first time post, poor man's tilt/shift lens

[Franklin1000]

Poor man's tilt/shift, has anyone ever used the Lens Baby 3G for altering depth of field in product photos?
I am trying to get a pearl necklace photo to have equal focus from front to back. Taking the picture approx 18 to 20 inches away. Diameter of the necklace is about 16 inches.

Is it possible to use the lens baby to acheive this?

The Canon wthat I want with the optional tilt/shift is still a dream.

Although by the tutorials in this site for using tilt shift, it seems as though it is still manual all the way and a lot of trial and error, even for an expensive camera (for me).

Any ideas, help, or comments?

[shreds]

Must say I have not used a LensBaby but they seem to get some decent reviews for what they do without breaking the bank. Judging by the lack of response, perhaps few others have tried them either.
Therefore if you do get one, let us all know what we are missing!

[Chelseablue]

'alright Shreds

Must say I was intrigued as well having never used one either. the following is a direct quote from the Lensbabies website;

"Lensbaby™ SLR lenses bring one area of your photo into sharp focus, with that Sweet Spot™ surrounded by gradually increasing blur. You can move the Sweet Spot to any part of your photo by bending the lens.
Lensbaby lenses are perhaps the simplest way to add a completely new dimension to your photography. Try a Lensbaby when you need a creative edge or just want to have fun with your camera"

Franklin1000, I'd have to say that no, a lensbaby would not help to achieve focus from front to back. I take it that you are using a Canon SLR?

Mark


Mark

[rustyshutter71]

I have no experience of these myself, but I agree with Mark, I think achieving the depth of field you mention is probably a physical impossibility on the camera format we're considering.

As has been mentioned in another thread somewhere in CinC, cleverly combining several pictures each focused at different depths 'into' the necklace might achieve the effect you're after, but even with special software, would be quite laborious.

[Mike R]

Have you considered renting a T/S lens?

You might also consider focus-stacking. I don't have any personal experience with it, but have seen anecdotal evidence on other forums that it's pretty easy to learn.

Mike

[rc53]

Yes, a T/S lens is what would work best - Canon do 3 of them. The 90mm seems to be the one that product photographers use.

Focus stacking is possible, but one problem is that the image size varies slightly with changes in focussing distance. Easy in theory, but...

[McQ]

rc53 makes a very good point that I think most are not aware of when then plan of image stacking to enhance depth of field: most lenses vary their field of view slightly for different focusing distances. When you try and stack the images they will therefore never exactly match up-- requiring one of the images (with the narrower field of view) to be enlarged using interpolation, which will slightly reduce image quality. Seems like a great idea in theory, but as with most things in life, stacking becomes much more complicated in practice. This should not discourage you from it entirely though...

To address the original question about whether your depth of field scenario is even possible with *any* tilt/shift lens, I also recommend taking a look at this website's page on Using Tilt/Shift Lenses to Control Depth of Field . I think you might be surprised how even a tiny amount of tilt can dramatically change the angle of the depth of field. Similarly, the focusing distance also has a big impact on how much your plane of sharpest focus is angled when the lens is at max tilt. There's a also number of tilt/shift lens calculators...

[rpcrowe]

this might be an alternate choice. I have no idea regarding the quality of this lens, just know that it exists...

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...hread=17612257