Fake Tilt Shift: The NYT article

[davidb]

This is kind of funny

Fake Tilt Shift

[Rob Champagne]

Some of us may be pleased that the NYT is re-inforcing the idea that digital / photoshopped photographs are fakes and are not be trusted. Others may not be so pleased. Too late though, the NYT has already done it.

Funny? Only in that the NYT seems to think this is something new and that it was the preserve of a few art photographers prior to photoshop.

[Walter Calahan]

One of the NY Times contract photographers did an entire photo essay using tilt/shift lens on his Canon earlier this year.

Fashion - just like the wave of Lens Baby images from last year.

[Brian Ellis]

The NY Times people who write photography columns seem to know little about LF photography. I remember the article discussed here a couple years ago about the guy who built some sort of super duper LF camera, the details of which I've forgotten, and was making huge prints from it. The author of the article just couldn't gush enough about the camera and the detail in the prints. He or she seemed to think the guy invented big negatives, camera movements, etc. etc.

But apart from that, what the hell is the stuff the author describes in this article supposed to be about? Making real life scenes look like miniature scenes by using tilts and shifts to alter the plane of focus (shifts alter the plane of focus? Thats a new one to me)? To what end? Why do I care that a photograph makes Las Vegas look like a miniature but is actually a photograph of the real thing? In all my old photographs that are inadvertantly out of focus but that have something in them that's sharp have I been an avante garde photographer without knowing it? Can I maybe sell these things for a few grand by claiming I knew what I was doing instead of admitting that I didn't know how to focus a view camera?

[Rob Champagne]

have I been an avante garde photographer without knowing it? Can I maybe sell these things for a few grand by claiming I knew what I was doing instead of admitting that I didn't know how to focus a view camera?

probably

[Mark Sawyer]

Well, I had to go to flickr and see what was going on. Some of the "fakes" are pretty successful at passing reality off as imitation:

http://flickr.com/photos/baldheretic/543386453/

I wonder whether the effect would work on someone who hadn't grown up being familiar with how miniature photography looks different than life-size photography...

[Daniel_Buck]

Well, I had to go to flickr and see what was going on. Some of the "fakes" are pretty successful at passing reality off as imitation:

http://flickr.com/photos/baldheretic/543386453/

I wonder whether the effect would work on someone who hadn't grown up being familiar with how miniature photography looks different than life-size photography...

On a small web image, yea it's probably hard to tell the difference. But if you see them in print at a decent size, you can tell the difference. The digital blur is a little to 'clean' looking, and when you do it optically there is usually a slight hint of 'swirling' and oblong shape to the bokeh towards the corners of the frame. It just looks more 'optical' when you do it for real, this can't really be simulated in Photoshop, you would have to use a higher end compositing package to do that (like Nuke).

[Ed Richards]

Daniel - great car photos, esp. the black and white.

[Mark Sawyer]

On a small web image, yea it's probably hard to tell the difference...

Most true. Oh, what the web does to our images...