Tilt-Shift Photography - Blows your mind...

[photon]

The photography threads reminded me of this, anyone else try this or see this before?

Basically if you manipulate a picture (either through a specific lens or do it in photoshop) you can make any scene look like it's tiny!

Example:



Nice pic. Here's the after:



They're so tiny!

There's some awesome examples here, and even movies:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008...t-photography/

And how to do it:

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/...p-tutorial.php

[octothorp]

I've got all the parts necessary to make my own tilt-shift lens, as per instructions in Make magazine a few months ago. Just need to find the time to sit down and put the pieces together.

My wife uses a Lensbaby a lot, which gives you a similar effect but not quite as nice as a tilt-shift.

[The Ditch]

I've shot with the Canon tilt shift lens a couple of times, you can get some pretty amazing photos but to me it has limited use once you get over the "cool" factor.

[photon]

What gets me is how you can't not see the illusion. How some illusions pop back and forth between seeing it one way or the other (you see the dolphins or you don't, the girl spins clockwise or counterclockwise), but this one you can't not see everything as tiny.

I guess it just fascinates me how the brain works and how easy it is too fool the brain with just a few subtle changes to an image.

[Nancy]

I'm not sure if I get this... these are real photographs that have been photoshopped to look like fake photographs that have been photoshopped to look real.

[redforever]

I dont get it either. Only thing I see in second pic is blurry stuff on top. Rest looks the same to me, I don't see any illusion?

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by redforever

I dont get it either. Only thing I see in second pic is blurry stuff on top. Rest looks the same to me, I don't see any illusion?

I'm with you there.

Maybe that's the point?


EDIT: Some of the examples in the link photon posted worked better for me. Here's one that I thought was well done: http://flickr.com/photos/nicolas_xii/2955317413/.

[photon]

The second one everything in the picture looks really small, almost like a scene with models in it rather than an actual photo. Take a look at the ones in the first link I posted (without a before and after), some are better than others.

[photon]

Some more examples:

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by photon

The second one everything in the picture looks really small, almost like a scene with models in it rather than an actual photo. Take a look at the ones in the first link I posted (without a before and after), some are better than others.

Yeah, I think it works better without the "before", though now that I get it, I do see it in the city intersection one as well.

Definitely a cool effect.

[photon]

[czure32]

Originally Posted by photon

The second one everything in the picture looks really small, almost like a scene with models in it rather than an actual photo. Take a look at the ones in the first link I posted (without a before and after), some are better than others.

ya it took me a second to understand what you were talking about with "they're so tiny" and started to concentrate on the second picture, after a little while it dawned on me that the clear images in the second photo have that kind of plastic look to them

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by photon

What gets me is how you can't not see the illusion. How some illusions pop back and forth between seeing it one way or the other (you see the dolphins or you don't, the girl spins clockwise or counterclockwise), but this one you can't not see everything as tiny.

I guess it just fascinates me how the brain works and how easy it is too fool the brain with just a few subtle changes to an image.

The thing that blows my mind about tilt-shift photography is that it has nothing to do with replicating how our eyes work when we look at miniatures, and everything to do with replicating how cameras work when photographing miniatures. When I look at something a few inches infront of my face, I don't get the same soft focus effect that a camera does. We're just so conditioned from looking at photos to understand that certain focus effects mean that something is small, even if we're not aware what causes us to think that it's small.

I'd be curious to see if someone who's never really looked at photography before (someone with complete media deprivation) would look at these photos and see miniatures, or would they just see a blurred photograph. Any cognitive psychologists in the room who have access to individuals who have had media deprivation since birth?

[photon]

Really? Is that the general reasoning behind why tilt-shift works?

When we look at something really close I'm pretty sure that we do see that same soft focus effect, we just don't notice it because our brain fills in the gaps, when our eyes dart all around as do they refocus so everything always looks in focus, but in reality very little in our field of vision is in focus outside the narrow forward cone.

I think that's why this works, because it's reproducing the soft out of focus signals that our brain gets from the eyes but builds over when it makes the actual image that we see.

I'll do a search on a blog on cognitive psychology that I read.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by photon

Some more examples:

Guess I just dont get it. All I see, with the exception of the firetrucks, are what I would call cartoon characterizations, stuff that does not look real, let alone just miniature?

I can't remember what they called them, but remember those pics you were supposed to look at and suddenly some image was to magically pop up and appear? Flames sold them at the FanAttic too. They never worked for me either so maybe it is just me.

[photon]

Originally Posted by redforever

Guess I just dont get it. All I see, with the exception of the firetrucks, are what I would call cartoon characterizations, stuff that does not look real, let alone just miniature?

That's the point, they are all photographs taken with a real camera at a real basketball game, or of a real stadium, or of real cars. The subtle manipulation of the images directs the brain to interpret them as small models and not images of real scenes.

http://ask.metafilter.com/88449/Why-...ings-look-tiny

A discussion on it, I couldn't find anything on the blog I mentioned but I may email him.

The last comment in there was interesting, the person's six year old son saw it as a small model and I don't know if a six year old would have enough experience seeing macro photos to be directed to that conclusion.

[Bobblehead]

I'm just guessing here, but I think there are 2 things going on here (and photographers, please correct me).

1) the blurring is playing with our perception of the depth of field. When you see a picture like that, is it often something you are focusing on that is very close to the lens.

2) the oversaturation and increasing contrast is is making the image look like it was painted.

Put together, they look more like something that was a model filmed up close.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by photon

Really? Is that the general reasoning behind why tilt-shift works?

When we look at something really close I'm pretty sure that we do see that same soft focus effect, we just don't notice it because our brain fills in the gaps, when our eyes dart all around as do they refocus so everything always looks in focus, but in reality very little in our field of vision is in focus outside the narrow forward cone.

I think that's why this works, because it's reproducing the soft out of focus signals that our brain gets from the eyes but builds over when it makes the actual image that we see.

I'll do a search on a blog on cognitive psychology that I read.

I don't know, I'm just holding up my fingers in front of my face, and it seems like there has to be about a foot between the fingers for there to be any blurring; and even then it's fairly subtle. With miniature photography, you'll frequently have a photo where the focus is set to a foot away, and anything closer than 10 or further than 14 inches away is completely blurred.

As well, when we're looking at miniatures, the result is that every thing that is out of focus is essentially seen twice, as a result of the different paths of our eyes. Miniature and tilt-shift photography doesn't have any of this duplication of out-of-focus objects. The lens effect seems to me to be just too different from how our eyes work.

I'm really curious about this; let me know if you find out anything more.

Edit: thanks for posting that other discussion. Although it looks like people are fairly split about whether it's mimicking effects of human vision or just camera lenses. I can't wait until I have a kid. I'm going to run so many little experiments like this on them.

[GreenLantern]

I sort of get this, id love to see it of something up close though if its possible.



This is the image that tipped me off, all of them I was like WDF? Then I got to this one and it reminded me of watching shows when I was a kid that would have minature sets like this to show the "outside" of the "studio" where the show was being filmed.

Very cool.

[Kerplunk]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I'm just guessing here, but I think there are 2 things going on here (and photographers, please correct me).

1) the blurring is playing with our perception of the depth of field. When you see a picture like that, is it often something you are focusing on that is very close to the lens.

2) the oversaturation and increasing contrast is is making the image look like it was painted.

Put together, they look more like something that was a model filmed up close.

Ya, I think this is the basic principle behind it. The blur in the images screws up any depth of field and recognition points that we need to distinguish between distance and size in the photo.