Tilt-Shift Madness!

<p>Most people have seen examples of the way a tilt-shift lens can - through creation of shallow depth of field in distant scene areas where our own eyes would normally see everything in focus - fool our eyes into confusing physical scale. This can produce the illusion that a real cityscape is a small-scale set piece - and the mental disconnect is a strange thing to experience.<br /><br />Now, to really mess with your perception, do this with stop-action, time-stuttered video that alters your sense of <em>time</em> scale, and you get a double dose of the illusion. <br /><br /><strong><a href="http://vimeo.com/3156959">Here's a link to some really interesting video imagery</a></strong>. I liked the "sloshing" feel of the ocean, myself. Very cool.</p>

<p>Radically cool. Wow-- the use of tilt makes incredible effect with video etc.</p>

<p>That is really cool. Looked like a bunch of Lego. Especially the rescue helicopter it looked like a toy.</p>

<p>That was one of the few original ideas I've seen in a while. Very well done. </p>

<p>It all seemed very real until the helicopter started to fly. The rotors looked bizarre turning so slowly. </p>

<p>Wow, turned out to be real after all.</p>

<p>that was a great way to spend dinner, thanks for posting the vid.</p>

<p>This is just great! Thanks for sharing Matt.....</p>

<p>Photo.net programmer Jin Choi sent me that link last week. Absolutely amazing. Very good work there. I wish I had ideas half that creative.</p>

<p>I was on a production crew that did something similar in a high end ad campaign in Mexico last Fall, it worked pretty much the same way, was humourous and yet compelling. We used a 24 T/S. We also used a lightweight track system to dolly the rigs around which added another dimension.<br>

Pretty cool stuff.</p>

<p>I always thought tilt and shift lenses were for correcting perspective on architectural photographs. I didn't realize the control in out of focus area is so neat. I think I will be looking for a T & S lens soon.</p>

<p>The Show "Dollhouse" on FOX uses the tilt-shift effect for it's opening credits.<br>

Not my site, just one Google brought up that has a clip of the opening.<br>

<a href="http://aeportal.blogspot.com/2009/02/dollhouse-opening-uses-tilt-shift.html">http://aeportal.blogspot.com/2009/02/dollhouse-opening-uses-tilt-shift.html</a></p>

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<p>Most people have seen examples of the way a tilt-shift lens can - through creation of shallow depth of field in distant scene areas where our own eyes would normally see everything in focus - fool our eyes into confusing physical scale. This can produce the illusion that a real cityscape is a small-scale set piece - and the mental disconnect is a strange thing to experience.</p>

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<p>I've seen this effect before... Can anyone explain to me why this works? Why does tilting the plane of focus make us confuse physical scale? Is it just that we're used to seeing narrow depth of field in macro shots, or is it something more fundamental?</p>

<p>Use you own eyes for a moment, and look at something up close (say, at something that approximates that model-scale feeling you're getting from the images in question). Try, for example, a salt shaker on the table right in front of you. Get close and look at it. Do your best to note how the things in the background are out of focus (just as would happen with a macro lens). Now put your finger between you and the salt shaker, while continuing to pay attention to the salt shaker. Notice that the finger is also out of focus. Classic shallow depth of field. <br /><br />Now look at anything in the distance, or even the middle distance. Notice that, in practical terms, you have what looks like infinite depth of field with your own eyes (or, that's how you perceive it).<br /><br />You've spent your whole life processing those optical realities, and learning to associate the visual clues with what you know about the actual sizes and distances involved.<br /><br />Now along comes a tilt-shift lens that makes it possible to have a shallow plane of focus, way out at a distance, even when working with a relatively wide field of view. Your brain insists on interpreting the resulting out of focus foreground and background as being proof that you're seeing something up close. And that forces your brain to interpret the objects (say, distant people) as being not distant, but rather very small.</p>

<p>Have to agree -- what a cool video that certainly cost a ton of money to mproduce and put together. Lots of posed stuff -- a combo of fiction (the chopper rescue, beach setup up), and reality (hikers, multitudes of "Lego" people walking). Also, thanks for the heads-up on DOLLHOUSE. I've learned a lot this AM!</p>

<p>I've seen the trick of using tilt to mess up the natural sense of scale pop up every now and then during the last couple of years (lensbaby anyone?), even played with it using a TS lens. But what sets this video apart is the time lapse video effects and good editing, the whole concept is interesting. Very good combination of techniques to make a story.</p>

<p>Very interesting. I'm assuming the effect would be the same using a current DSLR with video capability. Although I think the stop-action effect benefits this technique.</p>

<p>Thats a way to go! nice and funny!<br>

Since I am a pro musician I am used to make some simple video's or photo shows to put on my music but I must try the oposite!<br>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/01herman">http://www.youtube.com/user/01herman</a><br>

Most often you will heve a problem to get the right music free of rights!</p>

<p>Herman</p>

<p>Just a guess:</p>

<p>From a technical side on how the video was made, it might have been a HD video camera (camcorder) but gluing a T-S lens to it would be a trip unless one used a 35mm adapter. An alternative would have been a dSLR (with T-S lens attached) shooting time-lapse, but that would have involved many thousands of shutter actuations. The most sensible would have been shooting continuous HD video with a video-capable dSLR then picking time-lapse interval frames in post-production (which is easy to do and saves shutter wear). </p>

<p>The timing looks about right for dSLR video recording (time) limit - each scene spanning no more than a few minutes in real time and compressed to about 1 FPS. </p>

<p> This video by thom yorke (not sure who get the production credit) contains the best example of tilt shift I have seen.</p>