DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register
 

DPChallenge Forums >> Photography Discussion >> Tilt shift lens or focus stacking for extreme DOF?
Pages:  
Showing posts 1 - 7 of 7, (reverse)
AuthorThread
07/08/2016 04:37:45 PM · #1
Which one yields better results for landscape photography? Tilt shift lens or focus stacking?

I will be backpacking for a month in the mountains and I would like to have good focus throughout my images in certain scenes. I'm thinking up close to mountain flowers in a field of them with a backdrop of mountains. I am considering buying a Rokinon or Samyang (same thing) tilt shift lens before my trip, but the widest they make is 24mm. Even on a full frame camera, I often like much wider shots as with what I get with my 17-35 or Rokinon 14mm for full frame but I expect that there will be times that 24mm will be wide enough.

The other option is multiple shots at varying focus points throughout the scene and focus stacking them later. I focus stack for macro but I haven't done it for landscapes. How exact does one need to be with the different focal points, anyway? I figured that I would mostly shoot three times with focus on the nearest subject, 1/3 into the image, and then infinity or something focused on in the distance.

What more can anybody tell me about these options and which direction would you recommend?

Thanks!
07/08/2016 04:52:53 PM · #2
Tilt/shift only really tilts the plane of focus... that may get everything in focus depending on the relative angle of the ground and lens, or it may not. If you really want the illusion of infinite DoF, I'd go with focus stacking. I'd still want to be using a wide lens at a relatively small aperture, and I'd be doing up-front experiments to determine exactly where the hyperfocal distance is, so that I can minimmize the number of stacked shots. You may find that you can actually get everything in one shot. For example using a 20mm lens on my Canon 6D, my hyperfocal distance is 12.7 feet (using CoC of 0.013mm, two times the pixel pitch). At F/11, this gives me a near focus limit of 5.26 feet, and a far limit of infinity. At 16mm, I can get everything from 2.88 feet to infinity in focus.
I would caution you to experiment on this. You will probably find that focusing a little long of the hyperfocal distance to *guarantee* that infinity is in focus, is a good idea - that way you do give up a little bit at the near end.
07/08/2016 05:00:21 PM · #3
Speaking as someone with no real experience with either, I'd expect a better result with the TS lens, and use a pan-head on your tripod and stitch a panorama if the 24mm view isn't wide enough.

But if you get the lens, you have the perfect opportunity to compare the two techniques!
07/08/2016 07:28:10 PM · #4
Tilt shift can be perfect to get rid of distortion and have straight vertical lines. It doesn't change a lot for the focus matter. But no doubt you can get everything in almost perfect focus with one shot 90% of the times. 5% there is "acceptable" focus and for the other 5% you can use focus staking. But except when you have something VERY close to you, you can easily have everything in focus. Most of the problems can be found with night shots.
07/08/2016 11:24:23 PM · #5
With any lens, your DOF is perpendicular to the plane of of the lens, which with a non-adjustable lens means DOF is arrayed from near-to-far along the axis of the lens. When you shoot a landscape with a tilted TS lens, the DOF is still perpendicular to the plane of the lens, which basically means the DOF switches away from a horizontal plane to a more vertical one. You can see the result easily if you shoot a cityscape with tall buildings when the lens is wide open; you'll have DOF running up-and-down the buildings while the road along the axis of which you're shooting will be sharp to infinity :-) I first encountered this when I was a neophyte large format shooter; I was shooting an interior with a very large and intricate carpet which I wanted in sharp focus basically from a foot in front of the tripod to the far wall maybe 30 feet away. I accomplished that no problem, but at first I couldn't understand why the top half of the large painting on the left wall and most of the ceiling were out of focus... (Remember, on a 4x5 camera a wide angle lens is like 60-70mm...)

The same is true with horizontal focus variations, of course, if you tilt the lens on a horizontal plane, say to keep an entire long, diagonal wall in focus...

Now, I had a 17mm TS for my Canon for a while, and it was a finicky beast to use. I mostly used it for shifting (getting more height, usually, with structure in the images), because it was EXTREMELY difficult to determine optimum tilt and the small focusing screens the dSLR cams have. Very time-consuming... Much easier in controlled environments when shooting tethered, but really tough in the field. Since I don't make a living doing architecture any longer, it was more fussiness thasn I really wanted to deal with, so I don't much miss the lens.

Bottom line? As others have said, careful attention to hyperfocal tables and/or focus stacking will generally produce more consistent results with a lot less at-the-shoot work.

07/09/2016 12:17:03 PM · #6
Thank you very much to all who replied. Focus stacking it is, then.
07/11/2016 11:58:23 AM · #7
stand back further (a lot) and use a telephoto. :P

Message edited by author 2016-07-11 11:59:04.
Pages:  
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 09:50:14 PM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 09:50:14 PM EDT.