Tilt-shift

[Tannin]

Anyone here ever played with tilt-shift lenses?

I just threw my toys out of the pram and bought a Canon 24mm TS/E. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but any advice would be very welcome. Looking forward to the weekend! (Bet you it rains!)

[john crossley]

I used to use a FD35mm t/s lens on my F1n years ago.
The shift aspect is fantastic for keeping verticals vertical, but there are limitations. You can also photograph reflective surfaces without cathing your reflection in the image.
The tilt aspect controls depth of field, and you can achieve great DOF at maximum aperture, but you need to use a tripod and it is time consuming as you have to keep making minute adjustments to the settings. But once you get the hang of it its easy enough.

Just go out and enjoy it.

[Leif]

I have a Nikon 85mm TS micro, but it is a totally different beast from yours. I envy you having a 24mm TS. Nikon do not make an equivalent.

[Tannin]

Leif, I know what you mean: I always suffer from Nikon 200-400/4 VR envy: I'd love one.

John, I guess I'll find out as I go along, but from what you are saying it sounds as if the tilt control is very fussy (has to be set exactly just so). Is that right? I'm wondering how I'm going to manage with the pretty ordinary viewfinder of the 20D. It's hard enough just getting manual focus with present-day viewfinders.

[Leif]

One minor point, the tilt does not change the DOF, rather it tilts the plane of focus. Hence you need to make sure the objects that you want in focus lie in a plane. I suspect it is easier with a wide angle lens.

Some examples can be found on John Shaw's web site. He is a master at using these lenses. (Well, at using any lens!)

One problem I found is that the tilt also introduces a shift, which requires adjustment of the camera position. This is significant for macro work, but I am not sure it matters so much for a wide angle lens. You can make life easier by aligning the tilt and shift axes (the Nikon lens allows this), but then you cannot use the shift for making stitched panoramas with the tilt employed.

[Tannin]

Thanks Leif. I haven't actually got any use in mind for the shift function at this stage. I very rarely shoot anything man-made, so meals and architecture are a non-issue, and I don't have any special interest in panaromas (though I do love the wide end of the 10-22), so I imagine I'll just be using tilt most of the time.

Plus I'll probably use it a fair bit as a plain, non-shifted, non-tilted manual focus 24mm lens too: it's a length I seem to use a bit, be it at the long end of the 10-22 or the wide end of the 24-105.

But first I have to figure out how to drive it! Mid-winter here and the weather for the weekend looks bad, but far north-western Victoria might be OK. I'll take it for a trip if the weather forecast is nice to me,