Create A Tilt-Shift Lens From A Shower Head A Rubber Glove And a Nifty Fifty
Feb 14, 2012
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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Flickr user Maciej Pietuszynski (blog) had a great shower when the idea of combining a shower head, a rubber glove and an old nifty fifty into a unique tilt shift lens.
Loving the idea of free lensing, yet hating the idea of the lens accidentally crashing into the ground, Maciej came up with a clever concept of utilizing a shower head for its smoothness.
The Nifty fifty has undergone surgery to separate the bionet from the lens and install an advanced tilt-shift mechanism in the form of a shower head held in place with a heavy duty rubber glove. Hit the jump for the full pictorial.
*Keep in mind that the mechanism on old 50mm lenses goes deeper than modern crop-factored lenses, so if you are building one on your own, watch the lens-to-mirror distance carefully.
Pictorial
Sample Images
Of course, if you are too afraid to dissect your own lens, you could always get a lens baby.
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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5 responses to “Create A Tilt-Shift Lens From A Shower Head A Rubber Glove And a Nifty Fifty”
My 50mm broke into two pieces in my bag. I’ll have to give this a try :]
Same with me. Last week I got around the broken lens to figure out some contraption like this. I was just not sure about the connecting/tilting mechanism. This is a great idea :)
so does this use the manual focus on the lens?
I’m sorry, but the look one can achieve after all this work is both unnatural and unappealing for general use. Plus…. you can accomplish the whole thang in Photoshop without all this effort. I can see using a narrow zone of focus in a wide angle shot for purposes of illustration, say for advertising purposes, but otherwise this is, like a lot of silly projects that photogs get mired in, just a gimmick and a waste of time.
to COS and other detractors:
One man’s treasure is another man’s trash and vice versa.
Compare the cost of photoshop against the cost of a lens in a junk drawer only gathering dust.
The people following this link either had an interest in tilt shift or in lenses an interest in trolling.
If the result of tilt shift is unappealing to you why bother reading the article unless your only interest is in trolling. If you’re interested in getting the result of tilt shift can be had from photoshop why read the article unless your interest was only in trolling.
A whole lot of the time those detracting from the work of others – if they really need an explanation for “why was it done” the explanation won’t give an answer which is truly satisfactory to the one asking “why.”
THEN, near the end of your comments, you do finally admit there are some valid uses for the effect of the project. Since there are valid uses – the article was intended to fill that need or the desire of those who like experimentation, or those who can better afford to use a dusty lens instead of using photoshop.
I think you show by your comments that you are a little mixed up – – – – –
No – on second thought – you are MORE than a little mixed up.
So – following your own logic – or lack of following your own negative logic – why did you even waste your time making such a negative comment – unless it was in fact because you have a hard time NOT trolling people who are at least making a contribution.
IF you resent the time spent by people wanting to make a contribution and sharing – why do you waste your time making trolling remarks. OH – maybe its because your own time is so valueless that you have nothing better to do than troll others – and nothing positive to contribute yourself. Otherwise you’d be spending your time elsewhere making that positive contribution.