CAMERA LENSES:Tilt and shift lens and The toy town effect

There area wide variety of photography lenses out

 there that are designed for specific genres,such as macro lenses for close-ups,wide-angle lenses for landscapes and telephoto lenses for wildlife.Tilt and shift lenses,however,are considered pretty specialist and for good reason.These lenses are commonly used by professional photographers who want to eliminate the possibility of optical distortions when photo graphing architecture or even landscapes. Unlike standard lenses,tilt and shift lense scan be physically manipulated in order to adjust the plane of focus and perspective within an image.Tilt and shift are also two separate adjustments, both of which can affect a photo in different ways. Tilting the lens left,right,up or down changes the angle of the lens relative to the camera body,which gives you more control over depth of field,so you’re able to determine how much of the image appears in focus.Tilting is often used by pros to put the entire scene in focus, from front to back,or to create the popular miniature photo effect, which essentially makes depth of field much more shallow. On the other hand,shifting the lens up,down or from side to side enables you to include objects with in the photo currently outside the field of view,without having to tilt or move the camera body itself. This means you can photograph tall structures from the ground in their entire  by shifting the lens upward so that the top of the structure comes into view.This also prevents optical distortions such as converging verticals,wherea building appears to lean backward due to vertical lines leaning in

The toy town effect

A popular tilt and shift lens effect is turning a standard scene into a miniature toy town. This effect is possible thanks to the lens’s ability to tilt the plane of focus, meaning you can control the depth of field. By pointing the camera down and tilting the lens up, the focal planes in front and behind the subject you want to appear sharp, are thrown out of focus. The blurred areas now replicate a very shallow depth of fi eld you would only otherwise see in close-up macro photography, hence why the scene appears much smaller than it actually is. 

Using the shift effect can help you fit much more in a frame

Converging verticals When photographing a structure using a standard lens you have to point the camera upward to include the top and bottom of the building. This will distort the perspective result in converging verticals.

Standard lenses To avoid this with a standard lens, you would need to keep the camera level and shoot face-on to the structure. But shooting tall buildings from the ground means it would be impossible to capture the entire structure within your shot. 

Tilt and shift effect A tilt and shift lens enables you to keep the camera face-on to your subject and use a vertical shift movement to capture the entire structure without distortions. As the lens has a larger image circle, it’s possible to incorporate more within the frame.