I guess that's mostly because I wouldn't generally have the 4x5 with me...

 

[Finder]

Well, this is not a new technique or even new application.

In the case of the housing complex, the person is using a Horseman view-camera adapter and so uses a fairly long lens and a large range of movements compared to a tilt/shift lens made for SLRs. But because of the mirror box and small format, the Horseman adapter is limited. A 4x5 view camera with a medium-format back may be a better option.

 

[schaubild]

Actually the subtitle says it all.
An enlarger lens (extremely sharp but very limited focus range) and an MFS (Zoerk multi focus).

Amazing, I would have bet on an 8x10 because of the very shallow dof even close at infinity distance.

 

[Bryce]

Bobomoon-
Thanks for the link! The photos in the original link seem to have been made with perspective control hardware, but the results are pretty hard to distinguish. As for newness, I personally hadn't seen this before. So it must be a new genre...

 

[rxmd]

That sounds completely non-fun.

It isn't particularly enjoyable. Last time I did this (from a 6x6 negative taken with a 4/50 Flektogon) it took me well over half an hour to get the perspective right with everything being in focus. A negative scanner and PanoTools gets you there a lot easier.

Philipp

 

[Carrotblog]

The easy way to do this is in Photoshop, using the Lens Blur filter. Using Photoshop also lets you apply other filters to obliterate fine details, increasing the sensation of looking at a model rather than a real scene.

Although I got tired of looking at the Bitter Girls portfolio pretty quickly (like any purely technically-based effect, it doesn't take long for it to turn into a gimmick) the "toylike" effect is an interesting psychological/visual trick.

My theory is that we're accustomed to real-life scenes having significant depth of field, and close-ups having very limited depth of field. So, when we see an outdoor scene with very limited depth, we assume it's a close-up photo of a model, rather than a manipulated photo of a full-size scene.

Thanks JLW.

I'm not interested in Photoshop - it might be easy, but it's not photography.
Would rather create it without manipulation.

The perspective shift does create a toylike effect. Is it just a psychological visual trick? You might be right. It's an extreme use of depth of field which I like.

xoxoxo

Miffy

http://carrotblog.livejournal.com

 

[jlw]

I think that most people who get these lenses don't realize that they could get started in large format for substantially less than the cost of a T/S lens, and will have a much more versatile tool that will produce a vastly better result, unless they are really tied into the 35mm format or using a DSLR.

This is a bit like saying that people who buy a purebred dog could get an elephant for almost the same money. Great, if that's what you really need...