But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, what kind of lens is this?
In simple terms (because like most of you, I can't handle technical terms for too long) it's a lens that you can shift and tilt. With most lenses, you attach it to the camera body and that's it. You can't do anything else.
Why would you want to do such a thing? Two sets of reasons - practical and fun.
Practical: I've mentioned the "leaning building effect" - what happens when you try to take a picture of a tall building and you point the camera upwards. This would enable you to avoid that.
Practical: Great depth and great speeds. This would have been helpful during my butterfly shoots. An example:
I like this shot, but it took about ten takes. I wonder what this would have looked like with a tilt-shift lens. Perhaps I'd have more of the picture in focus, which could be interesting. Also, having to worry less about the butterfly, as well as the breeze in the facility would have been nice.
Fun: Optical illusions!
What am I talking about? Well, you can play with focus and make some parts of the picture blurry and others not. That makes for a fun optical illusion. You can also manipulate the picture and make it look like look like its subjects are miniatures or toys. It sounds like a lot of fun! I don't have any examples based on my own work, because I've never done it before. Here's a site with some good examples.
Upside: they work with my APS-C sensor (ie not full-frame body), unlike most fisheye lenses.
Downside - these are some expensive lenses. I'd need to go out and rent one. Renting wouldn't be difficult at all. Knowing me, I would spend hours experimenting and playing around. Anyway, it's something to think about. If you have one, let me know if you like it.
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