Tilt and Shift Lenses

[artington]

For me, one of the drawbacks of the Sony Alpha system has been the shortage of dedicated lenses, certainly by comparison with Canon, Nikon and Pentax, whose Limited range has for me the very desirable aperture rings. A particular omission has been the absence of tilt and shift lenses - probably because these can only be focussed manually and, indeed, were droppedby Minolta after the introduction of AF. Not so by Nikon or Canon. This situation has now been rectified by the venerable Schneider Kreuznach lens maker, which has introduced two new tilt and shift lenses for DSLRs. One is a 50/2.8 aimed at architectural and landscape photographers, the other a 90/4.5 for advertsing / product photography. These are expensive lenses but Schneider quality is legendary. Importantly, the lens mounts (including one for Sony Alpha) are interchangeable so if one decides to jump ship to another system the lens can still be used by simply changing the bayonet mount. Very neat and a positive by-product of the manual focusing which requires no electronic contacts or matching AF motors.

While I have been aware of the perspective control features of shift lenses and the DOF extension allowed by tilt lenses, the mechanics of the tilt operation has always been a bit of a mystery. (The shift concept is relatively easy to understand). Not ever having owned such a lens I have had no hands on experience to find my way. On digging around for literature i have discovered two exceptional pieces - one is the instruction manual from Schneider and the second is from Cambridge in Colour, a marvellous resource for photographers. I have attached the links here for anyone who might be interested.


http://www.schneideroptics.com/pdfs/pho ... 2%20en.PDF
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... enses2.htm

[David Kilpatrick]

It's a pity they do not reintroduced the 28mm f/4 PA-Curtagon (Schneider's full frame shift wide angle) which is actually more use for architecture, and also introduce the 120mm TS sold for Mamiya, in a more 35mm-friendly form.

I bought separate tilt and shift adaptors, each costing about £50, for Pentacon Six/Kiev/Exakta/Hasselblad 1000F fit lenses. I have one 80mm Kiev, and one 50mm Pentacon (CZ Flektogon). They need stopping down just one stop from maximum to tidy up and both perform really well at around f/8-f/11 which is typically what is needed for most tilt or shift shots. The 50mm cost me £150 I think, the 80mm was a scrap lens from a Kiev camera which broke down, and cost nothing.

David

[Dusty]

The best way to see what T&S will do for you is to get yourself a view camera and play with it!

Of course, if you actually then want to take that photo that you've set up, you have to have loaded film carriers, get the film developed and printed and then see the results. Too much to do in this world of instant satisfaction!

Maybe you could just photograph the groundglass with your Alpha!

Dusty

[lonewolf16x9]

http://www.leitax.com/conversion/contax ... index.html
If you can find one and are brave enough!

[lonewolf16x9]

Anyone have any experience of this sort of thing...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MC-2-8-20mm-T ... 1e677ae150
Cheers...

[alphaomega]

This ARSAT lens referred to by lonewolf16x9 above does look like having a Sony E-mount mouth. That is an interesting proposition. 30mm in 35mm speak would be ideal, at least for my purposes. I think I will be on the lookout for reviews and comments before investing in this devise. I am not sure the seller is too familiar with NEX as the NEX-3C, NEX-5N and NEX-7 are not listed, unless there is a good reason for this omission. If that were the case my interest would reduce somehow.
I used to have a T&S lens for my Mamiya 645 but sold the lot some time ago. Maybe I should have kept the T&S lens and looked for an adapter to use it on my MEX-5.

[David Kilpatrick]

I know the Arsat/Arax mechanism and this is a good combination - the 20mm lens is basically a Distagon/Flektogon derivative and should with luck be clean enough for TS.

There is currently no decent affordable M645 adaptor which goes to Alpha, to take the 50mm Shift lens (no tilt) for Mamiya to the NEX would require something like a Canon adaptor to Mamiya, then a NEX to Canon.

I have a Mamiya 35mm f/3.5 N manual lens, and the only option for tilt-shift is the expensive Mirax device for Alpha, then a further adaptor for NEX if wanted.

David

[pakodominguez]

I don't know about his one http://www.ebay.com/itm/MC-2-8-20mm-TIL ... 1e677ae150
But this one
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50mm-f-2-Tilt-S ... 1e6779363b
is for sure a M42 lens. So, if you have already a collection of M42 lenses, you can use them with this adapter (and use the lens that come with as paper weight...)

[jcoffin]

There are at least a few choices available:

Arax: They sell T/S adapters to mount a medium format lens (Hasselblad, Mamiya, or Pentacon 6) onto a normal SLR mount (Nikon, Pentax, Minolta/Sony, Canon, etc.) They also sell a lens they make in a T/S mount. Their prices are (by far) the lowest of the three listed here: the adapters are around $150US, and the lenses $670US for the 35mm and $429US for the 80mm. Arax started out re-working Soviet-built lenses, but says that these lenses are new (non-Soviet) construction. At the same time, it's not at all clear that the quality is dramatically superior.

Hartblei: Zeiss optics with prices to match. Available in 40mm (€4895), 80mm (€2295) and 120mm macro (€3595), or you can get the set of all three for €9700. Hartblei started out a little like Arax, selling Soviet-built optics and such. There's still a hartblei.com web site that lists many of those older products (at much lower prices), but with a note that they're permanently out of stock. The current Hartblei products are apparently much higher quality, but definitely much more expensive as well.

Schneider: Schneider optics can claim just about as good a pedigree as Zeiss, so it's probably no surprise that the prices are similar to Hartblei's as well. While I'm sure the quality is quite good, I have trouble getting very excited about the available focal lengths: 50mm ($4192US) and 90mm ($3962US). Those are great for a lot of purposes, but T/S is most often used for architecture, where you'd really rather have something shorter as a rule. They do sell a 28/2.8 shift lens (no tilt) as well, but it requires an adapter that (at least from Schneider) is available only for Nikon and Canon mounts. An A-mount adapter could undoubtedly be made, but it would probably have to be custom machined, which wouldn't be cheap either.

[David Kilpatrick]

The Schneider 28mm PC lens (no tilt) is made in a universal socket mount which can be fitted for Alpha as well as the other makes. It's been around a surprisingly long time.

The Hartblei Zeiss lenses are Jenoptik (CZ Jena) manufacture, so their pedigree goes back to Pentacon, much as the Arax lenses go back to Kiev Arensal, which in turn also go back to CZ Jena and Meyer Optik Dresden, from whom the Russians removed quantities of equipment in reparations including the Contax rangefinder production line. The lenses which Hartblei has developed come from a more recent range originally formulated for the Exakta 66. These lenses should have been the mainstay of the Sinar Hy6 medium format project too.

Hartblei switched from using Kiev Arsenal as their lens maker after Phase One acquired Mamiya, and employed Hartblei to develop a small line of tilt-shift and macro lenses for the new Phase One camera. I know this because I used the prototypes briefly during a Phase One event when the P65+ back was launched.

Very shortly after this, either Hartblei and Phase One fell out, or (more likely) the new Schneider management approached Phase One with an offer they could not refuse - to remake the entire Mamiya lens line, and license Schneider quality control to Japanese made lenses (already amongst the best). Though Schneider still makes lenses for Leica, Sinar etc they had pinned some hopes on taking over from Zeiss as Hasselblad's optical partner for the H series cameras - which ended up being made by Fuji, all glass included. Fuji had previously worked with Hasselblad but only indirectly, and never optically; the X-Pan was actually a Horseman (Norita, Rittreck brands) product like certain rollfilm Fuji cameras. But Hasselblad and Fuji set up to make the H system and its new lenses entirely as their own venture and German lens maker were out of the picture.

So Schneider really wanted a partner (much the same way Zeiss desperately wanted a deal like the Alpha system after losing the Contax channel). They had Samsung for QC-rebranding and digicam lenses, Mamiya/Phase One has rounded it off neatly and the lenses are built to the most amazing standards of precision.

Hartblei, in the meantime, didn't get the Phase One deal but did put the lenses into production and Phase One still acknowledge their existence - they just don't market them, but you can order them. The change in Hartblei's plans left them abandoning their earlier products and a potentially big market (like the old website).

There are many issues with Arax/Arsat/Hartblei products on Alpha DSLRs, not the least being interference with the mechanisms by the prism overhang of the 900/850 making some settings inaccessible. What's good about the NEX models now appearing from Kiev is that there is no overhang to foul the adjustments. These new TS adaptors will be genuinely useful and I agree, the latest NEX design appears to take M42 lenses and I'll bet it appears as a separate adaptor without lens before long.

David

[jcoffin]

Just FWIW, Arax claims they've re-designed their adapters to eliminate interference problems. I haven't tried it, so I can't say whether that's accurate, but at least based on the pictures they show on the web site, it looks reasonably believable -- the adapter doesn't seem to have any protruding screws (though it's not at all obvious how you lock it in place when you've found the amount of tilt you want). I should also add that in my previous post, I accidentally labeled these as "T/S" adapters, but they're really not -- they only do tilt, not shift.

Their own lenses are a whole different story -- they don't say anything about having redesigned their mount, and the pictures still show screws protruding in places that seem likely to interfere with the prism (at least) on an A850/900.

[artington]

These people do lots of NEX adapters including Tilt ones. They look well made and the company appears to be German although thrre isno mention of where they are designed or manufactured.

http://www.enjoyyourcamera.com/Lens-Mou ... 7_413.html

[pakodominguez]

Holly grail is here, I guess..
http://www.hartblei.de/en/sr40if.htm