Pavel Wrote:I photograph landscape/ flowers/abstracts. ⦠Nikon has 24mm f/3.5D ED, 45mm f/2.8D ED and 85mm f/2.8D ED. ⦠Which would you go for?
I would go for the 85 - it's the one that I use. Which one
you should go for is a little different. The wide is primarily an architecture and landscape lens, while the 45 and 85 both do the close-focus that helps for product, studio, and still-life work. (While Uncle Nikkor calls both the 45 and 85 Micro lenses, they're half-sized, not 1:1.) I'd be tempted to suggest the 45 for you, since it's a bit of a compromise between both extremes; you can make it longer (and increase its reproduction ratio) with a Sigma teleconverter, and you can make it wider by using it for essentially perfect stitching. Keep in mind that the Nikon PC-E lenses aren't super-rotators (like Canon or Hartblei) and you can't choose the shift and swing directions independently. They come out of the box set at 90 degrees, but can be realigned by Nikon Service.
Pavel Wrote:They all cost about the same and it is in the price range of 2 to 3 of my lenses combined. Is it a gimmick or will i be able to extend my range significantly by using these lenses? I am curious not only in yes/no answers. but also the rationale - so please consider humoring me.
A tilt-shift lens makes a huge difference. Massive. They're also huge lenses, and are a massive hassle to use. They're also far from being a magic solution - especially at the longer focal lengths, you won't be able to lay the plane of focus as far down as you'll want, and even on a crop body, you may see some mechanical vignetting from extreme movements.
A tilt-shift lens is nothing like a lensbaby. (Sorry to shout, and NT, it's not directed at you - I hear this almost everywhere.) Nothing, nothing, nothing - except that they're both manual focus, they're completely different animals.
For the rings photo, the camera is pointing downwards, so I've swung the front of the lens up to align the plane of focus with the vertically stacked rings. (For what it's worth, those rings are worth more than my entire camera bag.)
For the flute, the lens is swung as far to the side as I can get it without vignetting. You can see that the whole instrument is sharp, but that the fabric becomes OOF beside it. There's no way to do this without lens movements; focus stacking could work but would be a massive amount of effort.
This is a Jaeger LeCoultre 'Atmos' clock, which is powered by changes in ambient temperature. I used front fall (lens shifted downward) to keep the perspective in check, which is the same idea in the opposite direction as what would be used for architecture.
This is also a shift photo, but taken outside of the studio and without a tripod. I will use the 85PC-E hand-held, but it's tiring to handle such a complicated manual focus lens. In this photo I've shifted the lens sideways so that I can capture the sign, which is behind glass, without also catching my own reflection. I think I've posted this link before, but I also have a video on Vimeo of photos taken at the ROM entirely done with the 85 tilt-shift.
(link here)
I have to confess that I actually have
two perspective-control lenses. This is the older 35mm shift lens, which doesn't do swings to realign the focal plane, or have the electronic aperture control of the current PC-E lenses. I also don't use it much - it's mostly to let my GH1 work as a backup to my D700, and bought it used because the price was simply too good to pass up. I tend to accumulate camera gear that wayâ¦