Tilt-Shift Lens
Ok, so I saw another link on BoingBoing to a photo gallery I thought people might be interested in.
Above is one of the pictures in the gallery. Now, what do you think you are looking at? It looks exactly like a scale model that someone created and painted realistically, right?
Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. The pictures in the gallery are pictures taken from a helicopter of actual places (the above picture is of an aquaduct in Rome). He uses a tilt-shift lens to create that effect.
I’ve never heard of a tilt-shift lens before, but I looked them up, and kind of have an idea of what they do now. What I still can’t really figure out is, what is it that makes a picture of a model look like a picture of a model and not a picture of the real thing?
January 28th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
I didn’t have any special lens when I took this picture of Pisa from our plane as we took off, and I’ve always thought that it looks like the city is a model. It’s easier to see in the actual picture (this is a scan), but I think it’s the way the picture focuses. The effect is more obvious in the picture you posted, but it’s there in both.
As for your last question, I think there are typically little details that give model pictures away. Like the giants in the picture above
January 28th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
I think it’s the way the picture focuses
That’s entirely possible. I suppose that when you take an actual picture of city like that, you are far away, and it is therefore very difficult to get some parts in focus while other parts are out of focus? Whereas with a model, since it’s not actually that far away, it is easier to get a shorter depth of field?
The thing is that if I had cropped the picture that I had posted, and just showed you the part that was in focus, I bet that you would still think that it was a picture of a model. And there is something there that tips your eye off to that, but I’m not sure what it is.
Hmmm… I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
January 28th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
I think I have a bias with this particular question. I’ve seen some of this guy’s photography before and I myself have seen from personal experience how it looks like a model when one takes pictures of a city from an altitude of 3,000+ ft.
Perhaps part of the reason that the picture looks model-like (even when cropped) is its delicacy and the fact that nothing is moving. When one normally looks out of an aircraft, one can see the cars moving and such, but that’s not possible with a photo.