How lens tilt works with close-up photography - using tilt to place your plane of focus.

Keith Cooper looks at how tilt and the focus setting of your lens moves the plane of focus at near distances. Using the tilt setting of a tilt/shift lens, the plane of focus swings round until it runs parallel to the direction the camera is facing. This is the second of Keith's videos looking at lens tilt.

Keith has written many articles and reviews covering the use of tilt and shift lenses.

Keith's comprehensive book about the tilt/shift lenses is now available:
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[egi]

Your videos are easy to follow even with rather difficult subjects like tilt lenses. Thanks for being creative to make learning for us easy!

[shaun_rambaran]

Thanks so much!

I bought a tilt-shift lens for its ability to shift (I photograph architecture and interiors), and never quite figured out what to do with its tilting ability. This demonstration was fantastic and I'm already imagining interesting things I may be able to attempt when next I'm out.

Have a great day!

[genghisbunny]

Another fantastic demonstration, thank you!

[gaperklake]

Excellent demonstration. Thanks so much,

[jimitav]

Another very good video, thanks! I bought your book, excellent regarding tilt/shift photography, recommended to anyone trying to get a grasp of the principles.

[milescowton]

Excellent, informative video. Highly recommend the book. Just what I needed. Thank you.

[Michael-dmlr]

Great video (and website). How feasible is it to use tilt AND focus stacking (using focus, not rail) together? I hadn't realised the focus plane changes so much with focus, so I'm guessing it's either very hard to do or not possible and/or doesn't fit well with software stacking algorithms.

[todddevore]

I bought your book. I love it! Great video too. Thank you!

[sagebrother]

Time to get my Lego bricks out. Great video and based on the first of yours I saw, I purchased your book…..Paul

[JSUNLOSANGELES]

Hi Keith, great video, I have a question, I'm about to shoot a short film in which the protagonist receives an injection of medication and becomes dizzy, and we see it in close ups of him and what he sees in POV. I'm thinking about using a canon tse17mm but I have doubts about whether Will I be able to get the tilt shift blur effect out of it or should I use a 50mm? What would you recomend for this creative approach? Thanks

[freehand]

Hi Keith interesting video I have a question hope you can help.

My main photography is motorcycles I shoot from the side or front of a motorcycle.
If I shoot from an angle I have to go with a larger F-stop which results in no back ground blur.

So would a tilt shift give me the motorcycle in focus and some back ground blur at an angle I see it works on smaller objects not sure about larger.



Thank you Jamie.

[jawoods]

Any thoughts about using the shift aspect of the Canon 24mm TS lens for astrophotography and multi-row Milky Way panos? Very interesting videos you do, thanks

[amaitra]

Great video as usual. One thing to clarify which is sort of confusing, the plane of focus "sort of" moves in parallel with the orientation of the front element of the lens (to make it easier to think about it). i.e. when the cars were put going from left to right diagonal in the frame, we tilt the lens to the left so the front element is closer to being parallel to the required plane of focus. Then the "depth" changes as we change the distance of focus.

Would that be correct generalized comment? i.e. we should tilt the lens so that the front element aligns itself with the desired plane of focus and then change the focus distance to manage the depth.

[pedroparado]

One question Keith: if you mount your 17 mm f4 onto a 1.4 teleconverter, your calculation for tilt would now be for a 24 mm lens or it remains into that 17 mm.? Thanks

[ThePhilipAdams]

You have an unfortunate typo on the description of your first link.

[henri.witteveen]

Am I correct that when applying tilt down instead of left/right you can get the entire surface of the table in focus. This is something which is applicable with landscape photography.