Global Voyaging: Now That’s A Funky Camera

Tilt shift photography is all the rage these days. Even though the lenses have been around since the early 60s. So what is tilt shift? Using the special lenses, perspective and depth of field in photos can be optically altered to produce images that are not what they seem. In the more modern incarnation of the technique both the tilt and the shift of the lenses are combined to create photos that look almost like miniature models… even though they are the real thing.

Photo: Jose Minarro Vivancos

Tilt lenses or tilt adapters were originally invented for landscape photography when a photographer would have trouble getting the entire image into focus. The tilt of the lens would allow both the foreground and background to be in focus at the same time. Shift lenses were invented to deal with problems with perspective distorting the image; for instance, when photographing a tall building with a normal lens, the structure can sometimes look like it is tilting as the sides are bent by distortion.

The new tilt shift lenses sold by most of the major manufacturers have become much more affordable. With the combination of the two functions into one lens, photographers are using the lenses to make the images look more distorted, instead of their original purpose. The results are some pretty incredible images and with digital cameras, now we are seeing many videos with the same effect (like in Paul’s recent post about Burning Man). The lenses are transforming our reality into itsy bitsy fantasy lands.