How to use tilt-shift lenses
Canon’s tilt-shift lenses change the way you shoot and open up a whole world of possibilities
There’s an extensive range of tilt-shift lenses from Canon, and several smaller independent makers. Yet few photographers own one or have even tried a tilt-shift lens on their camera. When you understand how they work, the creative possibilities multiply.
Canon’s range of tilt-shift lenses included TS-E 17mm, 24mm, 50mm, 90mm and 135mm focal lengths. Wide-angle lenses are more suited to landscapes, architecture and interiors, the 90mm and 135mm for product, jewellery and portrait photography.
Tilt-shift lenses are specialist prime lenses, with two unique capabilities; the lens can be shifted in relation to the camera body, and the lens can be tilted so it’s not perpendicular to the sensor. The shift movement is often used for interiors and architecture photos. You can capture tall buildings from ground level and avoid converging vertical lines. You can rotate the lens around the lens mount so that the shift can be vertical, horizontal, 45 degrees or 60 degrees. By shifting a lens to the left or right it is possible to take a photo of a subject in a mirror and not include the photographer in the shot. The 50mm and wider angle lenses are the best for this as the shift effect is greater than the slightly longer lenses.
The tilt capability is often misunderstood. By tilting the lens, the focal plane that normally runs parallel to the image sensor is rotated. This tilt can be used to ensure objects behind the main subject are in focus, by aligning the focus plane with the objects. If you experiment with it, try using the lens at or near its maximum aperture to see the effect. You can also use reverse tilt, to minimize depth of field and draw the viewers eye to a specific part of the frame.
Since tilt-shift lenses are manual focus only, then it’s a good idea to put a focus point on to the key part of your subject, and half-press the shutter. Now you will get confirmation in the viewfinder when the selected focus point is in focus.
You’ll find it much more beneficial to use a tripod, possibly with a geared head and tether your camera. This means that in Live View you can see all the effects of the lens’ movements when you go about composing or recomposing the frame.
I have some photos to enter in my camera club competitions, but they need them to be resized to 1600x1200 pixels, how do you do this in Dpp? Nicky Cheshire, Bradford
Brian Says… You can use DPP to process your Raw and JPEG photos, and then export the finished files as a JPEG to meet the sizes your camera club uses. Since all recent EOS cameras create files with much more resolution than your club projector, you’ll need to create reduced size JPEG. You will want to maintain as much quality as possible, despite the smaller size.
The initial process is the same as for any image – work on the photo to achieve the colour tone you want, fix any dust spots, and execute any lens corrections. Digital Lens Optimizer is probably not needed as you will be downsizing the final file. The key when resizing is to check both height and width fit within your club’s required sizes.