Tilty-Shifty

After having so much fun with the tilt-shift adapter I have for my M42 lenses, I decided to look around on eBay and see if I could get a real tilt-shift lens for a decent price (they are kind of specialized, and therefore quite rare and expensive).

And after a lot of looking and waiting I found a really sweet deal on this…

It’s a 1973 Canon 35mm f/2.8 S.C.C. Tilt Shift FD mount and it looks like it’s brand new and even came with the case and all the accessories. It is, in fact, the first tilt-shift lens made for 35mm cameras almost 50 years ago 🙂 It did mean getting a new adapter as this is my first FD mount lens, but I’m sure there will be more 😉

Tilt-shift lenses are special because the lens can be tilted away from straight ahead to change the plane of focus, and the whole lens can be shifted up or down to keep images in proper perspective (there are good descriptions of how they work here and here), as shown in the following pics:

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I took it with me to the woods this afternoon, and though a TS lens is not really meant to be used as a hand-held, walk-about lens, I really like it 🙂 It is an excellent lens with lovely character even not tilted or shifted, but with a little twist and a tilt here or a shift there it really produces some lovely, characterful shots:

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And then, later this afternoon Kate texted me to ask for some shots of one of the stained-glass windows in the church to put on the screens during the service tomorrow for her sermon- and so I got to use it the way it is meant to be used, for proper, architectural photography on a tripod and shifted to keep the image in proper perspective, and it didn’t disappoint:

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All-in-all, a very good day of photography (I took pictures of the Christmas Tree Sale as well, both with my regular camera and my drone), and a very good purchase that will be a lot of fun to really learn to use properly!