Sky and sea, Soft and hard contrasts.

[ulf]

Lately I have been exploring NIR-photography with  850nm-filters and Tilt-shift lenses.

 

Here is a result from my very first day, some weeks ago, checking out a used Canon TS-E 90mm lens with a Zomei 850nm filter:

That day the view of the glittering water felt very inspiring.

I like the high contrasts in the water against the soft clouds in the sky and  how smaller and smaller waves further away give a perception of depth.

 

I am very impressed with the sharpness and low distortion of the lens.

The lens aperture was set at f/5 and tilted forward, to try to place the sharp focus wedge along the water.

Close by the image is not quite sharp but further away it is.

The image is downsampled ca 50% to be manageable in the forum.

 

The black spec at the horizon is not a defect, but a smallish light house 6km away, the Höllviken lighthouse.

Here is a crop at 200% of the original image file:

:

This picture is taken in a SSE direction.

Here is a picture of the same lighthouse  towards ENE:

 

 

https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-jduvp

[Nate]

I agree, the water has great contrast against the sky. 

Those lenses are sure interesting

[colinbm]

That water looks great Ulf
 

[ulf]

Thanks.

 

One thing I have learned about using TS-lenses, beside controlling and adjusting them:

It  is very nice to use a good tripod, preferably with a geared tripod head to simplify adjusting and finding a good framing of the scene/image.

A quality ball-head is more stable and quick to set roughly, but the fine control of each direction separately of a geared head is better as you might want to readjust one axis only after setting up the lens's controls. 

 

On a TS-lens you have three controls to set up the focal wedge correctly. (The focal wedge is a wedge shaped volume in space instead of the DOF-plane for normal lenses) 

That has to be combined with the different tilting-axis of the camera for a good framing. There are too many interacting settings if you cannot separate them.

The image above was hand held. That was partly the reason for me missing getting the foreground quite sharp. 

[photoni]

 

nice catch @ulf

 

I have a TS 45 and a TS 85 Nikkor

but I have a cheap alternative for my Sony > Nikon F, one ring to tilt all lenses
Unfortunately it doesn't focus to infinity

[ulf]

50 minutes ago, photoni said:

 

nice catch @ulf

 

I have a TS 45 and a TS 85 Nikkor

but I have a cheap alternative for my Sony > Nikon F, one ring to tilt all lenses
Unfortunately it doesn't focus to infinity

Soon I will have a complete set of the early Canon TS-E lenses.

Very long time ago, during the film period I got the FD 35mm TS lens that I now have up for sale.

Later when switching to the EOS cameras I got the TS-E 24mm. It did not got used much until last year.

 

Early this year I got the TS-E 17mm to a price I could not resist.

A month ago the TS-E 90mm.

 

Last Friday I finally gave up trying to find the TS-E 45mm locally and bought one on eBay from Italy.

It is slowly in transit to me.

For a month there have been none (45mm) here that I liked, only one in a very bad shape.

 

The TS 24mm seam to be more frequently sold, in general. One in good condition went very quickly for ca €250.

That was a super bargain, but I do not need two of them so I could resist the urge to buy.

 

I too have experimented with Tilt-adapters, mainly for macro, but have decided that it in most cases is better to do some stacking.

I did modify a wrecked Novoflex bellows and added tilt. That works OK, but the image quality from a stacked set is better.

 

I also tried a tilt ring-adapter.

It needed modifications for UV-photography as there was light leakages in the tilt structure.