Secrets of the City

A few look neat, but mostly like really bad Photoshop.

I’ve wanted to get a tilt-shift lense for a long time, but they ghastly expensive to someone on a tight budget like myself.

Moreso because photography is just a hobby.

In the Spoonbridge photo I kept looking for some n-scale model railroad tracks–those things (and people) really look like miniatures!

A few look neat, but mostly like really bad Photoshop.

some of them are bad photoshop. There’s a dumb fake tilt-shift thing you can do with photoshop, but it’s really obvious to anyone who’s seen good tilt-shift photography.

“I’ve wanted to get a tilt-shift lense for a long time, but they ghastly expensive to someone on a tight budget like myself.“

Watch out-of-the-way pawn shops, and you can sometimes find an old Linhoff or Minolta bellows camera with tilt-frame capability cheaper than a lens for your existing camera. As a side benefit, if you’re a 35mm (or digital equivalent) SLR hobbyist, trying stuff on the bellows with a rail and tilt is great fun and very empowering.

I have a Lensbabies lens which is more-or-less a tilt-shift lens. They can be had for about $400 and come in a wide variety of flavors. Fun stuff.

$1k for a proper tilt-shift lens is a bit too much of an investment as a gift to my wife… Saving $700 to experiment with a “lens baby” is enticing, but if it sucks, you look embarrassingly cheap.

I need to get my numbers straight. It’s about $270 for the lensbaby 3g new. Here’s a link with gallery:

linky poo

I completely lust after a Lensbaby.

A commenter at Off-Center offers a MAKE magazine link on how to make a tilt-shift camera on the cheap.