I mostly use the shift lenses I have for panoramas and rarely use tilt. I've been taking both shift-only and stitched panos with the lens shifted for perspective corrections as in architecture.
It doesn't take more than a degree or two for non-artsy effects so I don't think that the 8-10 degrees of tilt on a 35-format lens are a limiting factor. There's always the lens-baby if you want more. I don't think the tilt is as usefull with a 35mm format for a traditional landscape as it's fairly easy to stop down enough for DOF with a wide angle -- just my opinion though (no fields of tulips around to prove my point).
For architecture, which is my hobby, I do feel limited by the rise/fall/shift on the 24 TS-E compared with my view camera.
I agree that the narrow DOF extreme tilt effect is a bit stylized and overused, but it's awesome for making things look miniaturized!!
As far as tilt goes for widening the plane of sharp focus, you really can see it if you look. Here are a couple side-by-side comparisons I took with very close focus comparing normal (left) and tilt (right). Following these are two shots that have very close foregrounds and distant backgrounds; I was focusing less than 2 feet away for both shots, and I don't think they'd be sharp throughout even if I'd stopped down to f/32.
With the first one I see that we have the same brand TV. The other ones I think I'd prefer to play with the DOF in the composition but that may be a personal choice.
DOF is a constant headache for macro shooters. At least for planar subjects, tilt/swing can vastly improve the situation and allow perspectives other than head-on. Even for miniature format, the effect is analogous to landscape with LF. Inspect the following uncropped 1Ds image, taken with CZ S-Planar 100 and associated bellows:
Despite an aperture wide open at f/4, the subject being off-kilter by 45° presents no problem. (I did, however, go blind trying to find focus ) Note the taller electronic parts are beyond DOF. Image #2 shows the same subject with swing movement zeroed:
Image #3 is like #2, but aperture has been reduced to f/16 in an attempt to gain DOF. Observe that tall electronic parts are now sharply rendered, but DOF is not enough to bring the back end of the circuit board in focus:
Finally, here is the rig as positioned for the initial image. Swing and shift was the maximum possible before mechanical vignetting from the mirror box was reached:
Optically, the SP100 permits at least 10mm of shift (having an image circle about equal to a 645). Performance is not so good at infinity, nor can the Contax bellows unit accommodate movements at infinity (bummer), nor can the unit rotate on an EOS body without an extension tube (prism clearance). All that compels me to wait in line for this new-fangled Zeiss/Hartblei contraption.
In my experience with architecture and interiors - the wider you go the less movement you actualy need. The 24mm TS-E has just enough for most situations however with the 35 OL 10mm is not quite enough in portrait and with the narrower 40mm 10mm is going to be just too limiting. That's why I'm going with the Mirex. The Zoerk offers 20mm but it will probably not be of practical benefit as the outer edge of the image circle may not be that good. The 24mm TS-E is peculiar in that it has a very curved focus plane ( good for interiors BTW) and seems optimised for near field work - used on distant buildings or panoramas it's not stellar when you shift - mine's OK'ish but the image quality is no where near as good as my OL 35 which when stopped down retains sharpness right to the shift limits. Distortion and CA are easily solved with software so I 'm not too hung up on that. By all accounts I have read the Schneider 28mm suffers when shifted as well - you would have thought a company so used to designing and making optics for shift uses would have got this lens right. Maybe however it's just not possible to make retrofocus wide angle shift lenses below 35mm that perform well right across the frame. MF sytems never offered anything this wide i.e a 28mm on 6x6 and there must have been a reason? - even zeiss only went down to 40mm and the wider 38mm was no retrofocus. Mamiya and Pentax etc offered 35mm lenses for their 645 systems but the coverage is not as great.
Great examples, Rico. I'm hoping to think of some nice macro opportunities with my view camera one of these days.
shirozina wrote:
In my experience with architecture and interiors - the wider you go the less movement you actually need
In the July/August issue of View Camera there is an architectural photographer who has a number of remarkable shots taken inside an abandoned building taken with the 72mm super angulon XL (an extremely wide lens, far wider than the 24mm TS-E) taken using extreme rise. I think the wide lenses still need a lot of movement when taking interior shots in buildings with high ceilings. I took a lot of 24 TS-E shots in cathedrals in Mexico last summer, and there was never enough rise for me. Wider than that, though, I can see getting beyond the point where movements are necessary.
Doug Morgan wrote:
I think the plaque provides a great example.
With the first one I see that we have the same brand TV. The other ones I think I'd prefer to play with the DOF in the composition but that may be a personal choice.
Doug,
Not my TV, just a computer monitor in the hospital call room where I was working that night.
Those side-by-side comparisons were not taken for their photographic merits, but just to show the effect of tilt.
In the shot of Boston Harbor I also used a lot of shift (strictly speaking 'fall') to move the horizon towards the top of the frame. But I was basically crouching on those rocks in the foreground, so I used tilt to make sure that they and the water in the foreground were sharp.
I understand your reasoning and that you were experimenting and/or demonstrating. The plaque shot is an excellent piece on it's own.
I was actually only half honest about the TV thing since it's actually sitting in the basement with a dead power supply. I think my wife has forgotten about it so I might be able to put of fixing it for a while longer. If I lived in a trailer I'd probably have the working TV sitting on top of it.
Paul - I'm not saying more rise is not needed in certain circumstances with the widest lenses but just that you don't need it as often. You also run into more perspective distortion of objects at the edges of the frame with large shifts on very wide lenses and where it is possible a more distant veiwpoint is preffereble
True, and the 24 TS-E is a good example. I have to correct barrel distortion using PTLens with every single shot, and it really affects vertical lines near the edge of the frame.
Unfortunately for city street shooting and for some interiors it's hard to back further away.
Gaining height is another option but a step ladder doesn't fit in the old camera bag so well. I had to take some promo pictures for a 10 story hotel recently and couldn't get a good vantage point but after some appropriate begging was able to get on the roof of the 3 story building across the street. I still needed a bunch of shift but no where near as much.
Just a short update on the ongoing preps for the photokina:
I have done some testing now with the 120mm Macro, I compared it to my trustworthy 105mm AFMicroNikkor and although it is really hard to see anything at 25% or 50 % if you go to 100% and especially look to the corners the Zeiss beats the Nikkor easily, no light falloff, better saturation and of course if needed tilt and maybe shift to get the exact crop of the picture you want instead of moving the tripod (or after tilting which also shifts the the crop according to your amount of tilt), which can be a pest if you really have a difficult setup. What I also mentioned was that the original raw file shows much more punch in the blue channel making the file pretty bluish uncorrected even if used with the same WP setting as the Nikkor. Now what I think this proofs to be the reason is simply the T* coating of the Zeiss is much better than the coating of the Nikkor (which is one of my sharpest lenses together with the 60mm MicroNikkor btw). Now this makes the (important) blue channel much better structured signal to noise wise and after a correction with a greybalance (or a cameraprofile for the lens) you get some very nice looking colors without any saturation improvement needed (5D set to natural) as normaly maybe 5-10 percent with other lenses. Does this look good.........
Yup, Iīd say so. Iīll do some more comparisons and will put up pic to the website soon.
at the moment I cannot say anything definite because it is up to Zeiss to decide about this finally on several reasons.............
But expect the lenses be in a similar pricerange as their Hasselblad counterparts. What we will also do is sell the first series of lenses that we do for Photokina with a 10-15 % rebate on the (to be announced) price.
To go to lifesize with the lens you need to apply a ring/s(tubes) to it, if we would have done a 1:1 capability the lens would have become much too heavy and bulky for normal use. what you get now without rings is 1,2 m which comes out as ~ 20x30cm size of the sujet, which is pretty good for most of the tabletop and studio works. I donīt think this is a big drawback, rings sell cheaply and overall handling is much better this way.
Stefan,
Is the Hartblei 40 mm lens has the same optical formula as the newer Zeiss 40 mm F4 CFE IF and the Sinar 40 F4 ZH? Also where can I get the MTF chart for these lens?
I believe and prefer it to be in the Hasselblad V mount. From there I can adapt to any other system but the only system I am not sure is the Rollei medium format.
The 40mm lens is the latest IF Version same as the one used on the Hasselblad 500 system.Same applies to the 80 and 120mm here are the technical datasheets from the Zeiss site:
we do a mechanical mount only, there are no whatsoever electronic or aperture connections. You can use the lenses on each 35 mm Film or Digitalcamera with the supported mounts which will be Canon, Nikon and Sony (right now on the Photokina) and immediately after on Request: LeicaR, Contax Yash., PentaxK and several more. Please ask for it.
Just some more- we have even improved the parts that we thought would not be optimum, so what we did is a 12 segment Aperture, making a really round and nice aperture, and as anybody knows whoīs into optics improves "un"sharpness. Hereīs a quick photo taken as a sample from the 80mm, 40 and 120mm look the same:
. I don't think the tilt is as usefull with a 35mm format for a traditional landscape as it's fairly easy to stop down enough for DOF with a wide angle -- just my opinion though (no fields of tulips around to prove my point).
) Note the taller electronic parts are beyond DOF. Image #2 shows the same subject with swing movement zeroed:
