# What's different about this photo?



## Sylvanite

Ok, it isn't a pen photo, but I thought it would be fun to discuss here anyway.  There's something about the way this picture was taken that's a little unconventional.  Can you spot it?  I know of a couple of members here that should be able to.

Regards,
Eric


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## D.Oliver

All the vessels are in focus.  The white cup is also suffering from a inferiority complex.


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## D.Oliver

HDR maybe?


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## D.Oliver

The green one also asked the black cup "Does this handle make me look fat?" The black one lied and said "No".


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## carlmorrell

Focus stack?


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## Sylvanite

Good guesses, and you've noticed one important clue, but no.  This was a single photograph, not a composite image.


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## Skeleton2014

Focus stacking is more of a digital tool. Before digital cameras, I used to take yearly pictures of my kids, make a very large print, i.e. 30X40 or bigger, then place them in front and to the right of the previous year's picture.  So, the viewer would see their progression in size from infancy (left) to about 5 years of age (right). Your photo reminds me of that technique but, the 10th and 11th year mugs are proportionally much larger than the previous year's mugs. So, I don't think you had the correct size enlargement for the 9th year and before??
Also, were these all of the IAP mugs from the beginning?
Jeff


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## Sylvanite

Skeleton2014 said:


> So, I don't think you had the correct size enlargement for the 9th year and before??
> Also, were these all of the IAP mugs from the beginning?


These are not all the mugs ever made (there were additional styles and colors over the years).  They do, however, represent all the years.  Prior to 2009, there was only the white mug.

Good!  You've noticed the perspective.  That indicates how close to the mugs the camera was.  What else can you tell about the camera position?


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## toddlajoie

I believe the lower edge of the photo is a good give away. Several ways that can be achieved, but considering we are in the digital age, and assuming you are using a DSLR. I would guess that you have a very specific type of lens, but I'm not gonna say what type...:biggrin:


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## Sylvanite

Yes, Todd has it right.  We're in the digital age, and I used a DSLR, but I didn't do any sort of image distortion in post-processing.  Comparing the lower left and lower right corners is a dead giveaway.  There's another, perhaps too subtle feature in the photo.  Most people would use Photoshop to achieve it, but I did it optically.

Regards,
Eric


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## Martin G

Tilt-shift lens?


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## designer

The camera looks like it was tilted on an angle.


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## toddlajoie

designer said:


> The camera looks like it was tilted on an angle.



It also looks very low... Funny things often happen to things when you shoot looking up at them. They usually show a tapered perspective, sort of looking like they are leaning away from you.


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## Sylvanite

Well done!  You've found all the clues, so I'll go ahead and do the reveal.

My concept for this shot was "Mugs Through the Ages", so I wanted a photo that looked like a series of mugs stretching off into the distance - as if they were vanishing into the horizon.  To achieve that sort of diminishing perspective, I had to position the camera very close to the mugs.  I also wanted them to look big, like tall sculptures towering over  the viewer.  Therefore, I shot the picture from a low angle.  The camera was nearly level with the base of the mugs.






With a typical camera and lens, this would present two problems.  One is depth-of-field.  It would be difficult to get all the mugs in focus, and I really wanted to be able to read the writing on each mug.  The other is vertical perspective.  When you stand in front of and look up at a building, your mind edits the image, telling you that the walls are straight and that it is tall.  When you take a picture of the same view, however, you see the converging lines of perspective.  It looks skewed - as if the building was leaning away from you.  I wanted the mugs to look tall, but straight.

You can overcome these issues via focus stacking and image manipulation, but a cleaner way is to use a tilt-shift lens.  I have one that I picked up about a year ago on sale, and I decided it was the right lens for this job.  I placed the camera level, and shifted the lens up.






This is how you get rid of the skewed vertical perspective.  It is caused by "looking up".  If you keep the film plane (to use an outdated term) parallel to the subject, then you'll get parallel vertical lines.  Shifting the lens up moves the desired image (the mugs) down onto the camera's image sensor.  Had I not done this, the mugs - especially the tall black one - would have looked like they were leaning away or to the right.

To keep all the mugs in focus, I tilted the lens to the right.






Normally, the plane of focus is parallel to the sensor.  Tilting the lens, however, changes that.  For this picture, I adjusted the plane of focus to match the angle of the mugs.  The aperture I chose yielded a depth-of-field that encompasses a mug.  Because the plane of focus is at an angle to the senor, the foreground is blurry in the lower left corner, but sharp in the lower right corner - despite the fact that they are equidistant to the camera.

I don't often use this lens, so I was delighted to have an opportunity to play with it.  People often characterize them as "architectural" lenses, but tilt-shift lenses provide a lot of other creative options.  They make interesting landscape lenses, or can be used to make seamless photo-stitched panoramas and high-res square shots.  Tilting the lens opposite the subject angle produces an extremely short depth-of-field, tricking the eye into thinking it's looking at a miniature object (sometimes called the "toy effect").  And, every now and then, it comes in handy for a studio shot like this one.

I hope that was interesting,
Eric


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## designer

I enjoy your posts and believe me, I am learning a lot.  Thank you.


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## scotian12

I too enjoyed this post and learned something new. Thank you Eric for showing us this technique and lens.   Darrell


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## Leviblue

Interesting lens and your shop is way to clean!


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## Sylvanite

Leviblue said:


> ... your shop is way to clean!


That's not my shop.  My shop has a cement floor - well, underneath the shavings anyway.


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## sbwertz

I've done that kind of manipulation with swings and tilts with my old 4x5 Speed Graphic!


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## Sylvanite

sbwertz said:


> I've done that kind of manipulation with swings and tilts with my old 4x5 Speed Graphic!


Yes!  when cameras routinely had lens boards mounted on bellows (as some medium and large format cameras still do), these effects were standard practice.  We forgot about them in the age of instamatics though.


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## carlmorrell

So Eric, what other sort of cool glass do you have?  I also have a 60D and an arsenal of lenses. We are long overdue to get together!


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## Skewer

Very interesting...thanks for sharing!


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## toddlajoie

sbwertz said:


> I've done that kind of manipulation with swings and tilts with my old 4x5 Speed Graphic!



That's where the whole idea started. Field cameras were very similar in their day to what today's DSLRs with tilt shift lenses are today (tho as Eric said, most today would just distort the image in Photoshop to fix the perspective of normal lenses...)

A View Camera is what they call the large cameras you would see people using with a bag over their head. In those cameras, both the film plane (the rear of the camera) and the lens plane (the front of the camera) are both capable of tilting side to side, tilting forward and backward, and shifting up, down, left, and right. Using these adjustments you can shoot in a range of directions around the normal straight centered layout of the lens being parallel and in front of the film, limited only by the amount of extra image space the lens gave you larger than your film.

The "Speed Graphics" or field cameras, were basically the same thing, with much of the adjustment taken out of the film plane and limited tilt/swing/shift on the front. Eliminating the movement of one of the ends of the camera limited it's adjustments, but made it MUCH faster to set up and take photos (hence the "Speed" name) and sparked some of the first paparazzi (tho they were boy scouts compared to today's...)

The shifting of the plane of focus is called the Scheimpflug principle(had to look up the spelling on that one, it's been years..) and is based on the geometric theory that since parallel lines converge at infinity, if the film (or sensor) plane and lens plane are parallel, the plane of focus is also parallel to those two, and theoretically converge at infinity, but if the film plane and lens plane are not parallel, then the focal plane is also not parallel, and the 3 planes (film, lens, and focal) all converge at the same point, wherever that may be, so by knowing any 2 of those planes, you can determine the third. What is also interesting is the depth of field is also affected by this geometry, so it does not expand forward and backward parallel to the plane of focus, but at their own angles which also converge at the same point. So you have greater depth of field around the focal plane as it gets farther away from the lens. So in Eric's example, with a wide/middle aperture, it would be possible to put the plane of focus right down the angle of the logos on the mug, and while the front mug would quickly loose focus (i.e. the handle would be out of focus) each mug going down the line would be more completely in focus.

Wow... that really turned into probably more explanation than most wanted... but I still love my 4x5, I just hate the smell of fixer...

You should try out the Lens Baby... it's like a tilt shift, without the restrictions.... Fun, but not scientific or precise like the tilt/shift...


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## vtgaryw

I was going to guess it was done with a light-field camera.

-gary


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## Sylvanite

toddlajoie said:


> I just hate the smell of fixer...


Fixer is no problem.  It's the glacial stop bath that makes my eyes water


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## toddlajoie

Sylvanite said:


> Fixer is no problem.  It's the glacial stop bath that makes my eyes water



For me, the fixer smell stuck to my fingers longer... Plus how cool is a chemical that changes color when you need to replace it...


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## Quality Pen

It's a very nice photo!


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## projectgrover

Are the mugs on a slant? Also tilt shift lens?


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