Tilt-Shift Lens – First hand experience!
I am very fortunate to have TWO best friends in my life. One of them is “Nerd”. Some of you may know OF her, but why do I call her “Nerd”? Well… Because she is a Nerd! She’s a total geek when it comes to photography. She’s also one of the sweetest and most generous person’s I know out there. So why am I bringing her up? I’m second shooting a wedding this Saturday with my friend Alex from Red Sphere Studios. I had asked Nerd if I could borrow some of her photography gear to use for the wedding, like her battery pack and fish eye lens. She recently got the Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 lens and she was so kind to let me borrow it. I received the lens today and I couldn’t be happier since I had planned to do a photowalk during my lunch break. When I first opened the tilt-shift lens, I was amazed at the quality; the body was made out of metal, not plastic! Super sturdy lens and very easy to manually focus. I’ve never studied on how to use a tilt-shift lens, so it took a few minutes to play and learn how to use it. I absolutely LOVE this lens!! I think its a lot more fun than a fish eye! But I still love the fish eye lens as well :). So I’d like to share my photos that I took today. Keep in mind that this is my first time learning to use a tilt-shift all in one hour. They’re not the greatest photos but it’s so much fun to play with once you get the hang of it and it just gives such a different perspective :).
A small walk through Chinatown. Was inspired by David’s published photo in the Popular Photographer magazine to take photos of the lanterns!
On top of the Chinatown bridge that connects to the Hilton in the Financial District.
This construction guy with the sign made a perfect subject for my tilt-shift lens experience!
Well, hello gorgeous!
Okay, this is probably what tilt-shift shouldn’t look like, but oh well! I’m learning! 😀
I just love how the flag was illuminated by the lighting in the background :).
Thank you so much, Nerd for letting me borrow your fantastic gear!! 😀
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these photos with nice effect… similar to the lens baby.. :-).. something new to see.. thanks for sharing.
thanks David 🙂
Interesting. Are the blurred area controllable ? I always thought these effects are better done at post digitally, but some of these really have much better quality through the lens than done digitally which makes me itchy to try.
Yes, the blurred effects are completely controllable through the f-stops. I took all of these photos at f/2.8 because I wanted to achieve the shallow dept of field. It’s a little weird at first because the DOF is seen all throughout the foreground and background. With a normal lens, you’ll see the DOF behind a subject (or in front depending on where you’re focusing). I used my live viewfinder to take these shots so I can see where my focus was (kinda hard to tell through the small eye piece).
ahh.. good to know.
Ohhh that lens looks sweet 😀 I’m gradually getting more and more into the TS look and these shots are a great example of how it can be used Jasmine! Hope you are having a good weekend so far!
🙂 Thank you Kelven! It’s a really fun lens!
Oooo, real tilt shift! Love the post…I should rent one of these bad boys and have a go myself =)
Agreed, I love the blue on the flag in the last flag pic.