I recently posted my excitement of having discovered that you can now order lens tilt adapters for your Micro Four Thirds cameras which effectively can convert most legacy 35mm lenses into tilt lenses – but not shift lenses.
Now, one of my readers has informed me that you can also get shift adapters from Fotodiox for your M43 cameras but at this stage it seems there are only adapters for Canon FD, Minolta MD and Contarex lenses, and are selling for $US149.95.
It seems they offer 10mm shift in either direction and can be rotated a full 360deg.
In addition, the Contarex version comes with a tripod mount socket for seemless panoramic stitching.
Unfortunately they do not have a tilt function, however, according to the manufacturer, tilt and shift adapters should be avalable mid-2010..
The Contarex adapter also has an aperture control ring:
Nevertheless, this is a great development and will add to the momentum of the Micro Four Thirds system as it proves it is the most versatile of all camera systems in terms of lenses it can use and how they can be used.
With their longer lens flange to sensor distance, I do not think such adapters will be available for APS-C size EVIL cameras such as the new Samsung NX-10, and even if they could create such an adapter you would be much more limited in the amount of tilt or shift given the larger sensor size.
Gary, could you explain what are the different visual effects obtained from tilt, shift or tilt and shift lenses? Thank you, Ron
Shift lenses allow you to move the lens upwards while keeping the camera parallel to the ground so you can get more of a vertical subject in without its lines converging at the top. It also allows you to take 3 photos at different shift positions to use as a panorama stitch (must use tripod). It can also allow you to to take a photo of a window or mirror without getting your reflection in the frame.
A tilt is classically used to change the plane of focus so you can get landscape shots fully in focus from near to far.
You can also use tilt to put almost everything out of focus and when used with video, this can make it look like a toy miniature town appearance.
Examples of this are here:
http://www.ayton.id.au/gary/ph_TiltShift.htm
I have more info here:
http://www.ayton.id.au/gary/photo/photo_perspective.htm
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Great site – very informative. Could you recommend some prime lens/Lenses for landscape shots with a G1 using the tilt adapter.
Thanks
Hi Agnes, the tilt adapters discussed here (http://www.ayton.id.au/wp02/?p=2629) allow you to use Nikon F, Olympus OM, Contax-Yashica Carl Zeiss, or Leica R lenses.
As these adapters have just came out, I have not tried them personally.
Given the 2x crop of the M43 cameras, you will probably want as wide an angle as you can.
For Olympus OM that would include the 18mm or the much cheaper 21mm or the more readily available 24mm.
For Nikon F lenses, the Sigma 12-24mm zoom actually is better than a Nikon 14mm – see http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/14mm/14mm_test_4.html, while the Nikon 17-35mm AF-S is not bad.
See http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/best19_21.html for the best 21mm lenses – I would go for an Olympus OM 21mm f/3.5 (I love mine!) if you can’t afford a Contax Carl Zeiss 21mm Distagon.
I am in the rather envious situation of owning an expensive, big Canon 17mm f/3.5 tilt shift lens so I am not in desperate need of a tilt shift adapter at present.
Try to decide on one legacy lens system to simplify your life – I chose Olympus OM as it will fit on my Olympus OM film SLRs and Canon dSLRs, and Olympus Four Thirds dSLRs and my M43 cameras.
Just seen this. A tilt AND shift lens with dedicated mFT mount.
What you think? (Is it good value? Is it better to buy an adaptor? Likely image quality? etc etc)
Here it is: http://cgi.ebay.com/MC-2-8-35mm-TILT-SHIFT-lens-Olympus-MICRO-4-3-rd-camera_W0QQitemZ170469206702QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCamera_Lenses?hash=item27b0c1aaae#ht_2162wt_939
Regards,
It is great to see third party manufacturers making lenses for Micro Four Thirds, but this 35mm f/2.8 tilt shift lens made in Kiev and selling for $US589 and weighing 900g seems a bit big, heavy and expensive now that tilt and shift adapters are becoming available.
If you are mainly using it for shift, a 18-21mm lens would be more useful than a 35mm lens when used on Micro Four Thirds – but the 35mm lens could be very useful for tilt work.
With these adapters, you could pick up a 21mm, 24mm, 35mm and 50mm lens and use them all on a shift adapter as shift lenses and they would work out much lighter and cheaper.