a ridiculous lens

The lens pictured below is attached to my old 35mm film SLR. The lens is a 80mm f2.8 medium format lens attached to a tilt adapter. Even with the lens tilted, the width of the lens ensures that the full 35mm frame of the film is fully illuminated. The tilt adapter allows the lens to be tilted in different directions by maximum amount of 8 degrees.

It is a ridiculous lens.


this lens isn't straight by nocklebeast

In most cameras people are familiar with, the axis of the lens is perpendicular to and centered on the center of the film frame or digital sensor.

However, in a view camera, the sort of camera you see in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly just before Tuco is about to take a train ride (1:36), the lens is connected to the film plane with a flexible bellows. This way the lens may be either tilted away from perpendicular to the film, or the lens may be shifted away from center of the picture frame. Special lenses made to tilt or shift are available for SLRs as well. Shifting the lens alters the point of perspective independently from where the camera is situated. According to Sean Read in his review of the Canon 24/3.5 L TS-E II Tilt/Shift lens this comes in handy for architectural photography in tight places. When the lens is perpendicular to the film, the plane of maximum focus is also perpendicular to the film. But when lens is tilted, the plane of maximum focus is tilted as well, which comes in handy in architectural or product photography.

A odd tilt effect can even be achieved by "tilting the film" inside the camera as I do in a modified swing lens camera (the lens exposes the film as it travels in a circle, but the film isn't loaded into the camera in a circle).


stretch bicycle by nocklebeast

Tilting the lens allows the photographer to isolate the focus in a way that's a little different than opening the lens to it's largest aperture. This photo of Precious N. Metal of the Pink Pistols was taken with a normal lens with the aperture wide open. She is in focus, while her teammates in the background are increasingly out of focus the further they are away from the plane of maximum focus (about 6 feet away from me).


Precious N Metal and the rest of the Pink Pistols do warm up drills before the big bout by nocklebeast

With a tilt lens, the point of maximum focus can be placed both near and far.


here and there by nocklebeast

It seems to me that a tilt lens lends itself to a careful and deliberate way of working. Open the aperture wide open to allow you to see where the focus is on the ground glass of the SLR viewfinder. Then focus and shift or tilt the lens to place the focus where you want it to be. Frame the photo. Double check the focus. Stop down the lens as necessary to get the correct exposure.  If you're taking a photo of a building or a bridge and the the building hasn't gone anywhere in the time you've been mucking about with the lens, take the photo already.


danger no trespassing by nocklebeast

If however your subject matter requires a bit more nimbleness such as sports photography or "street photography" (taking photos of people you don't know in public places) a tilt lens is probably one of the craziest tools you could use for these subjects. Occasionally, I get interesting photographs, sometimes even a gem, but most of the time it's just crazy.


reaching by nocklebeast


Pippi Hardsocking by nocklebeast


Pigeon by nocklebeast


Pigeon got a penalty by nocklebeast

For some more tilt-shift derby photos, Axle Adams shot a bunch of nice photos last March.  He's got lots of light. He's shooting at f4 which gives a little more depth of field (than f2.8), and it looks like he's tilting the lens in a different direction than most of my shots.

To my knowledge, no one has used a view camera for roller derby photography.  Not yet anyway.

seeing the subject

This post takes its name from an recent essay by Sean Reid from his photo review site (http://www.reidreviews.com/reidreviews/). Reid's review site features reviews of various photographic equipment and general essays on photography. His essay touches on something I've been thinking about awhile now... my somewhat unconventional approach to derby photography (for a future post).

Now, long time fans of my photostream on flickr may be wondering how often I actually use the viewfinder of my camera. And they would be right in being suspicious about this, as I sometimes shoot nearly an entire roll of film without actually looking through the viewfinder of the camera.


biking in the sun by nocklebeast taken with a Hexar RF rangefinder, shot from the hip.

Now, most people don't shoot from the hip. Different kinds of cameras offer different ways of seeing the subject.  This is what Reid's essay is about. Reid lists five or six general types of camera with different kinds of finders.

One type of finder is of a camera that I don't have, the ground glass finder of the view camera.  The view camera focuses the image on a plate of ground glass. The photograph focuses and composes the photo looking at the inverted image on the ground glass (often using a tripod) and then swaps out the ground glass for some film and then snaps the photo.

Another type of finder is the wire frame camera. The finder consists of two rectangular frames, the first is an eyepiece that you press your eye up against and the second is just a frame that shows the camera's view.  Naturally, this sort of camera has a fixed focal length.  Reid claims that cameras with this finder haven't been made for quite some time, but several years ago, lomography.com offered a quad cam with this simple direct view finder made entirely of plastic.


they don't make wire frame finder cameras by nocklebeast

Reid's essay includes a photo taken from a 4x5 crown graphic press camera with such a wire frame finder.

The most newfangled type of finder is the electronic view finder, which consists of a little TV screen in the back of the camera or in an eyepiece.  Most people are familiar with this sort of camera and call it a digital point-n-shoot. Some digital cameras include an EVF and another type of finder.


a little tv screen by nocklebeast

Another type of finder is the "twin lens reflex" or TLR camera.  The camera has two lenses. The taking lens focuses an image on the exposed film, while the second lens coupled to the first focuses the image on a mirror which bounces the image onto a plate of ground glass.  Most TLR finders are viewed from above while the camera is held at waist level. I don't think anyone makes a digital TLR, but there's no reason why a digital TLR shouldn't exist.

 
why doesn't anyone make digital TLRs? by nocklebeast

Another type of finder is the "single lens reflex" or SLR camera.  The camera has a single lens.  The lens focuses the image on a mirror which bounces the image onto a ground glass prism which the photographer sees in an eyepiece above the lens.  When it's time to take the photo, the mirror collapses and the image is focused on the film or digital sensor while the view from the prism goes momentarily dark. Most often when people refer to "pro cameras" they're talking about digital SLRs.

 
Minolta X-GM

The last finder is the "window finder" which consists of a piece of glass or window.  The entire window may show the view that will be recorded or the window will have a "framelines" which show what will be recorded on the film or digital sensor and the surrounding area of the recorded photograph.  A subset of the window finder camera is the rangefinder.  The rangefinder camera has a secondary window which is coupled to the mechanical focusing mechanism of the lens.  When the image from the second window lines up with the image of the primary window, the lens is focused on what is in the center of the field of view.

 
Zorki-4K