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April 15, 2007
TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
The Canon Tilt Shift lens is a must have if you're a landscape or architecture photographer. One common problem that architecture photographers have is the subject matter often recedes or falls away from the view point creating an incorrect perspective. The TS-E 24mm can correct this issue and is useful for creating seamless wide-angle shots from two shots as well as capturing objects with great distances between them in focus. Other uses for the TS-E 24mm depend on how creative you want to get with your lens. But if you got one...you'll love it.
Wide angle shots
One of the very cool features of this lens is the ability to sift the lens +/- 11mm creating a 13mm wide angel shot when the two photos are stitched together. The only way to do this seamlessly is with a tripod. With a conventional lens you'd take a shot and move the camera a few degrees and take another shot. Even with a tripod, stitching the photos together you’d loose a considerable amount of data on the top and bottom due to bending when the two are brought together with software. This bending is because both photos must be warped to make them match up because of the movement when taking the photos from two different locations. With the TS-E the camera stays in place and the lens can shift giving you a full frame panoramic wide angle shot.
To show off this feature below is a photo I took from the Rookery building interior here in Chicago. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Click on the photo to see the full size version.
Perspective correcting
Taking photos of tall objects can be difficult with standard lenses. Sure, you can do it. I've been doing if for years and trying to fix the perspective in Photoshop. You can only do so much with Photoshop before you start to loose data and canvas size as well as quality of the photo. Who wants to spend time in Photoshop when the problem can be fixed at the source. Below is a photo I took with the TS-E 24mm with out shifting the lens.
This is a pretty low structure so I got down low so I would have to turn the camera lens from perpendicular to the line of the building to about a 45-degree angle upwards. This would represent a similar situation if I were taking a photo of a skyscraper from the ground. The turning of the lens is what creates this situation in the first place.
After shifting the lens while looking though the viewfinder I found an acceptable position where the building didn't seem to be receding into the distance and away from me. In order to take the photo in portrait I had to rotate the lens 90 degrees (the TS-E can rotate +/- 90 degrees) and turn the sift knob so the lens would shift up while keeping the lens nearly perpendicular to the structure’s main vertical line. The results are below.
Sometimes you need to take a photo that has an object with a reflective surface. Shifting can remove you or the camera to put that object in the center of the photo with out a reflection.
Tilting the lens
The tilting feature of the TS-E 24mm is +/- 8 degrees. This feature has the ability to take photos with great distances between objects with the entire focal plane in focus. An example may be a flower in the foreground and a building in the background. Tilting the lens towards the object keeping the camera body parallel to the image plane while manipulating focusing can achieve this.
With a shallower focal frame or with little depth you would normally only be able to keep all objects in focus, as no depth of fields is possible. The TS-E can create a shallow depth of field with manipulating the tilting feature and your relationship to the objects. What you can accomplish is only one object in focus with many other objects around the same object on the same focal plane.
Combining the tilting and shifting
When you bring both tilting and shifting together you can correctly control not only the perspective of the objects but keep them all in focus as well. This takes a bit of practice and trial and error. But with experience you'll create more control of your images.
Posted by Robert at April 15, 2007 12:32 PM
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