Tilt-shift lenses sit off-center of the film (or sensor) plane of your camera to produce photos with extremely limited depth of field, giving the effect of a macro shot of a tiny scene. When the effect is matched with the surreal speed boost of many stills strung together into a time-lapse movie, we get the other-worldly privilege of seeing real Australian beach goers as an elaborate Playmobil scape.

<object width="400" height="300"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1785993&amp;server=vimeo.com &amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portr ait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /> <embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1785993&amp;server=vimeo.com &amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portr ait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://vimeo.com/1785993?pg=embed&amp;sec=1785993">Beached</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/keithloutit?pg=embed&amp;sec=1785993">Keith Loutit</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com?pg=embed&amp;sec=1785993">Vimeo</a>.

Or Sydney Harbor in a bath tub...
<object width="400" height="225"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1831024&amp;server=vimeo.com &amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portr ait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /> <embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1831024&amp;server=vimeo.com &amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portr ait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://vimeo.com/1831024?pg=embed&amp;sec=1831024">Bathtub III</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/keithloutit?pg=embed&amp;sec=1831024">Keith Loutit</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com?pg=embed&amp;sec=1831024">Vimeo</a>.

http://gizmodo.com/5060074/amazing-t...ians-of-us-all

 

nifty, interesting how tilt shift lenses make everything look like miniature models.

 

Haha.
Wow, that's pretty cool. I had never even heard of tilt shift lenses before.

 

Some plenty good video (stills) as well

 

Weird, I was just about to make a thread about LensBabies...

 

Are those 24 or 30 fps?

 

If you think about it, this is sort of an interesting example of psychology. Here we have an optics phenomenon that is so ingrained in our culture that we can't help but automatically associating subject scale with it.

 

haha pretty cool

 

I keep on trying to understand it.



What makes it look miniature? Everything is to scale, right?

 

idk, but its blurry in the edges... might have something to do with it.

 

Not sure if I found this posted here or on some other site, but here are some pics from the singapore grand prix, and a few were taken with a tilt-shift lens. Such a cool effect. The other photos on the site are really good too, worth checking out.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...rand_prix.html

 

same idea, not as finite control. They are fun though.

 

very cool

It's weird, cause my best friend and I were talking about about these types of lenses today when we were at Nikon in TO. We were picking up his broken lens, which he decide not to have fixed. We, meaning him while I watched, took it apart and ended up fixing the damn thing ourselves. VERY cool experience. I will ask for the pics he took if he still has them. Sorry about the hijack.

 

That's what is, everything about the shot pushes you to whats only in focus, thus giving the miniature effect.

 

so photoshop -> gaussian blur will do the same thing then...

...just kidding.....it's early...

 

I've used this PS tutorial for editing pics. The vids are pretty cool.

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/...p-tutorial.php

 

That is a sweet effing tutorial, thanks bdog.


There you rimz

 

Wow, that lens blur completely changes the way the picture looks. It's amazing how much that tricks your eye

 

Alright, let's see who's got their observin' eyes in today....

There's a fundamental difference between the effect produced in the tutorial bdog posted and the the beach video made with the tilt/shift lens. You don't even have to watch the video. You can see it in the static frame that's displayed.

Two hints:
-The video is showing something that only a tilt/shift lens is capable of doing on a SLR. I'm not referring to depth of field.

-You could theoretically change the gradient step in the tutorial to make the Photoshop effect look the same.

Anyone?

 

It's more of a radial gradient in the real thing. I was thinking that when watching the video

 

Here's one I did just now. Turned out pretty well I think

 

In the ballpark but not the answer I was looking for.

 

Actually, looking back, I'm pretty much completely wrong lol

 

I don't want to spoil it, so keep guessing...






Instead of tilt and shift, this lens has been rotated to allow for swing and shift. The focal plane is now on an angle to the X-axis instead of the Y-axis. You could mimic the effect by changing the angle of the gradient in the tutorial instead of just leaving it straight up and down.

 

Unlike what Dan just said I was going to state you don't get a true bokeh effect with lights. Photoshop just blurs everything creating noise, while the actual lens still keep it's effect sharper?

 

I actually meant to state that you're excluded from the quiz.

 

OK, now that I've had a minute to draw a basic diagram, Dan nailed it with his response.
With regular lenses, your focal plane is always parallel to the camera's sensor/film plane. When you use a tilt/shift lens in this manner, your focal plane is "angled" within your scene and not parallel to the camera's sensor plane. What's really unique about this sort of application is that your depth of field extends out perpendicular to this angled focal plane.

IMO, what makes the beach example look "odd" isn't so much the shallow depth of field. It's that the shallow DoF is extending perpendicular to the angled focal plane.

 

A lot more here: http://www.funtasticus.com/20081128/...t-photography/

These are so cool!

 

Very Cool - very cool indeed

 

thats so awesome! everything looks like a little toy model!