# Tilt-shift. Why not?



## hamlet (Nov 16, 2013)

I was looking into tilt-shift photography and it is very impressive what you can do with it to everyday surroundings. It is amazing to say the least. So why are there practically no lenses to speak of for this type photography? If a strapping young lad like myself would be interested in investing into this type of photography, what lens brand would you recommend for a Nikon user?


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## Josh66 (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> So why are there practically no lenses to speak of for this type photography?


There are quite a few, actually.  It's a bit specialized, so they're not going to offer one in every focal length...


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## pgriz (Nov 16, 2013)

and...  they cost serious money.


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## astroNikon (Nov 16, 2013)

Buy one
Try it
And tell us what you think


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## astroNikon (Nov 16, 2013)

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Camera-Lenses/Perspective-Control/index.page

Check out this video on YouTube:







Sent from my iPad


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## Light Guru (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> I was looking into tilt-shift photography and it is very impressive what you can do with it to everyday surroundings. It is amazing to say the least. So why are there practically no lenses to speak of for this type photography? If a strapping young lad like myself would be interested in investing into this type of photography, what lens brand would you recommend for a Nikon user?



Shoot with a large format camera and every lens is a tilt shift lens. 

If you really want to understand tilt and shift in photography then learn the scheinflug principle.


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## hamlet (Nov 16, 2013)

So its commercially not all that viable and its price bump is a bit high for aspiring photographers. What a shame, there is no telling what might have been if some young upstart got really into it.


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## Josh66 (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> So its commercially not all that viable and its price bump is a bit high for aspiring photographers. What a shame, there is no telling what might have been if some young upstart got really into it.


What's stopping you?

In what ways do you feel that the current T/S offerings fall short?


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## Robin_Usagani (Nov 16, 2013)

Samyang 24mm f/3.5 ED AS UMC Tilt-Shift Lens for Nikon SYTS24-N


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## hamlet (Nov 16, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> hamlet said:
> 
> 
> > So its commercially not all that viable and its price bump is a bit high for aspiring photographers. What a shame, there is no telling what might have been if some young upstart got really into it.
> ...



I don't know enough about these lenses to make any sort of decision. But i am impressed by the miniature like cityscape photos.


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## astroNikon (Nov 16, 2013)

It is also too bad that you limit yourself to your own limitations

You could buy a third party - rokinon, sigma,sanyung. Etc and adapters for tilt shift, and older nikon afd lens to lower your cost.

Or just practice, practice, practice what you have.

Learn more about your camera
You may have a "miniature" feature on your camera.  Mine has one.
Check your retouch menu


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## hamlet (Nov 16, 2013)

astroNikon said:


> It is also too bad that you limit yourself to your own limitations
> 
> You could buy a third party - rokinon, sigma,sanyung. Etc and adapters for tilt shift, and older nikon afd lens to lower your cost.
> 
> ...



Are we talking about the same thing? example


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## astroNikon (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> astroNikon said:
> 
> 
> > It is also too bad that you limit yourself to your own limitations
> ...



Probably not because you are always changing the scope of your question


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## Josh66 (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> astroNikon said:
> 
> 
> > It is also too bad that you limit yourself to your own limitations
> ...


T/S can do that, but if that's all you want it for, it may be better to just learn to fake it in PP.


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## Light Guru (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> O|||||||O said:
> 
> 
> > hamlet said:
> ...



The miniature effect you can get is hardly utilizing a tilt shift lens to its potential. If all you want is the miniature effect you can easily do that in post processing software.


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## Ihatemymoney (Nov 16, 2013)

hamlet said:


> I was looking into tilt-shift photography and it is very impressive what you can do with it to everyday surroundings. It is amazing to say the least. So why are there practically no lenses to speak of for this type photography? If a strapping young lad like myself would be interested in investing into this type of photography, what lens brand would you recommend for a Nikon user?



I have the TSE 24mm mk1 and the tse 17mm .The cost on CPL's and ND filters are about 600.00 for the TSE 17.
One other option is a tc 1.4 extender will fit on the TSE 17 mm but will not on the TSE 24 MK 1 and I think the TSE 24 mk ll .

And I would like to try the TSE 45mm and the tse 90mm. 
The TSE lens are heavy and IMO really a tripod lens, that I think you should photographed tethered.
I shoot product photography and landscape , and photographed a couple people with the TSE lens, I like mine.


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## hamlet (Nov 16, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> hamlet said:
> 
> 
> > astroNikon said:
> ...



Well it may seem trivial, but i don't see it that way. I am very intrigued by this sort of lens. I'll educate myself some more  and discover the different variables that enter into play before buying  one of these. But i have to understand why the Samyang 24mm f/3.5 ED AS UMC Tilt-Shift Lens for Nikon SYTS24-N is a good consideration as a tilt-shift in order to do that. This is very exciting to say the least.


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## vintagesnaps (Nov 17, 2013)

A Lensbaby is a smaller version of a lens with some tilt shift capabilities. I have a couple of Lensbabies, an Original and a 2.0. I don't know with any of them if you can get the miniaturized look; with mine I can adjust the focus and then tilt and/or shift the lens. If you look up Lensbaby and find the company's site you should find samples of photos made with the lenses. 

You might be interested in looking at  LAFORET | VISUALS  . I'm familiar with who Vincent Laforet is thru Sportsshooter and he's done a good bit of tilt shift photography.


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## hamlet (Nov 17, 2013)

That is incredible. Just incredible how it warps reality as we see it.


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## 18.percent.gary (Nov 17, 2013)

It appears that you don't understand the purpose of a tilt-shift lens. A tilt-shift lens is designed to MAXIMIZE the area in focus and depth of field in a photo. More importantly it is also used to correct perspective.

The gimmicky "selective focus" miniature type scenes are done by using the lens in the opposite way of which it is intended to be used. As others have said you can easily achieve the FAKE miniature effect by using any lens you already have and applying the effect in Photoshop or the like. I think I've even seen Instagram filters that do it.


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## hamlet (Nov 17, 2013)

Well i'll be damned. Yet even more reasons to buy one! And more variables to consider.


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## EIngerson (Nov 17, 2013)

I'm probably going to get one eventually just because its cool. lol. You can get the look you're going for in post though. CS6 makes it very easy.



Bangkok TS by Ingerson Photo, on Flickr


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## Ihatemymoney (Nov 17, 2013)

If you were in my neck of the woods I would let you try out my tse lenses. The TSE 17mm lens is my favorite. 
When I bought my TSE 17mm my plan was to sale my tse 24mm mk 1. I don't want to part with either of them.
I kick myself in the butt I didn't buy one before I went to the grand canyon last summer.


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## hamlet (Nov 17, 2013)

EIngerson said:


> You can get the look you're going for in post though. CS6 makes it very easy.



I would argue that there is no comparison between having seen the changes manifest physically as you are taking the shot and doing some random shots and having no way of knowing how it will turn out. I'm an amateur enthusiast, to me these differences are important.


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## amolitor (Nov 17, 2013)

There are many things you can do with a T/S lens.

If you're just after a "look" you can just use software or a cheaper variant like a lensbaby. When a tool is used to take away sharpness or some similar quality, you can generally just use software. T/S lenses are also used to add sharpness, by placing the plane of focus along whatever it is you're shooting.

If you want to add sharpness in that way, you can use focus stacking techniques to get the same sorts of increased depth of field, but that too has limitations.

The actual usage scenarios where you actually need a T/S lens are pretty limited, but they're still out there. Also, of course, with experience they're more efficient. You can get it right in camera rather than focus-stacking a bunch of frames.

In smaller formats you get more depth of field anyways, so the technical uses for T/S lenses, to "add sharpness" or "add DoF" are less relevant.


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## rexbobcat (Nov 17, 2013)

T/S lenses are pretty necessary for architectural shots, otherwise you'll end up with a lot of keystoning with wide lenses.

I don't mind it because it seems really dramatic, but for someone trying to sell their home or building, they probably want as accurate a representation as possible lol


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## hamlet (Nov 17, 2013)

rexbobcat said:


> T/S lenses are pretty necessary for architectural shots, otherwise you'll end up with a lot of keystoning with wide lenses.
> 
> I don't mind it because it seems really dramatic, but for someone trying to sell their home or building, they probably want as accurate a representation as possible lol



So that's what that effect is called that is caused by a wide angle lens.


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## Light Guru (Nov 17, 2013)

18.percent.gary said:


> It appears that you don't understand the purpose of a tilt-shift lens. A tilt-shift lens is designed to MAXIMIZE the area in focus and depth of field in a photo. More importantly it is also used to correct perspective.
> 
> The gimmicky "selective focus" miniature type scenes are done by using the lens in the opposite way of which it is intended to be used. As others have said you can easily achieve the FAKE miniature effect by using any lens you already have and applying the effect in Photoshop or the like. I think I've even seen Instagram filters that do it.



Exactly!


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## Judobreaker (Nov 17, 2013)

http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/nature7.jpg

That picture was also made with a tilt-shift. I saw it at the wildlife photographer of the year 2012 expo, thought it was really cool. 
Apparently the focus plane was rotated 90 degrees so it was horizontal to the camera, which is why only the center horizontal line in the image is in focus.


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## rexbobcat (Nov 17, 2013)

hamlet said:


> rexbobcat said:
> 
> 
> > T/S lenses are pretty necessary for architectural shots, otherwise you'll end up with a lot of keystoning with wide lenses.
> ...



Yeah, it's basically when lines appear to lean. 





Like in this photo. The building looks like it's leaning into the middle, because I was down low with my camera pointed up at the building at 24mm. If I  had the camera at eye level, the walls would look much more straight. That's where a T/S lens helps. (I've never owned one so I'm not exactly sure how to do it) but you can change the lens's position to the sensor plane to compensate for the keystoning effect.


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## raventepes (Nov 18, 2013)

Using a T/S takes a lot of time to learn to use properly, but so very worth it. Yes, they can be expensive, but honestly, the 85mm offering from Nikon is arguably one of the sharpest lenses they make (And it can double as an awesome portrait lens). I used to have a tilt shift lens, back when I shot on film, though sadly, I no longer have the lens. But to be fair, back when I used film, I used mainly Canon and Minolta systems with an odd Nikon here and there though now I'm with purely with Nikon with no intentions of switching (save for investing into Micro 4/3 as a compact/travel system).


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## Braineack (Nov 18, 2013)

hamlet said:


> But i am impressed by the miniature like cityscape photos.



That's not the point of these lenses and you can do that with your current lens right now.



I can't wait to read the next thread you start, it's going to be riveting.


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## astroNikon (Nov 18, 2013)

Braineack said:


> hamlet said:
> 
> 
> > But i am impressed by the miniature like cityscape photos.
> ...



more like mind-blowing than riveting.

yes, ignore the answer to your question, and continue to banter about.

As mentioned before, your camera is fully capable of a miniature effect
Nikon | Imaging Products | Expanded creativity - Nikon D3200


But I still think you should buy all 3 T/S lenses and instantaneously become the next Ansel Adams.


yes, we've should've taken the blue pill.


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## amolitor (Nov 18, 2013)

Telt-shift lenses are not _for_ anything. They're design to tilt, and to shift. Not to "take pictures of buildings" or "make miniature landscapes" or whatever preconceived notions you have.


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## hamlet (Nov 18, 2013)

astroNikon said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > hamlet said:
> ...


I wasn't ignoring your suggestions, whatever i have to say is going to  sound arrogant and conceded and I just don't want to be that guy. I  appreciate your concern and its the thought that counts. But now i have your answers and i will go my own way with this information, because there is really no wrong way if you enjoy something you love doing.


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## kundalini (Nov 18, 2013)

hamlet said:


> <snip>... whatever i have to say is going to  sound arrogant and conceded and I just don't want to be that guy. <snip>...


I've read this comment several times in several threads.  Methinks now, it's not by accident.


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## amolitor (Nov 18, 2013)

I think hamlet has gotten a raft of ****, and has concluded that he comes across as offensive when he's not trying to be, and so he tries to say less and listen more.


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## hamlet (Nov 18, 2013)

kundalini said:


> hamlet said:
> 
> 
> > <snip>... whatever i have to say is going to  sound arrogant and conceded and I just don't want to be that guy. <snip>...
> ...



I just cant communicate the reasons for my disagreement in a proper fashion. There are variables you aren't aware of that lead me to these conclusions, but i'm not saying that you are wrong.


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## hamlet (Nov 19, 2013)

amolitor said:


> I think hamlet has gotten a raft of ****, and has concluded that he comes across as offensive when he's not trying to be, and so he tries to say less and listen more.



I put my self worth in everything i do, so when someone insults or disagrees with my opinion, my self worth is under attack. Its taken me years to develop the tools to handle criticism and to keep an open mind. Its not an easy thing for me to do and it has nothing to do with the people i converse with and everything to do with me. Sooner or later everyone will eventually turn their back to me, because i don't know how to voice my disagreement in a civilized way. But there isn't a man alive who is completely sound of mind and or body. I'm just another screwed up human being.


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## Braineack (Nov 19, 2013)

Since an emotion is experienced as an immediate primary, but is, in fact, a complex, derivative sum, it permits men to practice one of the ugliest of psychological phenomena: rationalization. Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one&#8217;s emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications&#8212;in order to hide one&#8217;s motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion and, ultimately, the destruction of one&#8217;s cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one&#8217;s emotions.

Philosophical catch phrases are handy means of rationalization. They are quoted, repeated and perpetuated in order to justify feelings which men are unwilling to admit.

&#8220;Nobody can be certain of anything&#8221; is a rationalization for a feeling of envy and hatred toward those who are certain. &#8220;It may be true for you, but it&#8217;s not true for me&#8221; is a rationalization for one&#8217;s inability and unwillingness to prove the validity of one&#8217;s contentions. &#8220;Nobody is perfect in this world&#8221; is a rationalization for the desire to continue indulging in one&#8217;s imperfections, i.e., the desire to escape morality. &#8220;Nobody can help anything he does&#8221; is a rationalization for the escape from moral responsibility. &#8220;It may have been true yesterday, but it&#8217;s not true today&#8221; is a rationalization for the desire to get away with contradictions. &#8220;Logic has nothing to do with reality&#8221; is a crude rationalization for a desire to subordinate reality to one&#8217;s whims.

&#8220;I can&#8217;t prove it, but I feel that it&#8217;s true&#8221; is more than a rationalization: it is a description of the process of rationalizing. Men do not accept a catch phrase by a process of thought, they seize upon a catch phrase&#8212;any catch phrase&#8212;because it fits their emotions. Such men do not judge the truth of a statement by its correspondence to reality&#8212;they judge reality by its correspondence to their feelings.

If, in the course of philosophical detection, you find yourself, at times, stopped by the indignantly bewildered question: &#8220;How could anyone arrive at such nonsense?&#8221;&#8212;you will begin to understand it when you discover that evil philosophies are systems of rationalization.


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## pixmedic (Nov 19, 2013)

amolitor said:


> I think hamlet has gotten a raft of ****, and has concluded that he comes across as offensive when he's not trying to be, and so he tries to say less and listen more.



i find it near impossible to feel offended by reading any comments hamlet makes while looking at his hamster avatar.


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## hamlet (Nov 19, 2013)

Braineack said:


> Since an emotion is experienced as an immediate primary, but is, in fact, a complex, derivative sum, it permits men to practice one of the ugliest of psychological phenomena: rationalization. Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one&#8217;s emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications&#8212;in order to hide one&#8217;s motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion and, ultimately, the destruction of one&#8217;s cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one&#8217;s emotions.
> 
> Philosophical catch phrases are handy means of rationalization. They are quoted, repeated and perpetuated in order to justify feelings which men are unwilling to admit.
> 
> ...



Just say what is on your mind miss Rosenbaum.


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## hamlet (Nov 19, 2013)

pixmedic said:


> amolitor said:
> 
> 
> > I think hamlet has gotten a raft of ****, and has concluded that he comes across as offensive when he's not trying to be, and so he tries to say less and listen more.
> ...



That's a winter white.


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## amolitor (Nov 19, 2013)

Braineack said:


> Since an emotion is experienced as an immediate primary, but is, in fact, a complex, derivative sum, it permits men to practice one of the ugliest of psychological phenomena: rationalization. Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one&#8217;s emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications&#8212;in order to hide one&#8217;s motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion and, ultimately, the destruction of one&#8217;s cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one&#8217;s emotions.
> 
> Philosophical catch phrases are handy means of rationalization. They are quoted, repeated and perpetuated in order to justify feelings which men are unwilling to admit.
> 
> ...



WAT


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## Braineack (Nov 19, 2013)

&#8220;Proof,&#8221; in the full sense, is the process of deriving a conclusion step by step from the evidence of the senses, each step being taken in accordance with the laws of logic.


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## amolitor (Nov 19, 2013)

Are you familiar with the definition of "passive aggressive" as well? Perhaps you could tell us a little about that, Braineack.


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## Braineack (Nov 19, 2013)

see: braineack's posts.


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## veriwide (Jan 14, 2014)

No clue what you guys are talking about....  but I do know something about TS lenses as I own and use a Canon 35mm TS on my F1 - film camera. I've been photographing for well over 45 yrs and for the longest time I kept going to wider and wider lenses to try to get the tops of buildings and the like in my photos. Years ago I was all set to buy a 24mm Olympus TS lens but the salesman talked me out of it..  said to just use a high quality 24 or 21mm lens, shoot fine grain film and crop out the extra. Well, that kind of works but you end up with wasted film space and in any case the visual perspective is off compared to a normal view. Same thing happens if you shoot digital and 'fix' the tilt of the scene..  you end up cropping away a lot of pixels. Now with the TS all is fixed.. you shoot 'full frame' and you eliminate the 'extra' foreground if you wish. I use the TS as my standard lens all of the time. One more thing to consider. Lets say you are on a bridge and you want a lower angle view in your shot.. well, saved again, as you can also 'drop' the lens to get the view you want. In fact you can fine tune all of your photos to represent the actual angle of view that you want without moving.

The only fly in the ointment for me is that being a FD lens I have to use stop down metering. Worth it though.

 Get one if you can. You won't be sorry.


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## Rick58 (Jan 14, 2014)

I have the Nikkor 35mm PC. I've never used it. One day maybe


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## TCampbell (Jan 14, 2014)

I have a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II and I do use it.  

I should mention a few comments that have not been made.

1)  Every tilt-shift lens I have ever seen is manual focus only.  There are probably two good reasons for this... #1 is that you aren't trying to focus a "point" like you are with a traditional lens.. you're trying to focus a "plane" -- so point focus would probably not be very useful (I was going to say "pointless" but I didn't want to hear the groaning.)

2)  The "shift" part (which is what handles perspective correction) is fairly straight-forward ... except to say that the human brain seems to expect a tiny amount of narrowing when photographing tall things... so if you "perfectly" correct for perspective distortion on *some* subjects, it creates the optical illusion that the building is getting wider (even though if you were take a ruler to the image, you'd see that it's not).  I read a long time ago that they recommend you correct the perspective distortion... and then just *barely* back off a little for a more natural look.

3)  The "tilt" part is actually a little hard to master.  There are a few ways to do it -- but do expect a learning curve.  

I have read many different techniques.  The one technique that I thought was closest to the best for manually working in the focus is to leave the tilt normal (0º tilt) and focus to something in the background (on the plane you want in focus) first.  THEN... slowly adjust the tilt while keeping an eye on a foreground object that you *also* want focused.  Once the foreground is focused, re-check the background... some adjustment may be necessary.

The tilt axis is actually marked out with little index lines to indicate the angle of tilt.  Most lenses handle about 8º (or 8-1/2º) of tilt in either direction.  Incidentally they also usually have a rotation axis which allows you to choose the axis of tilt  (e.g. if you want to tilt up/down vs. left/right and yes you could tilt along a diagonal axis if you want and the same all applies to the shift.)  I figured if they take the time to add index marks to the tilt axis to indicate the precise angle of tilt, there must be a reason you'd want to know that... there must be a way to mathematically find the tilt angle for any given situation.  I did a lot of web searching... mostly came up empty, but EVENTUALLY I find a site that provided enough information that I was able to work out the math.

Here's the formula:

_tilt angle_ = arcsine (_lens focal length_ / _distance from lens axis to focal plane_)

In case it isn't obvious... since lens focal lengths are measured in millimeters, the distance from the lens axis to the focal plane must also be measured in millimeters to keep our units the same).

also I should point out that the _distance from lens axis to focal plane_ is measured perpendicular to the lens axis and NOT parallel to the sensor plane.  In other words as the lens tilts, that line also tilts.  

Here's an example:

If I am using a 24mm tilt-shift lens and I am 12" above a table surface and I want the table surface to be perfectly in focus, then the numbers and math are:

lens focal length = 24mm 
distance from lens axis to focal plane = 12" which is really about 305mm

So:

tilt angle = arcsine (24 / 305) 

That works out to 4.5º.  

But we did mention that if the lens is tilted 4.5º then the line from the lens to the table surface is ALSO angled at 4.5º... so we're not really measuring straight down.  However... the difference is inconsequential.  While we could try to very fractionally adjust the camera height, the math here is:  cos = adjacent / hypotenuse.  We know the hypotenuse is 305mm and the angle is 4.5.  So cosine(4.5) = a / 305.  Another way to write that is cosine(4.5) X 305 = a.   When plugging in the numbers, distance 'a' is 304mm -- not really enough to worry about.

I have put this to the test... set up the camera over, say, a Persian rug with an intricate pattern... measured the distance from the camera to the rug, plugged in the numbers, got the tilt angle, dialed the tilt into the lens, focused and... the entire "plane" comes into focus with no fuss.

However... I think most photographers probably don't carry a calculator with their tilt-shift lens... they just focus the background and adjust tilt until they get the foreground in as well.


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