Hong Kong 2013 - In Tilt/Shift
- Thread starter Raymond Lin
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Just a shot of Mountain Dew
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Just a shot of Mountain Dew
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I must say that I'm disappointed. I would have hoped that with a T&S in your capable hands, we would be looking at stunning landscapes that were pin sharp from your feet to the horizon. Or great architecture with the perspective corrected. Or impossibly wide angles stitched together.
I would have expected this gimmick to be a vanashingly small proportion of your work.
Go on - show us what you are really capable of...
Andrew
I would have expected this gimmick to be a vanashingly small proportion of your work.
Go on - show us what you are really capable of...
Andrew
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lol, is that a dare? 
no landscapes or architecture.....seriously, i did not buy the T/S for that. I have no intention to do that here either. It has never crossed my mind, and the thought of it bores me a little to be honest. What you want my to use is the Shift feature for perspective correction, and in reality, they are very subtle, like 32 & 33. I don't have a tripod here to set up so I can take a photo shifting up and then down and turn to the side and repeat a few times either so practically speaking it is not going to happen i am afraid.
But is that really want you want to see? perspective correction?
I may have 1 panoramic (regular) but this laptop is too slow to stitch anything together so none will be done while i am here.
no landscapes or architecture.....seriously, i did not buy the T/S for that. I have no intention to do that here either. It has never crossed my mind, and the thought of it bores me a little to be honest. What you want my to use is the Shift feature for perspective correction, and in reality, they are very subtle, like 32 & 33. I don't have a tripod here to set up so I can take a photo shifting up and then down and turn to the side and repeat a few times either so practically speaking it is not going to happen i am afraid. But is that really want you want to see? perspective correction?
I may have 1 panoramic (regular) but this laptop is too slow to stitch anything together so none will be done while i am here.
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and who don't like trains
I am the same, I kind of hinted at that with my top reply.
These minute model world photos are just like the overdone HdR photos, really not to my taste. Was hoping Raymond would use the lens in either its intended way, or in other creative ways. This effect is really just a fad, the fact that a website exists to make fake versions says so much, and if you are just making minature model worlds then I see no reason not to do this purely in software, no need for a lens at all TBH.
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lol, is that a dare?
But is that really want you want to see? perspective correction?
I may have 1 panoramic (regular) but this laptop is too slow to stitch anything together so none will be done while i am here.
No, perspective correction is just one, but very useful ability of a perspective correction (PC in Nikon nomenclature) lens. I was hoping for unusual focal planes leading to interesting photos, or large DoF macros or landscapes. Didn't think you would just copy a fad.
Not to say your photos aren't nice, I like the processing and consistency, and can see your photographic eye, just hoped you would be creative with the lens or at least use it as intended, not follow Internet fashions. Mini models are fun as a play around like extreme HDRs or selective colors but the effect is not endearing.
Maybe
The T&S stuff that has impressed me the most from other photographers is where the focal plane stretches from within reach to infinity.
Andrew
I don't like them. I can see the use of a TS lens for fixing verticals etc., but I'm not a fan of the 'toy town' look.
I really do think you missed some good shots here Raymond if you had taken them with a normal lens. As someone has already said, the colours are great and quite clearly some of the subjects are out of the ordinary, but the TS effect just doesn't look good in most of them.
I really do think you missed some good shots here Raymond if you had taken them with a normal lens. As someone has already said, the colours are great and quite clearly some of the subjects are out of the ordinary, but the TS effect just doesn't look good in most of them.
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Maybe
The T&S stuff that has impressed me the most from other photographers is where the focal plane stretches from within reach to infinity.
Andrew
Challenge accepted !
It has only been 2 days though so I am still getting the hang of this lens.
Manual focus aside, the thinking behind taking a photograph when using a TS lens is on a different level or to be more accurate, a different dimension compare to a normal lens.
With a normal lens you just pick the subject, and compose. It is in a way a 2D exercise. The AF does the focus for you and you only worry about X & Y mostly.
With a TS, soon as you tilt, you can "visually" see the DoF pane (as long as the focal pane lands on something then you can see how thin or thick it is). Focusing is no longer trying to focus, it is more like moving that focal pane from left to right or top to bottom until it lands on what you want to focus on. Depends which way you tilt, the focal pane (along with distance to the side of that) is either near or further away from you. So if you tilt right and there is a person on the left side of the frame you may not be able to land the focal pane on it, it just doesn't go that far, depending on how far that person is away from the camera.
Now in a real world situation it means you might have to tilt the lens to the other side instead.
Then comes to exposure, because you are bending the light. Tilting the lens to the side can either cause more or less light in to the value of 2 to 2 and a half stop. So it can be a total of 5 stop from tilting from top to bottom. This is in Av mode even. The metering just goes out of wack totally. So that is something to think about. I am slowly learning which way to nudge that exposure compensation dial on the fly by the direction of tilt I am using. I still get it wrong more times than i'd like.
The miniature effect isn't really what i bought the lens for, it is however a side effect that i am playing with and when you are high up, that is the obvious thing to do I guess. The thing I am learning to do is get that focal pane to land on the subject i want when i want it at F/2.8. I am not sure who has or hasn't use a TS lens and imagine using just the viewfinder to see if something is in focus, it is not easy so that's what i've been trying to do mostly. Using the focal pane to show you what i want you to see, the miniature effect is a side effect of it really, albeit a fun one. Like I said from the start, this is a learning exercise to see what works and what doesn't. Shooting the entire trip this way will give me more idea than doing it now and again.
Now to your challenge of using the focal pane and infinity, if I get what you mean, that is like shooting in not 3D but almost 4D. Not only you have to compose (2D), then focus (3D), and do it in a way that the focal pane goes in a direction so in the infinity of it, it also has something in the distance as that is also a point of focus. So you need to line up the focal pane, something that you can't see, unless an object cuts it. The hardest part come with knowing the angle of direction it goes and actually seeing both in focus, not easy doing it in a viewfinder, much easier with the LCD (don't get a chance to do that on the street, been told off twice in 2 days for taking photos in shopping malls!
)I have 4 years' worth of photos with other lenses so I am not missing out, at least I don't think so. I will try something different again next time so this is an experiment that i want to do for a while.
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There are a couple that look really, really good. But personally I find the effect horrible most of the time. I don't know if it's just me, but I find it really distracting and fidgety.
A lot of them would make good poster backgrounds, but as photos... not to my taste I'm afraid.
A lot of them would make good poster backgrounds, but as photos... not to my taste I'm afraid.
Soldato
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It seems TS is a bit like marmite. Personally I quite like the effect, and I think a few in a set adds some variety.
Soldato
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I don't think I particularly like the 'toy' look, but I do like it when used in shot 32.
kd
kd
Soldato
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The toy look is probably my favourite aspect of TS. 32 looks plain Jane to me. Yes the verticals are strait, but you can pretty much do that in Lightroom, and you CAN do that in DXO optics.
Of course if your going to shoot architecture, then it makes sense to get a TS and get it right in camera to avoid all the post.
Of course if your going to shoot architecture, then it makes sense to get a TS and get it right in camera to avoid all the post.
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I think I'll join you in the exploration. I have a TS-E 24L that I have hardly used.
To me, the architypical T&S shot is an interesting rock formation at your feet, dominating the foreground, with a magnificent mountain behind it. I may have stumbled across a nice location this evening, with the rocks on the shore near West Kilbride and the mountains of Arran in the distance. I'll see what I can do.
Getting the focus right is >very< difficult. I use live view at maximum pixel-peeping setting and wander round the image checking the focus. As you say, there are three dimension to play with - the tilt, the which varies the angle of the focal plane, the shift, which moves the focal plane away from the centre and the focus ring, which moves the plane further away or closer. Move one and you need to adjust the other two to compensate...
To start with, budget an hour for setting up a shot. And if you haven't got a tripod, and time in HK, it isn't the place to start
Once you have the hang of the technology, I am very interested to see how you use it an apply it.
Of course, it is something that won't be appreciated in small images on the 'net. But it will really come into it's own, when you can print out all that detail on your lovely large format printers...