Digital BW, The Print

>
> Is it hard to learn to use the tilt/shift lens if you have never used
> anything similar in the past? That new Canon 24mm t/s looks
> interesting
> Thanks
> Debbi
It's not hard. You only have a couple of possible adjustments, and it's 
pretty easy to figure it out looking through the finder and playing with 
them. Rise and shift are really easy.  Keep the camera back plumb.  
Point the camera left or right until you have the left/right framing 
that you want.  Now use rise until you have the vertical framing that 
you want. This way plumb lines in the photo will stay plumb.

Now for tilt.  When the sensor plane and the plane through the optical 
center of the lens are parallel, then the plane of sharp focus will also 
be parallel to them.  This is the case for regular lenses.  Now when you 
tilt the plane through the optical center of the lens forward, i.e. you 
tilt the lens down, the plane of sharp will pivot in the same way as the 
lens. In other words the top of the plane of sharp focus will move away 
from the camera when the lens is  tilted forwards, and the bottom of the 
plane will move toward the camera.  Actually, when there's  tilt, the 
planes through the sensor and the lens will intersect at some point 
below the camera.  The plane of sharp focus will also intersect these 
planes at the same point.  So lets say you want the ground to be in 
focus from near to far.  You tilt the lens forward, and adjust focus a 
bit, until the ground is sharp both near and far.

With the 24mm lens, the most important thing will be front rise, 
especially as a way to keep plumb lines plumb with architecture.  Tilt 
won't be as important since so much is in focus with a 24mm lens at 
working apertures anyway.  If you want shallow depth of field with a non 
standard plane of sharp focus, such as is popular in commercial 
photography, you'd probably want a longer lens.  The old Canon 24mm T/S 
lens was a real dog. I hope the new one is better.