Tilt Shift (TS-E) Lens for Panoramas on the 40D

[mountainhiker]

I have recently become interested in taking panoramic images with my Canon
40D. I have read the topic on Tilt/Shift Lenses: Using Shift Movements
to Control Perspective.

I have decided that I would like to purchase a Canon tilt/shift lens and have been debating on which would be the best for my particular applications. The lens would mostly be used for making panoramic images of landscapes, particularly images with foreground. Which would you recommend for my particular application?

I also use neutral grad filters for much of my landscape photography (hitech - Cokin p holder size), and was wondering how they work on tilt/shift lenses when using shift movements? Will I be able to use a Cokin wide angle filter holder?

Any opinions or help would be appreciated

Justin

[McQ]

My take is that the Canon 45 mm tlt/shift (TS-E) lens would be best-suited for your use with panoramas. When shifted (horizontally in landscape) it will give you the equivalent angle of view of a 22 mm lens on your camera (also in landscape). Granted, the 24 mm TS-E lens would give you the equivalent of 12 mm on your camera, but this is also *much* softer near the edges of its imaging circle than is the 45 mm lens.

Sensor with 1.6X Crop Factor
Area Increase: 100%
Aspect Ratio: 3:1

Also be warned that both lenses have reasonably pronounced chromatic aberrations (CA); the 45 mm lens is just a lesser offender. Fortunately CA can be minimized substantially using the lens correction tool in photoshop.

You might also consider instead stitching images using a regular fixed focal length lens and some type of photo stitching software to correct for perspective. This is a much cheaper alternative and will give similar results (but will require a panoramic head if you are creating panoramas with a close foreground). Using a fixed focal length lens for the stitches will also give you more flexibility with the angle of view; you can decide on the spot however many photo angles you wish to combine. To me, the real asset of a tilt/shift lens is that you can use tilt to improve depth of field *in addition to* increasing the angle of view using shift.

I have not personally used the Cokin wide angle filter holder, but as long as you can hold this in front of the lens (like with any other lens), then it should work just fine for panoramas with a tilt shift lens. You just need to make sure that the filter holder keeps the graduated neutral density filter exactly in the same place for each photo.