Life in miniature
It's about time someone does this. I've always been a fan of tilt-shift photography, the method of using a special lens or a bellows on a still camera to either impart a very narrow depth of focus to a scene or used to "correct" a scene taken from an oblique angle in order to ensure parallel lines in a scene remain so (useful for taking photos of tall buildings from street level, for instance). Such a technique was easily accomplished with the big medium and large format cameras in the earliest days of photography by shifting or tilting the front part of those cameras that held the lens. In later years, special lenses were developed (heh) for 35mm cameras. It seems in recent years the art of tilt-shift photography has exploded with the availability of the special lenses and digital SLRs, and people are trying their hand at the craft. I'm one of them, and I hope to pick up a T-S lens once my finances are back in order (read: I'm back to work). But I digress a bit.
Something I can never recall seeing was any sort of motion photography using the T-S technique. It might have been done in years past for special effects in movies, but it was not widely known outside of that industry. In the last couple years, some digital SLR cameras have picked up the ability to shoot high-definition video. A lot of people poo-pooed the the feature, saying it was not needed, or that it was more suited to entry-level "consumer" point-and-shoot cameras. Well, someone has finally wedded the tilt-shift lens to video and has come up with this little ditty below. It's a very simple process, but seems to only have been easily doable with the convergence of the new lenses and HD capable SLRs. Speed things up a bit, and you have the most amazing flea circus you'll ever see. In the case of this particular movie, it was not even shot in video mode, instead the camera was set to take successive stills as fast as was possible, then combining the stills to make a HD movie. Quite a bit more involved, but with simply remarkable results.
I'm so doing this one day.
(Hat tip to wrascalbc!)
Something I can never recall seeing was any sort of motion photography using the T-S technique. It might have been done in years past for special effects in movies, but it was not widely known outside of that industry. In the last couple years, some digital SLR cameras have picked up the ability to shoot high-definition video. A lot of people poo-pooed the the feature, saying it was not needed, or that it was more suited to entry-level "consumer" point-and-shoot cameras. Well, someone has finally wedded the tilt-shift lens to video and has come up with this little ditty below. It's a very simple process, but seems to only have been easily doable with the convergence of the new lenses and HD capable SLRs. Speed things up a bit, and you have the most amazing flea circus you'll ever see. In the case of this particular movie, it was not even shot in video mode, instead the camera was set to take successive stills as fast as was possible, then combining the stills to make a HD movie. Quite a bit more involved, but with simply remarkable results.
Click to viewI'm so doing this one day.
(Hat tip to wrascalbc!)