jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA

Thanks Bob,

I think there is a misconception of what a tilt-shift lens does. Once I set up the height of the camera to show the desired view of the vanity top, I level out the camera so it is neither leaning to any side or tilted up or down facing to the room. When there is no shift dialed in, the lens is a regular manual focus 24mm lens. When I shift up, the front lens stays in parallel but moves up relative to the sensor. The same for shifting down. The result is an overlapping view of the higher and lower third of the 2nd photo. The camera has not moved and so everything is still level and parallel thus perspective of all 3 photos are perfectly aligned without additional distortion.

Tilting the camera itself leads to the common problem of keystoning, which you can eliminate with a TSE lens set up as described. From what you posted, I think that is what you believe I am doing. On a TSE lens, tilting changes the front lens and the focal plane angle relative to the sensor so it is no longer parallel. Tilting changes the depth of field front to back or side to side or diagonally, depending on the rotation of the tilt collar.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

One thing I have tried and had success with is rotating the lens so that it shifts on angles other than horizontal and vertical - to get a larger image. You end up with a very high mp image, and lots of cropping possibilities. I am not sure if it will fix the falling floor, though.

Feel free to ask me about TS lenses - I cut my teeth back in the 70s with Horseman, Deardoff, Linhof, Sinar and Crown Graphic view, field and technical cameras.

jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA

Gene,
Thank you for the kindness... do you mean to shoot at opposite diagonals like in an x pattern? Shift vertically and horizontally after rotating? That does really open up the possibilities that never occurred to me! These images weren't cropped, in fact I painted in the lower third of the floor register and cloned tiles after warping the angle upwards. Your suggestion means I could have saved time by not needing to do that! I am definitely going to play with that concept and see how it expands options.

As I said before, another day to learn new things to try! Thanks!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Actually the lenses have detents at 30 degree intervals. For best coverage, do a shift-center-shift series at each detent - so you end up with 4 sets of panos. The software will resolve all the tiles into one large, roughly square image. See how it works for you. For images like this, the liquify tool can be helpful as well. I spent a couple of minutes making the change below with the liquify tool on a screen capture of your image. Clearly the floor is an issue, but with the full image at full resolution, it can be carefully painted back in. I didn't spend as much time as would be required for a finished image for a portfolio. This is just to show how the tool might be able to help.

jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA

Gene, thanks for the clarification. I'll have to set up a test shoot and try that out.

I like that the liquify filter did this, but I need to keep the pattern of the tile layout as intact as possible. The tiling is part of the specified design process, so... so far the warp tool worked the best for this. Until someone comes up with another way to accomplish the transformation...

I appreciate your input.

John

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Of course, I did what I could with the low resolution screen capture. You can paint/clone in the tile with a little more work. I just wanted to show you another tool that could be used to do some geometric adjustments.

jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA