Why does nobody make a tilt-shift zoom?

[Alex Waugh]

A tilt-shift zoom would be great, I often get pushed up against walls shooting architecture & interiors and would love the flexibility. Are there any engineering constraints? I see people using zoom lenses with Arca Swiss setups here and perhaps more relevantly, the HCam Master TS / HDS.

Is it a case of these photographers generally requiring extremely high IQ and so a zoom is out of the question? Honestly I think the latest crop of 16-35 zooms are probably sufficient for most applications - distortion is there of course but easily corrected.

I would love a 16-35 PCE native on any of the FF mirrorless offerings that will be available this year, I know the HCam has swappable mounts and I may end up going the Canon 16-35/4L route but honestly I'd love EXIF, aperture control and lens corrections.

[tom b]

To be honest I have experience with anything like this, so treat my link with that in respect. I'm not sure of any non macro solutions.

Bellows systems

May be something to investigate, may be a crock of %&*#.

Cheers,

[Tony Jay]

A tilt-shift zoom would be great, I often get pushed up against walls shooting architecture & interiors and would love the flexibility. Are there any engineering constraints? I see people using zoom lenses with Arca Swiss setups here and perhaps more relevantly, the HCam Master TS / HDS.

Is it a case of these photographers generally requiring extremely high IQ and so a zoom is out of the question? Honestly I think the latest crop of 16-35 zooms are probably sufficient for most applications - distortion is there of course but easily corrected.

I would love a 16-35 PCE native on any of the FF mirrorless offerings that will be available this year, I know the HCam has swappable mounts and I may end up going the Canon 16-35/4L route but honestly I'd love EXIF, aperture control and lens corrections.

Two likely reasons:
1. The concept is not physically possible; or
2. It is possible but the cost is so astronomical, and therefore the returns so small, more likely a loss, that there is no point for any entity that has a commercial raison d'etre.

If it really were possible and made commercial sense someone would have done this by now...

[Alex Waugh]

Tom b ive seen the bellows and they work great. Just seems like a lot to carry when something like the HCam does the same thing and looks like it could be built natively into a zoom.

Tony the Hcam HDS pretty much does exactly what I describe in acceptable dimensions for a lens, its also under 2k and Hartblei have nowhere near the R&D or economies of scale that Canikon do. It should be possible. That being said maybe it would be a sales bomb who knows. They have much more educated people in the field than I working at both companies.

[Two23]

I just don't know how they could incorporate a big enough image circle that was sharp from a zoom to make this work.


Kent in SD

[alatreille]

11-24 on the Hcam on a sony body.

See here...http://www.hartblei.de/en/whatsnew.htm

Smallish movements at 11mm, but movements at 11mm!
Wow

[Tony Jay]

Tony the Hcam HDS pretty much does exactly what I describe in acceptable dimensions for a lens, its also under 2k and Hartblei have nowhere near the R&D or economies of scale that Canikon do. It should be possible. That being said maybe it would be a sales bomb who knows. They have much more educated people in the field than I working at both companies.

No it doesn't.
The Hcam system is NOT a lens, but a system that allows (limited) tilt-shifting of non-TS lenses - that's all!
Yes, one can mount a Canon TS lens onto this system but there would be no point really.

Putting a wide-angle zoom on an Hcam system allows one to tilt and shift - but by how much?
TS lenses have massive image circles - much bigger than normal lenses - to allow one to make large shifts without compromising image quality and light transmission at the peripheries of the image.

I think you need to realise that there are massive limitations on a system such as Hcam. I certainly would not bother buying a dedicated TS lens that was as limited as a zoom lens mounted on Hcam - a total waste of money!

Tony Jay

[nazdravanul]

No it doesn't.
The Hcam system is NOT a lens, but a system that allows (limited) tilt-shifting of non-TS lenses - that's all!
Yes, one can mount a Canon TS lens onto this system but there would be no point really.

Putting a wide-angle zoom on an Hcam system allows one to tilt and shift - but by how much?
TS lenses have massive image circles - much bigger than normal lenses - to allow one to make large shifts without compromising image quality and light transmission at the peripheries of the image.

I think you need to realise that there are massive limitations on a system such as Hcam. I certainly would not bother buying a dedicated TS lens that was as limited as a zoom lens mounted on Hcam - a total waste of money!

Tony Jay

I've "totally wasted" my money mounting 5 TS lenses on the HCAM. The combination of back - front movements allowed me to capture images not available to me before. There are reasons why for more than 150 years, view cameras (including their more recent tech cam variations) have been used to create images - despite multiple technological advances. Most photographers may not encounter these challenges in their work, or not care about them much, or resort to software aids in solving them. Yet, whenever you add into the contemporary software solutions mix, stuff like flat stitching and / or corrected perspectives, for example, the quality of the results speaks volumes (again, given the appropriate viewing medium). 

[Tony Jay]

I've "totally wasted" my money mounting 5 TS lenses on the HCAM. The combination of back - front movements allowed me to capture images not available to me before. There are reasons why for more than 150 years, view cameras (including their more recent tech cam variations) have been used to create images - despite multiple technological advances. Most photographers may not encounter these challenges in their work, or not care about them much, or resort to software aids in solving them. Yet, whenever you add into the contemporary software solutions mix, stuff like flat stitching and / or corrected perspectives, for example, the quality of the results speaks volumes (again, given the appropriate viewing medium).

You need to read what I actually wrote - I have no criticism of the Hcam itself - it does what it does.
I also shoot with TS lenses.

Tony Jay

[Bo_Dez]

It would be almost impossible to make, or extremely enormous.

Personally what I would like is a fast tilt shift, something like a 85mm f1.4 TS.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

You can use almost any lens on a HCam Master TSII. I use it with a pair of Contax zooms. Those lenses are for 24x36, so they don't allow shift but work fine with tilts.

The Canon 16-35/4L works fine on the HCam Master TSII, too.

I considered buying an older MF zoom lens, like Pentax 645. MF lenses have larger image circle. But, in my world shifts are mostly usable with wide angles and with longer lenses I mostly use tilts.

This page illustrates some ways to shoot: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/FourWays/

These images were shot with the Canon 16-35/4L mounted on the TS. These are intended as a demo, not like artistic images: https://echophoto.smugmug.com/Technical/16-354l-and-Master-TS/

The master TS allows for +/- 15 mm mechanical shift or 10 degrees of tilt, both are quite a lot on 24x36 mm. Shift is often limited to say 10-12 mm due to vignetting.

This shows some Hasselblad lenses on HCam Master TS, used for stitch Pano: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/MFLens_On_A7rII/

Best regards
Erik

A tilt-shift zoom would be great, I often get pushed up against walls shooting architecture & interiors and would love the flexibility. Are there any engineering constraints? I see people using zoom lenses with Arca Swiss setups here and perhaps more relevantly, the HCam Master TS / HDS.

Is it a case of these photographers generally requiring extremely high IQ and so a zoom is out of the question? Honestly I think the latest crop of 16-35 zooms are probably sufficient for most applications - distortion is there of course but easily corrected.

I would love a 16-35 PCE native on any of the FF mirrorless offerings that will be available this year, I know the HCam has swappable mounts and I may end up going the Canon 16-35/4L route but honestly I'd love EXIF, aperture control and lens corrections.