thomasholmphoto

VIntage Kinbaku

Added 2024-01-07 15:00:02 +0000 UTC

In Mallorca this summer, The Endless Sinner and Wiana persuaded Lou Lou models to shoot a rope set (her first). She was intrigued by the idea, having seen a lot of Araki’s work, so it didn’t take much effort.

I used a Lomo Petzval 56mm Canon mount ƒ 2.8 with a Shift/tilt lens adapter on my Sony A7rIV.

When shifting a lens, you can change the optimal focus area (and bokeh center) from the center of the frame to either end. And when tilting the lens, you can angle the “plane” of sharpness to an angle.
Here is how shift/tilt work.

Shift:
Imagine you use a view camera where you freely can angle both lens and film plane.
You photograph some train tracks at a 45-degree angle.
Because of the perspective, the tracks would be wider near you and narrow further away from you.

If you manipulate the rear plane (film plane) and lens plane to be parallel with the tracks but shifted, you can photograph them so they are similar (assuming your lens has a wide enough field of view). Or you could photograph a mirror without perspective but without seeing yourself as you could shift the plane so you are really photographing from the side.

Tilt:
Imagine the same train tracks: Normally, you would focus about a third in, stop down, and hope for the best to get everything in focus. But with a tilt lens, you can manipulate the sharpness angle so it is parallel to the train tracks even at full aperture.

So imagine you are making a portrait, and focus on the eyes:

The eyes and mouth are typically on the same focal plane, so both would be sharp.

If you tilt the lens forward, the eyes would still be sharp, but the mouth wouldn’t be:

For the area above the eyes, the focal plane would be closer to the background (like the train tracks), and for everything below the eyes, the focal plane would be closer to the camera.

Now, with the 56mm Petzval, there is also a Bokeh control, which effectively curves the focal plane slightly but also makes the edges less focused and with more bokeh.

The shift/tilt and bokeh control combine to create these images' intriguing look.

Light-wise, it’s an open shade next to a wall.