IMAGING

TILT-SHIFT PHOTOGRAPHY

Flexible lens makes scenes look miniature. By Dennison Bertram

One of the fancier lenses in the world of SLR and DSLR photography is the tilt-shift lens. You might not know what these lenses look like, but you probably have seen their effects. Architectural photographers use tilt-shift lenses to eliminate the perspective distortions that sometimes give buildings the appearance of falling over. Aerial photographers use them to make large cities look like toy models. Art and portrait photographers use them to control exactly where the focus falls.

Tilt-shift lenses cost $1,000-plus, which is far beyond what most photographers will pay to experiment. Fortunately, building your own tilt-shift lens is easy, and doing so will open up a remarkable array of creative optical effects.

To build your own tilt-shift lens, you start with a spare lens that’s built for a film format larger than that of the camera you’ll use the lens on.

144 Make: Volume 09

For example, I used a 6× 6 lens (designed for 6cm film) to make a tilt-shift lens for a 35mm camera body. With 35mm or APS format digital SLR cameras, you’ll need a lens built for 6× 6 film or larger. The oversized lens gives you extra room to move and distort the image that lands on the film or CCD, while still filling the frame. (You could use this hack to mount a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera, but it would only work with a macro lens, for very close objects.)

Assembly

Using a rotary tool or hobby knife, hollow out the middle of the camera body cap (Figure A), then grind or file it down smooth, so there are no rough spots or burrs (Figure B).

The plunger will act as a flexible camera bellows, allowing us to tilt and shift the lens to our heart’s

Photography by Dennison Bertram