Another 17-50mm f2.8 lens, also made by Tamron, was purchased as the replacement. Not needing to use the "shifted" lens, I did a google search on making a tilt-shift lens (actual tilt-shift lenses are SPENDY!) Lots of diy projects that explained how one could create a tilt-shift lens, though most didn't touch on the idea of a zoom tilt-shift.
Sifting through the google results I stumbled across something I had never heard of. Freelensing. What the heck is freelensing? Basically it was ripping the rear mount off of a prime lens (once again zooms were vaguely touched on) and using the lens freely in front of the camera to capture an image with tilt-shift like characteristics. A Photographer's Guide to Freelensing, The Poor Man's Tilt Shift Lens by Jay Cassario was super insightful on how to create a freelens. (Props to him for buying and destroying a new 50mm f1.8 lens!)
So I gave it a try. First unscrewed the rear metal mounting element. And found the screw drive for the auto focus system (heehee, cool! Yes I'm a camera nerd.) I felt a little bad ripping the rear element off to expose the brains of the lens as it still auto focused "fine", but the results from freelensing have been worth it!
I haven't had much play time with the freelenses yet (dang cold weather!) but that hasn't stopped me from creating a solid collection of freelenses. I've got a 17-50mm, 3 50mm f1.8s, a 50mm f2, a 55mm f1.7 and a 28mm f2.8! This might be an addiction... Also if you have any old lenses.... haha!
The results thus far have been super neato. There are natural light leaks are interesting, lights drop off in an eerie manner, and focusing is a whole different beast!
I managed to snag some freelensing images in Florida :) Yes it was really that nice out!
And some from here in the cold state of Minnesota :) (believe these were all taken with the 17-50mm)
No comments:
Post a Comment