Lensbaby Tilt Transformer for Micro-4/3

craig_d

This looks so cool, I'm almost tempted to buy a micro-4/3 camera just to play with it:

http://www.adorama.com/LBTTM.html

The size of the Nikkor full-frame image circle compared to the micro-4/3 sensor should be enough that vignetting at extreme tilts is not a problem. Now, if only it shifted in addition to tilting...

aquaticvideographer

Stupid unemployment

craig_d wrote: »

This looks so cool, I'm almost tempted to buy a micro-4/3 camera just to play with it:

http://www.adorama.com/LBTTM.html

The size of the Nikkor full-frame image circle compared to the micro-4/3 sensor should be enough that vignetting at extreme tilts is not a problem. Now, if only it shifted in addition to tilting...

I was going to buy one for my E-PL1 and then...I got laid off. But as soon as I have some income again, it's first on my list.

NeilL

I have been emphatically and consistently underwhelmed by the idea and the evidence of these infantile gadgets, except their price! Really guys! Just get onOne FocalPoint for infinite and impressive effects.

Neil

catspaw

Well, some of us enjoy doing effects in camera. NOT after.

infantile is rather rude, btw. each to their own.

NeilL

catspaw wrote: »

Well, some of us enjoy doing effects in camera. NOT after.

infantile is rather rude, btw. each to their own.

lensbaby = infantile lens, no? The name wasn't my idea, but it describes the things perfectly, I think! To my mind, they are exorbitantly priced junk. You can do the same with some plastic wrap with a hole somewhere in it!

Effects before or after? Yes, both have their place, don't they? I think the result is what makes either worthwhile. I don't know, but I suspect that a few hours playing with a lb, and people never pick it up again. Most of the published examples from it I've seen I think are odd and ugly. On the other hand, I have seen really fine results from FocalPoint, partly because the sw is so versatile and well made. And if you have that you can always edit an image for those effects even though you did not originally take it for that purpose. Can't do the reverse.

Neil

craig_d

Neil, this isn't a Lensbaby Composer. Those are old news and they're one-trick ponies; the radial blur effect gets old really fast. This is a lens mount adapter that allows Nikkor lenses to be mounted on a micro-4/3 camera, and the cool part is that unlike other such adapters, it allows tilt movements to be applied to the lens. Since the flange distance and image circle of Nikkor lenses is so much greater than those of micro-4/3, there is a lot of room to play around like this. So in essence, any Nikkor lens becomes a tilt lens. This is a very different effect from that of the Lensbaby Composer and its predecessors.

NeilL

craig_d wrote: »

Neil, this isn't a Lensbaby Composer. Those are old news and they're one-trick ponies; the radial blur effect gets old really fast. This is a lens mount adapter that allows Nikkor lenses to be mounted on a micro-4/3 camera, and the cool part is that unlike other such adapters, it allows tilt movements to be applied to the lens. Since the flange distance and image circle of Nikkor lenses is so much greater than those of micro-4/3, there is a lot of room to play around like this. So in essence, any Nikkor lens becomes a tilt lens. This is a very different effect from that of the Lensbaby Composer and its predecessors.

Ah! My apologies for going off half-cocked. There's been a bit about guns in this forum the last day or so, and I was a little jumpy!

However, I wonder how such a "prosthetic" could be very exciting put beside a proper t&s??!! I have seen a few images using the real thing, and yes, they can do the trick in some very limited situations, otherwise the effect is, to my eye, unsubtle and pointless. As I said, I have seen much more graceful selective focus done with FocalPoint. As well, you can also treat some geometric distortion satisfactorily with sw, as of course you know.

For what they do, I find it hard to figure why lbs are so expensive. Like a multi hundred dollar holga. Make sense? I dunno...

Neil

craig_d

It would be interesting to see comparisons between this tilt adapter with a variety of Nikkor lenses, and real tilt/shift lenses such as the Canon TS-E series. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Canons are better, since they are designed to be tilt/shift lenses from the ground up, but the cost of the adapter and a handful of manual Nikkors would be far less. You could buy an Olympus E-P2, the Lensbaby adapter, and probably at least three top-quality old manual-focus Nikkors for the price of just the Canon TS-E 24mm II alone. If nothing else, it makes real tilt movements (though not shifts, unfortunately) much more affordable.