Similar to view cameras or press cameras, tilt-shift lens offers a hands-on approach to optical manipulation and perspective control. Tilt determines the plane of focus by allowing you to point a lens at an angle other than perpendicular to the image plane. As a normal lens can only focus on a singular plane, the areas of sharpness in a photo will be the same distance from the camera. With tilt, the focal plane becomes pliable.
Shift, on the other hand, is the parallel upward or downward displacement of the lens to the image plane. This results in the photographer being able to adjust a subject’s place in a composition without needing to move the camera itself. It also keeps everything squared, eliminating the convergence of vertical lines, a phenomenon known as “keystoning” that occurs when photographing tall buildings, for example.
“Tilt-shift lenses are some of the more exotic hunks of glass out there, but they enable some very unique capabilities that simply can’t be accomplished with normal lenses. This interesting video shows how their shift capabilities can be used to easily create panoramic images.”
In this next video photographer Mason Marsh talks about his techniques for creating panoramic landscape photographs with the Canon 24mm Tilt Shift in the vertical position and taking three images to be later stitched together in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop.
