![\"Tilt](\"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/2007-07-11_17-45-58_dsc_3378_web.jpg\")
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I’m still not fully pleased with it and there will probably be a version 3 when time permits. I will explain why later.<\/p>\n
The key with the tilt shift lens is finding a specific focus point, known as the “sweet spot”. In most cases, the lens is held perfectly parallel to the film plane. In this case, only one specific point of the lens is being held in focus.<\/p>\n
It all started when I saw the Lens Baby<\/a>. But at more than US$200 a piece, it seemed pricey for what I wanted to do for fun. The lens was also plastic.<\/p>\n But here is what the real thing (costing much much more) looks like: Pentacon Six with Tilt Lens<\/a>.<\/p>\n I have to explain that this idea is not original and I read about it from Dennison Bertram<\/a>. However, this particular type of accordian toilet plunger is not available in Singapore.<\/p>\n So I went on doing my research. Besides Dennison Bertram, I also found John Perkinson’s<\/a> version.<\/p>\n And so I started my construction.<\/p>\n I found the Biometar described by Dennison Bertram for S$90 second hand from a local. Well, third or fourth hand. He had originally purchased it from eBay. The filter ring was slightly bent. And it wasn’t a multicoated version.<\/p>\n I went to eBay and got a Pentacon 6 to Nikon adapter as well. The adapter arrived from Russia. It cost me about US$30.<\/p>\n I wanted to use this lens both directly on camera and as a tilt shift lens.<\/p>\n Used as a normal lens, the lens itself is rather prone to flare wide open and needs to be stepped down to fully perform. But when it does, and my hyperfocus is right, along with fully manual metering, it performs pretty well as can be seen in the photos at the end of this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Later, I discover this lens has more problems – the apeture ring doesn’t always work. So I repaired it for S$130 at the Camera Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n Anyway, back to tilting and shifting.<\/p>\n I knew that I had to find something that could bend and twist. I tried…<\/p>\n I thought of…<\/p>\n … but I didn’t know anyone in the car parts business that would let me sniff around car yards for parts. Or basically how to get any of the other stuff.<\/p>\n Finally at the $1 shop, I found something for $2.90 that seemed perfect enough. Black kitchen gloves.<\/p>\n I cut off the arm bit and followed Bertram’s instructions.<\/p>\n But I found…<\/p>\n Finally I left it.<\/p>\n One full year later, as I’m searching for parts to create my light box<\/a> to shoot products, I finally find something at Chuan Hup Huat<\/a>.<\/p>\n I know of Chuan Hup Huat because that’s where people recommend to go get hoses and couplings for aquarium stuff. But I’d never been there.<\/p>\n Anyway, it was there that I saw this:<\/p>\n For about double that length (I already cut off what I needed when I took this photo) it cost me S$6.<\/p>\n I thought it was perfect. The circumference – about 2.5″ – fit the lens perfectly. It could compress, it could extend. It was black and so I thought, light tight.<\/p>\n But it was not to be. Compressing the lens toward the camera body could not take me to infinity and beyond. This was because of the thickness of material between the metal spring-like structure. Furthermore, on inspection, I saw small light holes in the material. But that was okay, I could patch it up later.<\/p>\n I thought about it again. I felt that my kitchen gloves were still a perfect material. It was flexible and thin enough to do the job. It was perfectly light tight. All it needed was a bit of structure. So I thought of inserting a spring to fit into the glove. Where would I get such a spring?<\/p>\n So out came the blade and I cut out all the material in between.<\/p>\n Now, I had to find a way to connect the lens body cap to this spring.<\/p>\n Enter my good friends from Phoon Huat<\/a>, my bakery supplies shop. The cap from a 500g bottle of baking powder would do.<\/p>\n The grooves in the bottle cap also made it great to wind in the spring for a secure fit.<\/p>\n This is a look at the setup in its naked state. As you can see, keeping old twist ties around can be useful. But twisting the ends together, I could make the spring secure on the lens too.<\/p>\n Now, I took out the lens and connected up the hot glue gun. Basically, now the task was to attach the glove material to the bottle cap.<\/p>\n But here, you have to be careful. The glue gun can also melt the bottle cap.<\/p>\n The key here is to work in opposites. You start on one end, find the opposite end and do that.<\/p>\n Here is the complete one, with the leftover sticking out bits folded down.<\/p>\n To do this last bit properly, the key here is not to press the trigger of the glue gun. The hot glue gun will already have melty bits of glue dripping. You just want to wipe these drippings off and paste down the folds, or you’ll just have too much glue everywhere.<\/p>\n Double check and ensure that the hole is free from strands of glue and other debris.<\/p>\n Finally, attach the holed out body cover on the top with hot glue, aligning the hole of the bottle cap with this one. Again, double check for remnant bits that might obscure this hole.<\/p>\n Here, finally, everything is attached. And then I use a re-useable cable tie to reinforce the connection between the bellows and the lens.<\/p>\n Even without the cable tie, the lens will be attached to the camera body without me supporting the lens. But I don’t want to take any chances.<\/p>\n How I might improve this setup.<\/p>\n Once I implement all this, I think it would make quite a good DIY tilt shift lens.<\/p>\n In the meantime, these are the photos (besides the 20 above) that I got from this tilt shift ver 2.<\/p>\n\n
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\nOkay, what I don’t like about this setup.<\/p>\n\n
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