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.

---

Be well, stay safe.

#3 is superb Rob

---

Chris

www.chrismillsphotography.co.uk

" A Hangover is something that occupies the Head you neglected to use the night before".

-------------------------------------------------------------
K1 - Sigma 85mm F1.4, Pentax DFA 150 -450 F4.5 / 5.6, Pentax DFA* 24 - 70 F2.8

Samyang 14mm F2.8, Pentax DFA* 70-200 F2.8

K3iii + K3ii + K5iis converted to IR, Sigma 17 - 70 F2.8, Pentax 55 - 300 F4.5 / F5.6 PLM

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

---

Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass

My page on Photocrowd - link

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