Tilt-shifting old FF lenses on Sony Alpha cameras

[wolan]

Hi,
would this setup in your opinion work?

Sony Alpha camera (a7, a7II etc) -> Kipon Tilt-Shift Adapter Nikon to Sony E mount -> Any Nikon Full frame lens

The camera will be in crop mode, so to simulate an APC-S sensor.

Thanks.

[pdccameras]

Your plan should work, but may be of limited use, depending on the lens you pick. I have tried this on my A6000 with a variety of EOS lenses. I have found that the image circle of various Canon lenses varies slightly from lens to lens, and by aperture. I would assume this is the same for Nikon lenses. One thing is for sure, If designed for full frame, a lens will cover the 35mm format, which is larger than the A6000's APC format.

APC cameras have a sensor with with a diagonal of 28.2 mm. If you need 10 mm shift in any direction, then the image circle of the lens must be at least 28.2 mm + 2 * 10 mm = 48.2 mm. This should be the same for the full frame Sony cameras when used in "crop" mode.

A non-shift lens designed for a full-frame sensor (36 mm × 24 mm) has a minimum image circle of 43.3 mm. Its image circle extends ~ 7.5 mm farther than the corners of an APC camera's sensor, so you can shift up to 7.5 mm in any direction (i.e., along the sensor's diagonal) without clipping.

This all means, your plan will work, but the amount of shifts and tilts you get will vary by lens and may not be enough to get the effect you are looking for.

You can find all the math here:

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/73236/how-long-does-an-image-circle-need-to-be-in-order-to-be-tilt-shift-lens


Hope this helps,

Paul

[aidaho]

Can't report a single Nikon lens, but the topic header implies broader interest.
I've recently tilted Olympus Zuiko 100mm F2.8, and it worked fine:



I've also tried tilting Jupiter-37A, no issues with coverage as well.

[alex ph]

It worked well for me with a Rollei Planar 1.8/50



Some more samples here.

[alex ph]

Oops, sorry, just figured out that I did it on NEX! Will repeat it with A7 in a few days.

[stevemark]

[dan_]

IMO, it's not worth the financial effort.

Using shift only with your intended setup is the same thing as cropping, as Stephan said.
Using tilt only will work to some extent, but what's your intended result?

If you want the extended DOF effect, like with the old tilt-shift cameras, then the image circle of the FF lenses will give you quite little room for adjustments. You can get the same extension of the DOF simply by closing the diaphragm more. The old big format cameras needed tilt&shift because the lenses used on that big formats had a very thin DOF. To get a normal angle of view on a 4x5 inch format you need a 135mm lens which needs to have the diaphragm closed quite substantially to get a good DOF for a landscape with some close detailed objects, for example. But closing the diaphragm will make you reach the diffraction limit. That's why tilt-shift was needed.
With the FF or smaller formats that's not needed - closing the diaphragm of a 50mm lens will get you sufficient DOF before reaching the diffraction limit. A medium format lens used with tilt-shift on FF or APS-C will give you much more room for adjustments and makes more sense.
I have played a lot with tilt&shift (mostly with medium format lenses) on FF and APS-C and and came to the conclusion that, regarding the extended DOF effect, the benefits you gain don't worth the effort in most cases.

If you want the out-of-focus effect of tilting the lens then your setup will do the job. IMO that's a kind of cheap, unnatural effect. Not my cup of tea... But, in this case, you can get a much cheaper tilt-only adapter.

Using both tilt&shift with a FF lens on APS-C will quickly make you reach the limits of the image circle of the lens. Not very useful.

What's really useful on FF (to me at least) it's a shift adapter with a good medium format lens (or a dedicated shift lens) for architectural photography.

[wolan]

I have a Nikon Z camera and I'd like to do architecture photography without those typical distortions produced by wide angle lenses.

So far I see only the following options:

First setup: Native lenses
- very old 28mm f3.5 or f4: price wise good but I shoot typically much wider
- new 24mm f3.5 PC Nikkor: expensive and 24 is for me not wide enough
- new 19mm f4: extremely expensive, >3000$, maybe wide enough

Second setup: adapted lens+shift adapter (provided it works)
Nikon Z7 -> Sony FE to Nikon Z adapter -> Sony Kipon tilt-shift (or shift only) adapter for G lenses->Nikon 16-35mm f4

The camera would work in crop mode but with the Z7 I have plenty of pixels left
Cost: around 400$ (I already own the lens)
Very flexible solution by the way, as I can shift over a whole range of interesting focal lengths for architecture photography. With other lenses I could go wider

Tilting is another reason I'd like to go for setup 2, I use it with medium tele lenses and there is no much option left with Nikon.

If you can recommend me an as much flexible and cost effective alternative to my "foolish" solution, then I am here to listen

[dan_]

Let's see what you gain by using a FF lens as a shift lens on APS-C.

Unfortunately the images from my post about my DIY shift adapter for FF lenses on NEX-7 ( http://forum.mflenses.com/diy-shift-adapter-for-ff-lenses-on-nex-cameras-completed-t60109,highlight,%2Bshift+%2Badapter.html ) vanished. It is a shift adapter allowing me to mount LeicaR, Canon, Olympus and M42 lenses on my NEX-7. But I was able to find an initial drawing:


As you can see you'll gain 8.1 mm. of horizontal shift or 10 mm. of vertical shift (or something in-between for a diagonal shift).
That's quite an useful range.
It proves that you'll get more shift (with 2.1 mm on H or 6 mm. on V) than if you crop a FF format to APS-C (the crop shifted). That's quite important when you shoot in the landscape orientation and proves that Stephan and I we were both wrong.

If you are OK with the resolution of the APS-C crop on your Nikon Z then, IMO, it makes sense to go for it.

Cheaper alternatives could be:
- Get separate tilt and shift adapters. Separate adapters will be both cheaper and easier to use.
- Get a tilt-shift bellows unit. With a little patience some of them, as being the Kopil Bellowsmat, can be found quite cheap. ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tilt-Shift-bellows-Kopil-Bellowsmat-M42-Nikon-/323749767431?hash=item4b60fd6907%3Ag%3AlnoAAOSwmYFcllW5&nma=true&si=hcoYn3LWL6BLoaXy8nYbWjF%252BmDI%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 ). However, this solution may need some extra work to make the lens fit with infinity focus.

[DConvert]

[aidaho]