At 09:26 AM 4/15/2005, you wrote:
>To my mind there is not much fiddling with the Zuiko Shifts, given that they
>are to be mounted on a tripod (as they would be for Chuck's suggested
>rotation).
>
>--
>Piers
I've done both and there is less fiddling with a shift lens. It gives a
perfect, seamless, rectilinear image. The rotation method does not
perfectly lash images together; it requires some stitching software to join
the two together and create a cylindrical or spherical mapping of the
rectilinear images. The fiddling required when using rotation is setting
the axis of rotation directly through the rear lens node. Its location is
not only different for each lens, it can also be difficult to determine
exactly where it's located unless there's an optical bench handy on which
its distance from the lens mounting flange can be precisely
measured. There is a field method for doing this that enjoys some amount
of success, but it also requires considerable fiddling with exact position
of the camera on the tripod (relative to the rotation point). Furthermore,
this requires a pair of sliding plates orthogonal to each other between
camera and rest of tripod head to allow adjusting camera position with two
degrees of freedom.
OTOH, the shift lens method has considerable overlap between full left
shift, center and full right shift, and with the 35/2.8 shift it results in
about the same horizontal field as achieved with a 24mm lens (IIRC, about
90 degrees). Nevertheless, it is a nifty method for making triptychs by
cropping the left and right slightly from the center image, and then
cropping much of the right off the left image, and much of the left off of
the right image. How much must come off of these two depends on center
image crop, and the spacing between the three when they're mounted (one
should plan the presentation of the three *before* doing the cropping).
Also, IIRC, the 35/2.8 does have slight overlap between full left and full
right shift and a diptych could easily be made from just a full left and
full right shift. Not having used a 24mm shift I can only presume it
similarly overlaps; someone who has one can verify this. I've never been
much a fan of diptychs though; the triptych with a center image seems more
natural when looking at the entire work.
-- John
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