Tilt/Shift in the bluebell wood

I was reminded by Womble's recent post that I haven't used the tilt part of my Samyang 24mm TS lens for ages, so I went down to the woods to give it another go. A tripod is a must as you have to tweak the camera angle and degree of tilt to frame up, the aim is to turn (in this case) the focal plane from vertical to horizontal; the amount to tilt is less than you imagine and is explained in the Scheimpflug Principle. That way everything at ground level is sharp (you have to manually focus) even using wide apertures and things higher above become out of focus, in these examples my tripod was at minimum height and the lens set at f8:




And for good measure a couple with the 50mm Macro lens:

Lovely shots showing what can be achieved

Not only great shots, but useful info. Appreciated, RobL.

#3 is superb Rob

I could have done with that this afternoon at Wooten Warwen. That 1st one is the business!

Impressive and beautiful . Almost makes me want to get a T&S lens to experiment with. Then I remember all the other photographic projects at the back of my mind, most of which haven't even been started...

A wild thought - is there a way of using tilt to increase DoF for macro? Extension tubes with tilt? Tilting bellows? Has focus stacking made it irrelevant? Or is it simply not appropriate for typical macro subjects?

Steve

Hi Steve, you are not increasing depth of field but simply changing the focal plane: in normal situations the focal plane is parallel to the camera sensor so that things nearer and further away are out of focus, by tilting the focal plane that depth of field stays the same and instead items above and below the focal plane go out of focus. You can also rotate it sideways so items on one side of the image are sharp but on the other side are soft, it is used to get that “toy” effect so that a real railway looks like a model railway etc.

A popular application is for seascapes whereby you can get sharpness from nearby to the horizon, as there are no vertical elements to get softened. This saves focus stacking which is difficult with moving elements like the sea.

To be honest though I very rarely use the tilt and hardly ever take the lens along in a bag for landscapes “just in case” and have only ever used it on a beach on a very calm day given its vulnerability to sand and salt spray. Given it is a 24mm lens I have found a wide angle lens focused on the right spot will give great depth of field anyway.

So in answer to your question, no it wouldn’t help with macro!

Thanks, Rob. I'd almost come to the same conclusion myself re macro but thought it worth asking in case I was missing something obvious. What made me think of the question was the last picture in your set, wondering whether a bit of tilt would have got the full length of the stem in focus as well as the flowers. Whether that's aesthetically desirable is, of course, an entirely different matter!

Steve

Harder with a tilt-shift lens but with large format where "macro" is provided via the bellows, you can use tilt to alter the plane of focus in a useful way.

Product photography where you wanted the whole of your packet of cornflakes to be in focus used to be done with large format. In LF, you can also "swing" to tilt the plane of focus from side to side, or do both simultaneously.

The more close-up sort of LF photography is not something I have ever seriously tried but I know the theory. Mostly I use my LF for architecture with some rise and occasionally a little swing. Ooo errrr.

Basically Kris the TS lens is doing the same as your bellows-type large format, moving and angling the lens relative to the sensor/film plane. I am always curious how the bellows type works as the image circle from a TS lens is larger than a conventional lens so that the sensor stays within the circle as it is moved around. If you splash out about forty grand on a Phase One for shift only you can move the sensor back instead!

Hi Rob,

When you buy a LF lens you check it's image circle and make sure it is bigger than your intended film size. Some have more limited image circle than others. You then have to make sure that what ever you do in terms of movements doesn't result in the film being outside the image circle. Usually moderate "normal" movements are fine. The more extreme movements (beloved of people taking photos of LF cameras but almost never used in practice) might cause problems.

For 99% of applications, the TS lens will basically work just as well. On rare occasions the combination of movements on LF is not possible with the TS lens. Additionally, movements of the rear standard have a different effect than movements of the front standard. I never remember the details but there are some good books on the subject.

Sadly, I do not use my LF camera nearly as much as I would like to. I find it hard to find the time, and I really need a good rucksack for it but I haven't found one that works, yet.

Best wishes, Kris.