Tilt-Shift adapter in studio test review:
EOS 1Ds mounted on a large format system camera
Now I have first in studio test – review of this system.
Lens: Rodenstock APO Rodagon N 80 F4.
Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds mark III.
Lights: White Lightning 1800, various light modifiers.
Camera/lens setting: 1/250 sec, F8.
The main idea is to see what quality I can achieve on this system and what benefits would give me the ability to tilt the lens. So, What I did it this: Took a first photo with a non tilted lens, focusing on a closest part of watch’s dial. Second shoot with exactly the same lightning, exposure (F stop was not changed), but I tilted lens both horizontally and vertically. The result is below:
1. This shot was made without any tilt, you can clearly see a where the focus plane is. I’ve used a relatively shallow DOF to show what you can do with such great lens attached to such a nice system:-)
Close up image of product photography
100% crop (click to open):
2. Here I was trying to move a focus plane to be in parallel with watches dial. Lens was tilted on both axes, about 15 degree ( measured by my eye, so do not quote me here) around horizontal axis (Y) and just a few degrees around vertical axis (X).
Tilted image of the watch
Wow! what a dramatic change, especially if you look at 100% crop. You can see a small amount of glare as a trade off, but overall very enjoyable result. Focus plane moved, now the whole dial is in focus, bracelet fading in blur much sooner.
100% crop (click to open):
Conclusion:
Overall, I was really impressed by the quality of the lens itself. This is enlargement lens which originally was used for enlarging medium format negatives, but it works amazing in macro photography as well. In fact, it is better wide open than my Canon 180 mm F3.5 L macro lens! The Cambo Master PC4x5 large format camera I was suing to build my system is another high quality piece, with precise all geared movements it works the best in a studio! I am really pleased with results.
