Tilt-Shift Lenses: Tools for Architectural Photography

Practically anyone who’s ever taken a photograph of a tall building from a fairly close distance has experienced perspective distortion. When you aim the camera upward to include, say, the top of a church steeple, the image plane (sensor) is no longer parallel to the subject, so the structure appears to lean backward in the picture. Furthermore, due to the elevated shooting angle, the bottom of the building is considerably closer to the camera than the top, and this difference in image magnification results in the notorious keystone effect—a rectangular building shot straight on is rendered as a trapezoid with its sides angled in toward the top, which is narrower than the bottom. Another problem encountered when shooting architecture and landscapes is that the optimum plane of sharp focus doesn’t always correspond with sharpness plane you’re trying to achieve for aesthetic reasons, and stopping the lens down won’t always give you what you want.

Fortunately, there are two elegant solutions to this dilemma—use a view camera, which lets you tilt, shift and swing the optical axis to your heart’s content, or mount a TS (tilt-shift) lens on your DSLR, which provides a similar range of movements, albeit to a lesser degree. To give you a better idea of some of the problems you’ll encounter when shooting everything from houses to architectural landmarks, and what can be done to correct them with a tilt-shift lens, we obtained three of the most popular Canon TS-E Tilt-Shift Manual Focus lenses (yes, all TS lenses are manual focus for obvious reasons!) mounted them on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, and shot a wide range of architectural exteriors and interiors in Albany, New York City and Catskill, NY. Our captions are self-explanatory, but we have deliberately omitted numerical figures for shifts and tilts because perspective/depth-of-field correction is essentially a visual process, and the amount of shift and/or tilt required will vary with your particular subject.

Tilt & Shift Lens Facts
Basically a TS lens has an articulated barrel that provides a means of displacing (moving) the optical axis, an imaginary line that passes through the center of the lens and strikes the image plane at a 90-degree angle. The shift mechanism lets you move the lens axis vertically, shifting it up or down with respect to its central (un-shifted) position, or, by rotating the lens head to its click-stopped horizontal position, shift the lens to the left or right. It also provides a tilt control that allows the lens axis to swivel (tilt) either up and down or from side to side, depending on how the rotating control has been set. Complex movements are possible by combining various tilt and shift settings, but to keep things as simple as possible, we’ve illustrated the effects of tilts and shifts separately.

To accommodate the effects of all this shifting and tilting without causing vignetting (image cutoff), all TS lenses are optically designed to provide a much larger image circle than conventional lenses. For example, the minimum image circle required to cover the full-frame 35mm format without tilts or shifts is 43.3mm, but the image circle provided by the Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L and TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II is a whopping 67.2mm. Nevertheless, extreme combinations of tilt and shift can still cause image cutoff—read your lens instruction manual for details.

Since tilt-shift lenses are invariably very high quality, limited-production optics with high-precision mechanical controls, they’re pretty pricey. Street prices for the Canon tilt-shift lenses we used for this article range from $1309 for the TS-E 45mm f/2.8, to $2069 for the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II, to $2349 for the impressive TS-E 17mm f/4L—the lens we found the most useful for our project. TS lenses are also available in longer focal lengths—TS-E 45mm f/2.8 ($1699 street). However, wide-angles are the most commonly used focal lengths for architecture, especially when shooting interiors.

In addition to the 85mm, Nikon offers the PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ($1949 street), and the PC-E Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ($1799 street). Schneider lists the PC Super Angulon 28mm f/2.8 ($2078 street) that shifts up to 11mm horizontally and 9.5mm vertically, but provides no tilt.

Useful tilt-shift accessories
While it’s theoretically possible to shoot handheld with a TS lens, in the vast majority of cases, the camera will be tripod-mounted. For most of our shots we used a Davis & Sanford Magnum XG ($99, street) which has two bubble levels on the head for easy horizontal and vertical orientation, and a third bubble level on the yoke which helps in setting up the tripod. This sturdy unit also features a 3-way fluid head, 4-position independent leg-angle adjustments, and grounder capability for low-angle shooting.

Another handy gadget for leveling your camera is the Manfrotto 2-Axis Flash Hot Shoe Double Bubble Level ($29, street). Some current DSLRs provide an electronic grid screen display on the LCD or in the finder that can be useful in aligning architectural subjects. Others with interchangeable viewing screens typically offer a grid screen or two as alternatives. Finally, two filters you might find useful are a polarizer (to eliminate window reflections and intensify colors) and a variable ND (neutral density) filter to control exposure and depth of field in bright sun without changing the ISO—we used the Tiffen Digital HT Circular Polarizer and the Variable ND Filter on the 24mm and 45mm Canon TS-E lenses.

Basic TS operation Shift:
Since shifting moves the optical axis of the lens off the center of, but parallel to the image plane, to make a vertical correction with the camera in a horizontal position, place the camera with its back (sensor) parallel to the building, then shift the lens upwards until the top of the building appears within the frame. If the building is too tall to fit within the frame horizontally at the maximum shift setting, mount the camera vertically and use the rotating function to turn the lens barrel 90 degrees to enable a vertical shift. You can also us a horizontal shift to prevent the camera from being visible when you include a reflective surface such as a mirror or window in the picture.

Tilt:
When the tilt scale is in the zero position the focusing and imaging planes are parallel, but tilting up or down inclines the lens relative to the image plane. In general, tilting down toward a subject below the camera (such as a field of flowers) lets you keep the entire subject in focus even when there would be insufficient depth of field at your shooting aperture. By tilting in the opposite direction you can keep the point of focus isolated on a specific part of the subject, such as foreground details, while blurring other areas, such as the background.

Rotation:
The rotation function enables you to change the direction of the tilt or shift by rotating the tilt-shift mechanism built into the lens barrel. In addition to providing click-stopped rotation settings at 90-degree intervals for horizontal and vertical orientation, the Canon TS-E lenses we used also provide click-stops at 30-degree intervals for oblique orientations.

Now that you have a better idea of what TS lenses do and how to use them, take a close look at the pictures and captions to get a clearer concept of some of the remarkable things that are possible with these ultra-cool, supremely versatile lenses. And if you hanker to try one out on your own architectural foray without bending your wallet, remember you can always rent one to see if it works for you. Better steer clear of that Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L though—it’s positively addictive!

Jason Schneider is best known as a prolific writer and editor on all aspects of photography. He began his career at Modern Photography in the late ‘60s and in 1987 signed on as editor-in-chief of Popular Photography, a position he held for nearly 16 years. Considered an authority on the history of camera design and technology, he has written three books on camera collecting, is an active contributor to leading photo magazines and Web sites, and is Senior Editor of Photo Industry Reporter.