T&S -- How to make things small?

aktse

I know that this technique isn't for everyone, and I honestly don't know if it's for me either, but it's something that I want to try.

My fascination with this method began a long while ago when I first saw this. Sports Shots via T&S by Vincent Laforet He shot the Pipeline Masters, US Open Tennis, World Series, Kentucky Derby, Superbowl, etc -- all via a T&S.

I vividly still remember those frames. :bow After viewing them, I left with the thought that you do not need to be in ideal field position to obtain interesting sports photos, and since I'm a peon with a camera and not a photo god, I doubt that I will be on the sidelines of any venue in the near future. His photo of the US Open was taken in the stands, with normal people just like me. Any fan, like me, can shoot images like these with a camera (or two) and some T&S lenses.

I'm babysitting at 24mm T&S for the next few months (thanks Ann) and I have tickets to various sports venue.

My goal. Sports. Small. In the Stands. I don't know if I can do it, but I can try.

I've looked at various T&S sites (luminous landscapes, etc), but I don't see anything on what to do to make things look like this:

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/images/tutorial-images/15-voila.jpg

I want to make miniatures. How does one do this? What do I need to focus on? Infinity focus?

:ear

OffTopic

aktse, the second image that you linked to wasn't done with a tilt shift lens, it was done in photoshop. Here is a link to the tutorial showing how to fake the tilt/shift effect using that exact photo.

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php


Haven't had the pleasure to try it with a real tilt/shift myself, but have this in my notes:

"To give a "miniature" effect to a city-scape, tilt the lens forward or backward so that the only things in focus are in the middle ground, in mid-frame horizontally. The blurred foreground and background simulate the look produced by a macro lens taking a close-up of something small."

aktse

OffTopic wrote:

aktse, the second image that you linked to wasn't done with a tilt shift lens, it was done in photoshop.

...

Haven't had the pleasure to try it with a real tilt/shift myself, but have this in my notes:

"To give a "miniature" effect to a city-scape, tilt the lens forward or backward so that the only things in focus are in the middle ground, in mid-frame horizontally. The blurred foreground and background simulate the look produced by a macro lens taking a close-up of something small."

Thanks! I knew that it was done in PS, but it's a PS technique to mimic a real T&S. So... it should be able to be done with a real lens! (or, is my logic wrong?)

And thanks for your notes. I have tickets to the area tonight and will try that!

schmoo

aktse wrote:

I've looked at various T&S sites (luminous landscapes, etc), but I don't see anything on what to do to make things look like this:

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/images/tutorial-images/15-voila.jpg

I want to make miniatures. How does one do this? What do I need to focus on? Infinity focus?

I may be understanding something wrong, but it's pretty simple. You just turn the tilt knob until you get the blurry effect you want. Depending on the distance you're focusing on, you adjust focus to taste.



Using the tilt to make a plane of focus stay in focus, now, that's a challenge that I spent a week in Scotland working on.

jogle

I've done a fair bit of this...



















All those are shot on the 45mm tse. The trick is to set your aperture wide open, twist the tilt knob so the lens is pointing up, and then use your focus ring to get the action in focus.

Note:
panning up and down is a good way to adjust focus, as your plane of focus is no longer parallel to the film plane, the height in the frame affects focusing distance.
You need to get some height on your subject. Note that these are all looking down. Thats because you normally look down onto small things

Nikolai

April,
bring it to Moab, and you'll have plenty of people who will be able to show the TS usage to you.

Ann McRae

Nikolai wrote:

April,
bring it to Moab, and you'll have plenty of people who will be able to show the TS usage to you.

Oh, she is, Nik. That's the reason April has it from now until the dgrin party...so at least something of mine goes to the shootout.

April, I'd never seen these, and I am thrilled that you have a project for the lens. Better to be in use than collecting dust!

ann

DavidTO

I have a feeling it works better with the longer lenses: the 45 and the 90mm TSEs.

Fred Maurer

Here's another site I've had bookmarked for a while. Have to try it, too!
http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

aktse

schmoo wrote:

...
Using the tilt to make a plane of focus stay in focus, now, that's a challenge that I spent a week in Scotland working on.

Ditto. Same problem last night. And, my subject move lighten fast and by the end of the period, I was getting dizzy trying to follow the action!

aktse

jogle wrote:

I've done a fair bit of this...
...
All those are shot on the 45mm tse. The trick is to set your aperture wide open, twist the tilt knob so the lens is pointing up, and then use your focus ring to get the action in focus.

Note:
panning up and down is a good way to adjust focus, as your plane of focus is no longer parallel to the film plane, the height in the frame affects focusing distance.
You need to get some height on your subject. Note that these are all looking down. Thats because you normally look down onto small things

bow

This is exactly what I want to do! As for height from the subject, how far up were you? I found that my focus point was near infinity at most times.

For this hockey game, I had lower bowl seats about 20 rows from the ice, and for once in my life, I wished I had my other seats in the tippy-top noise bleed sections.

Thank you so much for your tips! I can't wait to apply them!

aktse

Nikolai wrote:

April,
bring it to Moab, and you'll have plenty of people who will be able to show the TS usage to you.

It's coming to Moab -- Pretend it's Ann!

I had three canon pros reps explain it to me on the field and I was still having issues with it.

aktse

Ann McRae wrote:

April, I'd never seen these, and I am thrilled that you have a project for the lens. Better to be in use than collecting dust!

Thank you so much for letting me bet the keeper of the lens.

And yes, I have a project and a moment that I want to capture. As a sports shooter, I'm always told to shoot "tight, Tight, TIGHT", but I find that unless i have field position or without a specific long lens, I can't always do this and at some venues, can't bring in any lens longer than four inches in length. :cry I would love my 70-200mm at the pro baseball, football, hockey and basketball games. My 120-300mm would even be nicer! But nope.. not allowed.

This lens and techniques gives me chance to capture something worthy from the stands.

aktse

DavidTO wrote:

I have a feeling it works better with the longer lenses: the 45 and the 90mm TSEs.

This might be the case. Don't know enough yet.

Anyone suggestions/critiques/advice on these these two frames?

24mm T&S, f/3.5, about 20 rows up

1.


2.


Erase and try again? Do I need to be higher up? Or, would have 45mm help in this situation?

James used a 45mm... i wonder.

aktse

Fred Maurer wrote:

Here's another site I've had bookmarked for a while. Have to try it, too!
http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

Thanks. I haven't seen that one yet.

jogle

aktse wrote:

This is exactly what I want to do! As for height from the subject, how far up were you? I found that my focus point was near infinity at most times.

For the stadium shots I was maybe halfway up the stands. With the 24mm you're going to have to trade off getting close to the action with getting high up in the stands.

I'd start by trying to focus half way to the infinity, then use pan the camera up and down to get the focus on the players, if they are too low in frame, focus a bit further out and reframe.

Did you know you can take apart the lens and move the tilt and the shift to be in the same axis. That way you can shift the lens up (to make it look like you are higher then you are) and tilt the lens up at the same time? There was a thread on dgrin about it.

jogle

aktse wrote:

can't bring in any lens longer than four inches in length. :cry

Canon's 70-300 DO IS is shorter then 4 inches
http://photo.net/equipment/canon/70-300do/

You'd need lots of light and a high ISO but it's got the reach at a compact size.

pathfinder

The Tamron 28-300 is shorter than 4 inches also, IF not extended.

The Canon 70-300 DO is shorter than 4 inches ONLY if not fully extended also.

Both will be slow at 300mm.

Trevlan

He're what I came up with.



It was easy to do in photoshop. Using a lense like that might make you miss the action. I'd rather process it in PS. But, it's good to know how to use this kind of equipment. Do you have anymore of these shots to share?

aktse

jogle wrote:

Canon's 70-300 DO IS is shorter then 4 inches
http://photo.net/equipment/canon/70-300do/

You'd need lots of light and a high ISO but it's got the reach at a compact size.

I've looked and lusted at that lens, but I can't justify buying it so that I can shoot the few times I'm at the Sharks Game. The lens is indeed shorter than four inches, and it can lock down so you can't fully extend it.

Also --light. Although the light is decent at the pro hockey games, light is generally an issue for me.

But thanks for this suggestion (and all the others ones!)

aktse

pathfinder wrote:

The Tamron 28-300 is shorter than 4 inches also, IF not extended.

The Canon 70-300 DO is shorter than 4 inches ONLY if not fully extended also.

Both will be slow at 300mm.

Thanks so much for the suggestion.

The slow part and the fully extended part is my problem. :cry

I seriously would love to make my 70-200 in, and even better, a 70-200 in the media section. (a girl can dream)...

Instead, I get to the rink extra early so that I can stand next to the glass to get photos during warm-ups like this:




And, photos like this during the game.


I have location and gear limitation and all I can hope for it trying something new by going to small and wide rather than attempting to get tight and clean captures with my 135mm.

aktse

jogle wrote:

...
I'd start by trying to focus half way to the infinity, then use pan the camera up and down to get the focus on the players, if they are too low in frame, focus a bit further out and reframe.

I had the chance to go to another game; I did learn one tip and two other tidbits.

I was going dizzy trying to following the action via the viewfinder and now, I use the liveview and magnify a section that I want to focus on in order to nail the focus. It makes it much easier to plan up and down to get the players in focus, but these skates move too fast. I ended up focusing on one spot of the rink and waited until they came into the frame. Basically, I would frame, focus, and just wait instead of focus, frame and refocus.

Trevlan wrote:

Using a lense like that might make you miss the action. I'd rather process it in PS. But, it's good to know how to use this kind of equipment. Do you have anymore of these shots to share?

And I made two discoveries.

By shifting, I can make the rink look really long and skinny:


Or, I can make it look very, very wide and fat:


Just by shifting left/right.

These were taken from the same seats (lower bowl, 22 rows up).

This makes the players look smaller:


But I missed the focus. I still dont' have the "wow" factor like James' soccer photos.

I'll try and take these again from high up in the upper rafters of the arena and will attempt to take them to a basektball game (Golden State Warriors) when baskettball season starts. I could find time to get to the baseball games before the season was over for the bay area.

Any other suggestions?

LiquidAir

Keep the ceiling out of the shot; it breaks the effect. You want the appearance of shallow depth of field which means everything at the same distance should be in focus. The illusion is broken when the players are in foucs but the scoreboard isn't. Alternately, try a sideways tilt when the action is in the center of the ice as that will keep the scoreboard in focus.

shatch

I love this type of look. Thanks for sharing how to do it. I had to try myself.



OK...what is next to miniturize... This is fun!

DavidTO

T/S video. Turn down your sound a bit, it's, uh, annoying!.

Tango

shatch wrote:

I love this type of look. Thanks for sharing how to do it. I had to try myself.



OK...what is next to miniturize... This is fun!

shatch, i have been toying with the idea to enter a miniturized shot sometime...just no theme yet to match up with ideas...
but by the looks of it you are doing good with it...! just dont beat me to the punch....hahaha:D

aktse

shatch wrote:

I love this type of look. Thanks for sharing how to do it. I had to try myself

OK...what is next to miniturize... This is fun!

Very nice! I can't to see what you come up next!

aktse

LiquidAir wrote:

Keep the ceiling out of the shot; it breaks the effect. You want the appearance of shallow depth of field which means everything at the same distance should be in focus. The illusion is broken when the players are in foucs but the scoreboard isn't. Alternately, try a sideways tilt when the action is in the center of the ice as that will keep the scoreboard in focus.

Attempt #3 with the 24mm T&S with the same seat location (row 16 ish, lower bowl).

1. Too narrow DOF, and without ceiling


2. Everything in focus, but too much in focus, with scoreboard


3. Slightly better, but doesn't give the miniature feeling


Lesson Learned: It's really hard to compose a shot with the correct focus when I"m shifted completely to one side while shooting wide open. The players move so fast; it's really hard to get a good composition with the correct focus, and I"m having enough issues with the DOF and focus alone.

What to do next?
1) I'm going to try a local kid's football game and maybe a soccer game; they should move much slower and I'll have better light.
2) I'm trying to get tickets to the local pro basketball team
3) I have hockey tickets again next week, but I'm sitting on the very top row of the area. Maybe some more distance from the ice will help.

Any other suggestions?
If I can, I'm going to try and rent the 45 T&S and maybe the 90 T&S.

Trevlan

shatch wrote:

I love this type of look. Thanks for sharing how to do it. I had to try myself.



OK...what is next to miniturize... This is fun!

Great one Shatch! That actually does like like a miniture model. Great job.

aktse

I'm up to attempts #4, #5, #6, ,#7 and #8 from mainly two locations at the rink and I've been shooting one period each game with the T&S. I still haven't it out to a kids' sports game yet...

I have learned that the 24mm lens works better if I'm on the upper levels, but I"m still having issues.

-- Where should I put the focal plane?
-- What should I do with the scoreboard? Leave it out? Blur? In focus?
-- Is having the ceiling in it a good thing?

1) Focal plane parallel to the ice


2. Focal plane, vertical, down the center

3. Focal plane vertical, but near one end of the ice:


4. No score board, kept the ice surface in focus



5. No ceiling, focal plane parallel to the ice


6. Parallel focal plane, but to the score board


7. Not sure what I did



Opinions? I have about two more weeks with this lens and then it goes home to Canada (thanks Ann!)

ian408

I think you need to pre-compose your shots. That should work better than trying to compose on the fly.