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Wednesday July 2, 2008
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I'm obsessed with photography. That means I constantly read everything I can get my hands on to broaden my clickable horizons. The payoff in all that reading is even in cases where I haven't personally used a type of equipment, at least I've read about it. Not this time. Nikon has just announced a couple of lenses different from any I've seen before. They are the PC-E NIKKOR series lenses. PC in this case means "Perspective Control."
Hit pause a second. I read the product name and immediately said, "Huh?" What's perspective control? More important, why do these lenses have thumb screws on them?
From Nikon - "The shift mechanism enables the lens to be moved parallel to the image plane, so that subjects such as a tall building can be captured faithfully, without the upper part appearing to tilt backward and become thinner. The tilt mechanism changes the orthogonal relationship between the optical axis of the lens and the image plane, allowing you to control the focused area. In landscape photography, you can achieve a focus throughout the entire subject plane from near to distant. You can also achieve focus on a specific part of the subject for emphasis. In actual shooting situations, the shift and tilt mechanisms are used together to adjust perspective, distortion of the subject, and focus area."
In essence, straight lines stay straight and right angles remain perpendicular, while the depth of field is quite flexible.
These are fast lenses at f2.8 in both 45mm (wide angle) and 85mm (medium telephoto) versions. They nicely complement Nikon's pre-existing 24mm (wider angle) f3.5 perspective control lens and are hardened to allow use in harsh environments. They're perfect for the photographer who has everything, or just wants everything.
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July 3, 2008 8:30 AM
Me wants! Terribly expensive though I'm sure!
July 4, 2008 11:59 AM
Around $1800USD.
July 5, 2008 3:21 PM
What happened to curiosity, that camera nuts no longer read up on everything available in the library? Does anyone know what a library is these days? Somewhere in 1980s (I'm picking that era purely by guess) so-called photographers stopped learning about the long-known optical rules of perspective and how lenses actually work with light rays. A trip to the library where you can look at actual BOOKS on photography will yield all manner of discussions and especially illustrations on this aspect of photography.
July 6, 2008 1:47 AM
Canon has had tilt-shift lenses for at least a decade, maybe longer. These new Nikon's are probably fantastic. But they are nothing new.