The Unique Way Tilt-Shift Lenses Work

Tilt-shift lenses are some of the most unique and useful lenses out there. This great video will show you how they work and why they are so prized for lots of different work.

Coming to you from Filmmaker IQ, this informative video will show you the science behind how tilt-shift lenses work and why that makes them so useful to creatives. What makes tilt-shift lenses so useful is that they allow you to change the position and orientation of the lens relative to the sensor or film in your camera, giving you capabilities normally reserved for large format cameras. This is incredibly useful in a number of cases. For example, by tilting the lens, you can change the orientation of the focal plane so it is not simply parallel to the imaging plane. This allows you to partially decouple depth of field from aperture, which means you can, for example, use a wide aperture to gather more light, while still achieving a deeper depth of field. One thing to note is that tilt-shift lenses are always manual focus only (at least for now, as there are rumors that Canon will release two tilt-shift lenses with autofocus for their mirrorless mount next year). Still, they are tremendously useful for a variety of genres. Check out the video above for the full rundown.