The Use of Tilt Shift Lenses in Landscape Photography

Join Tim Parkin for an hour long demonstration and Q&A session about using tilt and shift lenses in landscape photography.
Find out more about how these lenses work:
www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/05...

[@autofocusrossswansea9362]

Tim, I saw an article on another website which so inspired me, I had to get one of these lenses. With little knowledge other than watching lots of youtubes, I put it into use for a macro shot, and by some fluke, found the perfect tilt and focus position for a stunningly sharp macro-ish shot of a mobile phone on a flat surface. You could see the thread on every stitch of the phone wallet, and the detail on debit cards inside, as well as the phone surface itself. I was so amazed by this (nikon PC-E 45mm) I found a 24mm and bought that too. The thing is, until I found your very laid back video here, I had little idea of how to use these well. The bit in your video which REALLY impressed me starts at approx 15mins 30 seconds in (though I didnt understand it properly at fist and re-watched it a few times to drum it in). I had no idea that turning the focus ring would widen or narrow the depth of field when tilt was already applied. I had worked out a basic technique based on another youtube. Namely, before titling down, focus on a point in the middle distance avoiding anything with height in the foreground. Having got that perfectly sharp with manual focus, next, tilt the lens down while observing the near distance. I use of course, Live View and zoomed in for this. The technique calls for not touching the focus again once set up originally, and to just watch the near distance come into focus as you simply apply tilt. I have to say, it does work. Not only that, but you Tim, actually mentioned the same technique in your video. What makes your video special though, is that your tutorial from nearly 16 mins in explains that the two things affect the depth of field. Namely, focus and tilt. Your graphic was like a light coming on in my head, and makes it quite easy to understand what is going on with the use of tilt, and, more importantly, the point you made about not applying too much tilt because to do so shuts down the depth of field by making the wedge point down too much, cutting off the top of the image from sharpness. I very strongly commend any owners of these tilt-shift lenses to watch that section several times until you 'get it'. Tim's laid back presentation hides a tremendous breakthrough technique for me, and you really should bookmark and watch this now and then to remind you of how it works! As I type, there are only 8k views and only 39 comments - yet this is one of photographies greatest secrets, and since I got into tilt-shift, I have to think twice before going out with a normal lens on the camera these days. That is how important this video is. Sorry I am late to the party, but, I am so glad I showed up in the end. Heartfelt thanks Tim, you've done a brilliant job on this.

[@amaitra]

Absolutely superb primer!

[@gigiphotos6184]

Thank you Tim! Excellent article.

[@steevewhitehead1416]

Great intro to the subject, just the sort of research I need to consider as I'm new to photography.

[@jamesloaiza3789]

Gracias, por explicarlo tan claro

[@casperghst42]

Very interesting video, only ever heard that T/S was primarily for Architecture. Now that you have shown that it can be used for landscape it suddenly have my interest. Thanks.

[@panosgatsoulias5155]

This is a super video, with not only the how, but the most importantly the why, with only 288 likes.

[@bernardfranck1318]

Great to hear you... It's evident that your background knowledge of 4x5inch format is a great advantage to explain the use of small formats 🌞📷🌞... the top for me is to stitch vertical pictures with tilt down shift if needed... Resulting a 4x5 ratio... With higher resolution 😁 thanks for refreshing all these stuff ❤️

[@davidfearn8635]

Thanks Tim: super-geeky(!), but as informative as ever: a treasure-trove of usefulness. NB: At 1:13:00 following, this is the only explanation I've ever come across of inverse bellows factor - the problem of having to use extra grads for the horizon to control differential bellows extension with large amounts of front tilt on big landscape scenes with close foreground (as often with wide-angle lenses). It makes a lot of sense; it's also worth saying that the reciprocity timer app that I use for bellows extension doesn't allow you to input negative bellows extension (well it does, but it doesn't actually calculate it). This helps to explain a couple of anomalies I've had with using wide-angle lenses with looming which I couldn't otherwise fully explain. To calculate it with the app I guess what you'd do is meter for the foreground and calculate grad for sky as usual/necessary, but then note the differential bellows extension and apply this into the app as if you were calculating this for normal bellows extension. So e.g. using 150mm wide-angle lens on 10x8, lots of front tilt, producing say 165mm bellows extension for foreground but only 135mm bellows extension for sky (thus lens technically focused 15mm beyond infinity and assuming front axis tilt, as per e.g. Linhof/Chamonix/intrepid cameras) this would mean 30mm bellows extension beyond 135mm, which would be an extra 1/2 to 2/3 stop you'd have to bring the sky down by to help correctly balance the exposure with the foreground, even after the application of e.g. a 0.6 grad to sky to balance the base exposure. More important for slide film but still good to know, and another reason to keep those tilts under control!

[@largeformatlandscape]

Yes absolutely... I reckon for a midpoint horizon and focussing very close, you might get half a top in the sky (possibly a little more)

[@JamesBellLandscapePhotography]

This has come at a perfect time for me Tim. I’ve spent the last few days getting to grips with a new tilt shift setup on my Hasselblad X1D. I’ve gone for the HCD24mm attached the the Hasselblad HTS1.5 Tito shift adapter and then the XH adapter so the lens and adapter can talk to my X1D. Having used a canon 5DSR and the wonderful 24mm TS-R preciously I’ve missed movements. I’ve been using the simulator on your server and have made some good progress in the last day or two. One of the issues I’m seeing now is softness in my images when using the hts1.5. I aren’t sure if this is due to the extra glass in the setup or my use of f11 or f16 which given the HTS multiplies the lens by a factor or 1.5 this maybe effecting my aperture. Tomorrow I will try larger aperture and hope the image quality improves in terms of sharpness. I was thinking of emailing you about all this and then this video popped up. As always good work. Us photographers should be grateful for the contribution you make to the community in educating and sharing your knowledge. Thanks for now.

[@largeformatlandscape]

The HTS does affect virtual aperture and diffraction limits (I think)

[@RolandAyala]

Great, if not the best, video I've found on the topic of applying Scheimpflug principle & hinge rule. I've watched it a several times over already. Thank you. Have or can you share your javascript visualizer, even if just the Javascript itself?

[@waynehubbell1401]

In the tilt shift set up with multiple adapters, the main point of interest to me is that one of the adapters has a tripod mount that allows the camera back to tilt and shift relative to the lens. Which adapter is that? I could not find one like that from Kipon and Mirex no longer has a web presence. Then with a second adapter, the lens can tilt and shift relative to the sensor. Here we apparently have all movements of a field camera.

[@RecklessRowly]

Am I correct in thinking if you measure the distance from the center of the sensor to the ground (in the plane of the sensor) which we'll call distance. then the tilt angle required is the arctan(lens focal length /distance)?

[@puppetyr]

Excellent video! Could you please provide the link to your tilt app? I can't find it anywhere. Thanks.

[@largeformatlandscape]

static.timparkin.co.uk/static/focus/ You mighjt have to zoom the page in and out to get it to layout properly

[@puppetyr]

@@largeformatlandscape Excellent, many thanks!

[@amaitra]

Is there a Canon RF to EF shift adapter like you mention? I use an Arax adapter to adapt hassleblad V series to EF. As you point out, the tilt and shift are perpendicular. The tilt changes the composition and I need to adjust the camera body (readjust ball head) to get back the original composition. So the original setup needs to be tweaked. I guess it is not possible to have one such adapter on the EF mount given the flange distances (?) but on a RF mount, a second adapter could do the trick? Superb video!

[@largeformatlandscape]

There's on you can 3d print but nothing commercial as far as I know

[@amaitra]

@@largeformatlandscape Thanks! Anyone selling / offering the 3D file?

[@williamthatcher9560]

Tim, can you provide the adapter names, model numbers and where to purchase? Searching for the Mirex adapter has not yielded any fruit. Are there other options to your two/three adapter solution? I’m located in the US.

[@largeformatlandscape]

I use Mirex but I'm not sure of the model. Kipon make a duplicate that is almost identical. There should only be one model for each camera mount (i.e. Sony E to Canon EF)

[@flipflopsLF]

Please consider a video just on the proper use of rear asymmetric tilt. I’m doing trial and error with my Chamonix 45 F2 yet your informative approach would be appreciated. Thanks

[@largeformatlandscape]

Pretty niche but at some point I'll be doing a video of me using large format and I'll show how I use assymetric on my Ebony 45SU

[@datagrowth]

While Merklinger wrote extensively about focus in the 1990s, the rule you call "Merklinger's rule" was patented by Jules Carpentier (1901) and Theodore Scheimpflug (1904), and is usually called the "Scheimpflug Principle". www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/SHSPAT.pdf

[@largeformatlandscape]

Not quite - Merklinger approached the problem in a slightly more complex way, taking into account the distance from lens to film plane.

[@steveh1273]

Online calculators I've found agree that 110mm on 5x4 is equivalent to 29.7mm on 35mm sensor. A 90mm lens on 5x4 is equivalent to 24mm on a 35mm sensor.

[@largeformatlandscape]

Hmm... You can't calculate the difference without taking into account crop. The height of 35mm film is 24mm. The height of 5x4 film is 98mm (landscape orientation). Hence the factor for focal length calculations is 4x if you keep the height the same (i.e. if you crop your 35mm to 5x4 ratio normally). However, the width of 35mm film is 36mm and the width of 5x4 film is 120mm. So if you keep the width the same (say you crop your 5x4 to 3x2 ratio or 2:1 maybe) then the ratio is 3.33. Hence a 110mm lens is either 28mm if you normally crop your photos to 5x4 or 33mm if you like panoramas Likewise a 90mm is either 22.5mm or 27mm

[@gregfaris6959]

The "Merkelinger Rule" described is of course what we generally know as the Scheimpflug Principle. Merkelinger only wrote an article about it in the 1990's, but did no actual contribution. Interestingly, Theodore Scheimpflug, in the 1880's declined authorship of the principle, citing instead French photographer and engineer Jules Carpentier, who himself stated he was only applying known Eponymous principles from Stigler.

[@largeformatlandscape]

Merklinger is actually subtly different and more applicable to photographers. Scheimpflug "merely" states that the film plane, lens plane and focus plane coincide. Merklinger interprets these rules for various practical applications. From a description of Merklinger's paper "There's a second law of optics similar to Scheimpflug's (first) Principle. Like the earlier rule, this one, also described in Scheimpflug's patent, states that there is another set of three planes that must converge along a common line. Like the first rule, one of the planes is the subject plane. The second plane is again one through the center of the lens, but this time parallel to the film. And the third plane is again perpendicular to the lens axis, but now one focal length in front of the lens. This second principle seems to have been largely ignored by photographers."

[@jonathanwalters2176]

Tilting does not increase your depth of field, what it does is it changes the plane of focus, so that your region of acceptable focus changes such that it is no longer parallel to your film/sensor plane.

[@largeformatlandscape]

"apparent" depth of field. It actually decreases the amount of depth of field substantially

[@dgncadiz]

54:03 Do you mean that lenses have an inherent distortion at the edges of the image circle? Most of that distortion is due to the fact that you have tilted the back of the camera (or sensor plane). As long as the subject plane and the sensor plane are parallel, there won't be any distortion. If TS lenses had an inherent distortion at the edges of the image circle, they would be of little use to architectural photographers.

[@largeformatlandscape]

I mean that the natural perspective of a lens causes things to appear stretched away from the direct line of sight of the lens. This is why the person on the edge of a group of people photographed with a wide angle lens appears to have a stretched head. In order to achieve a 'normal' perspective, a lens magnifying power is greater at the edges. You can view it from a few different frames of reference. It's probably best described here www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/05/whats-the-shift-in-tilt-shift/

[@largeformatlandscape]

p.s. There's a difference between distortion on a planar surface and the way things are distorted that are three dimensional. The classic image of a page full of circles showing them as undistorted with a wide angle lens but place a sphere on each of the circles and the spheres look distorted.

[@dgncadiz]

@@largeformatlandscape Thanks for the explanation, I really struggle understanding this. I was just looking at the picture of the circles and spheres in Merklinger's book that you are referring to and it's taking me a while to get my head around it. From what I can see, to create the looming effect the distortion sought by shifting the lens down and tilting the sensor backwards won't always work, if the subject plane ends up being parallel to the lens plane?

[@markdodsworth5439]

Why not just mount the Canon tse lens using an adapter?

[@largeformatlandscape]

price :-)

[@markdodsworth5439]

@@largeformatlandscape ahh i thought you already owned the lens. They are expensive i got mine second hand. 🙂

[@SilverHalides]

Very nice video indeed about a concept that is still unfortunately rather incomprehensible to me. I would very much like to be able to apply this technique to landscape photography, to extend the depth of field and have spent many hours reading papers and watching documentary videos about the theory of this subject. I have made tests with my Hasselblad Flexbody (by the way, I enjoyed this video, with English subtitles: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHLWZq2ffq59fq8), and now also have a tilt and shift adapter that allows me to use Hasselblad lenses on a Sony digital camera, but I am unfortunately largely incapable of controlling the effect of applying tilt. I have searched for the browser based tool to visualise the effect that you have developed. Is it still available? Again, thanks for a very informative and interesting video!

[@thevalleyofdisappointment]

21:40 TRIPPY...

[@democloud2348]

hi