Left Or Right To See The Sights - Tilt/Shift part Two

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In the first column that looked at the Samyang 24mm f:3.5 tilt/shift lens we turned the little plastic knob that shot the lens structure off the central optical axis in an arc. If we waggled it left or fight we could induce the Scheimpflug effect ( I'll wait here while you Google it. Come back after you're done...) and we got sharp focus along a lot longer area of a studio subject.

Today we take the lens out and leave it looking straight ahead... but we make it shift from side to side like a nervous kid to see what it does.

Here is our street shot in the afternoon*. Camera on a tripod, artificial level indicator turned on in the LCD, horizon about mid way.

Here is the shot with the lens racked to the left.

Here is the shot with the lens racked to the right. The camera position remains exactly the same.

And here is the result of the two images emerged in Photomerge - the Photoshop feature inside their editing programs. Not a glorious scenic prospect, but an easy way to get about a 2.8:1 panorama picture. You've got to help the program by giving it clean stuff to work with and you still have to remember your horizon and your light levels, but once you get the two good shots the computer can assemble them with minimal distortion.

I'm afraid our suburb is deficient in sky scrapers, thank goodness, and I could not do the classic architectural shot of the Empire State Building to show you how this sort of lens renders tall buildings with correct perpendiculars - but take it from me that it does. You would still benefit from being halfway or so up the side of a building opposite the one you are targeting and back far enough to give the lens full play in upper extension, but the effect is both magical and professional.

* Fujifilm X-Pro1 with the film simulation set to Provia mode.