Tag Archives: tiltshift

Thoughts

In-camera, optical tilt shift is now achievable

I’m not sure when it clicked for you that tilt shift could be had easily and practically, in camera with some recent models, but that time was today for me.

Tilt–shift photography is the use of camera movements that change the orientation and/or position of the lens with respect to the film or image sensor on cameras.

Sometimes the term is used when the large depth of field is simulated with digital post-processing; the name may derive from a perspective control lens (or tilt–shift lens) normally required when the effect is produced optically.

“Tilt–shift” encompasses two different types of movements: rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift.

Tilt is used to control the orientation of the plane of focus (PoF), and hence the part of an image that appears sharp; it makes use of the Scheimpflug principle. Shift is used to adjust the position of the subject in the image area without moving the camera back; this is often helpful in avoiding the convergence of parallel lines, as when photographing tall buildings.

Tilt-shift photography, Wikipedia

The only mainstream lens manufacturer I know of that sells tilt-shift lenses is Canon. While I like Canon cameras and love the capabilities of tilt-shift lenses, I would like to see if there are other ways to handle this issue. It’s somewhat of a niche problem, but it’s one that’s worth addressing.

And then it dawned on me. Some camera models have sophisticated 5-axis image stabilization. That means they effectively tilt and shift the sensor, along with “shake it all about” and so on, in order to keep a longer exposure clear. But what if we were to modify the firmare, to introduce a special section in the camera menus, where the vertical and horizontal angles at which the sensor is kept when facing a scene could be manually adjusted through that special section? We could effectively introduce optical tilt and shift capabilities by manipulating the sensor, while still using the same lenses.

Lightroom offers some options to tilt and shift the image after it’s been taken, but any good photographer will tell you it’s better to capture the image you need directly in camera. Introducing a special menu that lets us tilt and shift the sensor, perhaps using the buttons and dials already built on the camera, would provide this valuable niche capability to those who do not own Canon tilt-shift lenses and do not shoot with Canon cameras. It’d literally be a bonus firmware upgrade that could be pushed out and the new feature should just work. There would be some limitations in the amount of movement, since the IBIS engine wasn’t originally built for this, but it would work, and in future iterations of the IBIS, I’m sure it would work even better.

If you liked this idea and you work in product design and development, you may want to have a look at my consulting website.

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How To

Get the tiltshift look right from Adobe Lightroom

If you use Adobe Lightroom and want to apply a tiltshift effect to your photos, you can spend hundreds of dollars on expensive Photoshop plugins, or you can do it for free, with an Adobe AIR app called TiltShift.

If you’ve used TiltShift before, you know you can open any photo in it and apply tiltshift effects to it, but did you know you can do this right from Lightroom? Here’s how.

In Lightroom, open up the Export window and add a new Export Preset. See the screenshot below. I called mine TiltShift, so I can easily remember it. Adjust any of the settings, like color space, sizing, sharpening, etc. They don’t really matter, although it’s better to keep the image smaller so TiltShift can work faster with it.

The really important option is in the post-processing section — the very last one in the Export window. There, you’ve got to make sure you tell Lightroom to “Open [your photo] in Other Application…”, then click on the Choose button and browse to find the TiltShift app. This is pretty much it.

lightroom-tiltshift-setup

Lightroom will automatically pass your image to TiltShift, which will open it and allow you add tiltshift effects to it, to your liking. For example, I initially processed this image of a medieval water pump found on the streets of Medias, Romania, in Lightroom.

The old water fountain

Then I exported it into TiltShift using the export preset set up as described above, and adjusted the settings there to get the effect I wanted. This is how the controls and the image looked inside TiltShift.

tiltshift-screenshot

Once I did that, I saved the photo and uploaded it here. This is how the final image looks.

water-fountain-tiltshift

It couldn’t be easier, and again, let me remind you TiltShift is a free app.

[TiltShift home page] [Download TiltShift]

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Reviews

Create tiltshift photographs on Mac, Windows and Linux, for free

Takayuki Fukatsu has created a free Adobe AIR app called TiltShift, which runs on any OS that supports AIR (namely Mac, Windows and Linux). It will allow you to easily apply tilt-shift effects to any photograph. Best of all, the price is right: it’s free. Even if this app cost $10 or $20, I’d still rather buy it than some Photoshop plugins that cost hundreds of dollars and do pretty much the same thing.

In less than a couple of minutes, I was able to open a photograph of my wife and niece, walking on the streets of Medias, Romania, and add tilt-shift effects to it. Here’s what it looks like now.

Ligia and Laura

Sure, the tiltshift effect isn’t what you’d get with a LensBaby or with a real tilt-shift lens like the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L (or any of the other professional tilt-shift lenses made by camera manufacturers), but still, it’s better than no effect at all, and it’s free. TiltShift’s controls are really slider-based and really easy to use. You’ll be making tiltshift photos in no time flat. Give it a go and see how you like it.

tiltshift-controls

I mentioned TiltShift initially in one of my Condensed Knowledge posts, back in May.

[Download TiltShift]

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