Learn About This Neat Tool I Use For Better Compositions
I have invested in a lot of tools to help me turn out better imaging. There is one such tool that many people have never heard of, and I thought I’d hip you to the jive.
If you notice the photo below, you can see that the peaks of the house come right up the top of the picture. Putting space between the roof top and the top edge of the picture would make for a better composition. The problem is that my camera/tripod set up was already as high as it would go.
I could tilt the camera upwards, but if I simply tilt my camera upwards to put space above the roof tops, I’d have a converging lines perspective problem. The edges of the house would be further apart at the bottom of the image, and they’d appear to narrow in, or come closer, towards the top. Hmmmm….what’s a photographer to do?
This is where a neat tool that I recently purchased comes into play. The tool I’m referring to is a tilt-shift lens. Tilt-shift lenses look complicated and quite fancy, and they are. They are also expensive. But for a photographer focusing on real estate, architecture and interior design photography, they are a must have.
A tilt-shift lens articulates and moves. It seemingly bends around. The camera stays still while the lens is slid and twisted in a way that raises, lowers, and generally moves the lens around. I can raise the front of the lens up which in the case of the house I showed, allows me to get a better framing with space between the top of the roof and the top of the picture.
The surprising thing to me was that the lens can raise and lower like 3 inches or some such seemingly small number, but the view through the lens makes it look like I moved the lens 3 feet! (I’m exaggerating but it is quite a difference.)
In the case of the second house image, I simply dialed the front of the tilt-shift lens, moving it upwards, and snapped a new picture. Ta-da! A much better composition! Now granted, the effect is subtle and the difference between the two images is really pretty small, yet letting the composition breathe like I did by using this special lens gives the image that slightly more professional frame-up.
Pro photographers know this tool well. Have you ever heard of it and have you ever used one? I’d love to get your thoughts below! Hopefully you’ll consider leaving a comment.
Paul Pope
Dynamic Duo Photo And Video Service
