Digital Camera World » tilt-shift

Photo Anatomy: why Dan Chung used a tilt-shift lens to capture Usain Bolt

crutter — Sun, 05 May 2013 01:00:14 +0000

In our Photo Anatomy series on Digital Camera World we select pictures by famous photographers and explain point by point what makes them work.

In our latest instalment award-winning press photographer Dan Chung reveals how he captured Usain Bolt’s 100m final victory at the Beijing Olympics using innovative tilt-shift lens effects.

Freezing the action
“I handheld my Nikon D3, which was fitted with a Nikon PC-E Micro-Nikkor 85mm lens,” Dan says. “I used an exposure of 1/500 sec at f/2.8 with the ISO set to 800.”

‘Toytown’ effect
Dan used his tilt-shift lens to create a narrow depth of field, making the runners stand out from the blurred background as if they were a group of miniature-scale models.

Decisive moment
This frame was captured just after the runners had crossed the finish line, and Bolt’s holding out his arms in celebration. The display board shows his record-breaking time.

Alternative viewpoint
“I’m always looking for a different perspective on an event,” says Dan. “This photo was part of a series of tilt-shift images I took during the Games.”

Press ethics
As a press photographer, Dan had to create this effect entirely in-camera. “I was shooting for The Guardian and wouldn’t have been allowed to use software to simulate it,” he says.

We Say
“Tilt-shift lenses have a variety of technical and creative uses and are great fun to experiment with, but they’re expensive.  As an alternative, the miniature-like appearance shown here can be created at the post-capture stage.
Chris Rutter, Technique editor

Your tilt-shift lens: more than just a miniature effect maker

jmeyer — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 01:00:49 +0000

Everyone has probably heard of tilt-shift lenses. A tilt-shift lens is named as such because it has a ‘tilt’ mechanism that changes the angle of the lens relative to the body, tilting it to the left or right, or up or down. It also has a ‘shift’ mechanism that shifts the lens up or down or from side to side.

The tilt mechanism on a tilt-shift lens can be used to keep the whole of a subject in focus when it’s at an angle to the camera. It’s based on the ‘Scheimpflug Principle’ – see the diagrams in our photography cheat sheet below.

Tilt-shift lens effects are perhaps most popular for creating the ‘miniature’ effect you see everywhere these days, which is achieved by tilting the lens the ‘wrong’ way to make the depth of field more shallow.

This tricks you into thinking you’re looking at a diorama rather than a real scene. Usually these effects are created using digital blur rather than lens movements, but Lensbaby lenses use a low-tech tilt movement to achieve the same effect optically.

Shift movements are used when you need to include objects outside the current field of view, without having to tilt or rotate the camera (for more, see these 5 things you need to know about tilt-shift lenses).

A common example is where you’ve got the camera level to prevent converging verticals, but the top of the building is cut off. If you shift the lens upwards, the top comes into view, but the camera stays level.

You can also use a ‘sideways’ shift to avoid obstructions. You position the camera so that the obstruction is out of the frame, then use the shift mechanism to bring your subject back into the centre.

Lens movements are nothing new. Old-fashioned large-format cameras had them built in. On many models you could apply tilt and shift movements to the lens panel and to the back, which contained the film.

This degree of flexibility isn’t possible with DSLRs and their lenses, though. The movement can either be from side to side or up and down, not both at once. In fact it’s a single movement, and you rotate the body of the lens to swap it from vertical to horizontal.

There are other practical considerations with these lenses. The complexity of the movements means that you sacrifice autofocus, and they are very difficult to use effectively without a tripod. It’s almost impossible to make accurate adjustments to the tilt and shift axes unless the camera is completely stationary.

But despite the drawbacks, a tilt-shift lens is invaluable for architectural, commercial and even still life photography. It’s true that you can correct converging verticals digitally in Photoshop, but this is no substitute for recording an optically-correct image in the first place, and there is often some visible loss in quality (see also how to fake a tilt-shift effect in Photoshop Elements).

So while perspective control lenses like these have their roots in plate cameras, they still have an important role today because they change the optical geometry of the image and the spatial relationships between objects in ways that Photoshop can’t.

In our latest photography cheat sheet below we’ve illustrated how a tilt-shift lens can be used to correct some of the common photography problems that plague many photographers.

To view the larger version of our tilt-shift lens photography cheat sheet, simply click on the infographic below to expand the file. Alternatively, drag and drop it to your desktop.

5 things you need know about tilt-shift lenses

jmeyer — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:12:50 +0000

Tilt-shift lenses are useful optics for a number of reasons, but most commonly they are adored for their ability to render everyday scenes as miniature models. Most compact cameras now even offer creative filters which recreated the effect of tilt-shift lenses. Below we answer five key questions about tilt-shit lenses that you need to know before using one.

1. What are they?
Often called Perspective Correction lenses, tilt-shift lenses are specialist optics that can tilt or rotate the image path, as well as shifting in the parallel plane.

2. How do they work?
Through the available range of tilt settings, the frontal section of the lens swivels at varying angles from the camera body. Depth of field can be controlled between a very small area to practically infinity. Shift mode is most useful for correcting parallel lines that are receding in a scene, so they don’t appear to converge.

Shooting upwards with a regular lens can produce severe perspective distortion, with leaning architecture

Photo of the day: 14 June

samanthacliffe — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 02:00:33 +0000

Toy Car by ‘davemac77‘

This picture was taken in Almeria, Spain. The unique effect of this photo is called ’tilt-shift’ and can be achieved either with a tilt-shift lens or in Photoshop.

View more images by davemac77

Gallery: 27 fantastic examples of tilt-shift

samanthacliffe — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:00:50 +0000

Tilt-shift is a popular style of photography that has increased in popularity in recent years. Taking pictures of images from a height or at a distance with a tilt-shift lens gives the illusion that large subjects are small and toy-like.

We realise that tilt-shift lenses can be expensive, so we’ve provided a tutorial on how to fake a tilt-shift effect using Photoshop Elements. Why not try it out for yourself? In the meantime, we’ve put together a gallery of 27 of our favourite tilt-shift photographs, some of which were created using Photoshop.

Mini Matterhorn © Coolbiere A.

Toy Eiffel Tower © Mohammed Khalil El Mahrsi

Port of Singapore © Lucas Keene

Tiny Airport © Vladislavs Punculs

Prague – Charles Bridge Fake Tilt Shift © Paul MacKinnon

Israel Railways II © Vladimir Popov

Toy Trains © Laimonas Ciunys

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