“Tilt/Shift” and all the other movements come into play when I am doing careful work. Like many of us, over time, I end up trying everything I can and “every which way but loose.” There is a fairly constant low rumble of folks interested in Tilt/Shift and so on, but I am not sure how many folks end up using it.
And there are all kinds of tutorials (many with complex graphics) about depth-of-field, the Scheimpflug Principle and so on, even animation. I’m embarrassed to say that I found most of those tutorials relatively Greek to me, and have mostly just ignored them, much against the advice of some of our lens meisters. Where the rubber meets the road, I end up using tilt/shift and so forth by eyeball rather than by measured principle. And I like it a lot, especially “Tilt.” I can just twist the tilt, etc. to where it does what I want and I use it all the time.
And of course, most of the Tilt mechanisms seem to favor horizontal tilt, when I, of course, like vertical tilt most. Just my luck! Over the years, I have collected more than my share of tilt/shift mechanisms, always trying to get to the promised land. For example, I have a whole shelf of focus rails of one kind or another, not to mention three of Nikon’s Tilt/Shift lenses, the 24mm, 45mm, and 85mm. And I have little tilt-adaptors that give you one angle of tilt and you have to move the camera around to get any others.
Then there are the Nikon Bellows, of which I have the PB-6 with extensions and several PB-4. Now, the PB-4 is really a little gem, once I learned how to use it. And for a big heavy technical rail-camera I have a brand-new Rollei X-ACT2 Bellows with bag and standard bellows, plus various plates for Nikon and Pentax cameras and lenses.
And finally, it looks like I have settled on the Novoflex Castbal Tilt-shift Bellows that attaches to the Novoflex Casterl-Q Focusing rail with Arca-Type Quick Release. This will provide the most stable (compact) setup that I have yet found.
Using rails, bellows, and such, what is desired is to keep the vertical component as low as possible. This is why those that offer an Arca-style rail and quick release are heads and shoulders above the rest, IMO. My largest rig, the Rollei X-ACT 2 does all the moves, but weighs a ton. Ugh.
As mentioned above, what I find most useful is the simple tilt, but I need both horizontal and vertical tilt, so I have tried different ways to achieve that. There are some lenses made by Hartblei, their Super-Rotator, that allow tilt at whatever angle you want, but I am not sure how they compare to the APO lenses (Otus, etc.) that I am used to.
So, as a workaround, I have found two ways to get Tilt both horizontally and vertically, and this by taking advantage of the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube Geared-Head with the Arca-Classic Quick Release (Knob tightening). I do NOT recommend this geared head with the lever-style quick release. I had one and sold it. The old standard Knob release is the one I trust.
I have a couple of approaches, the first can be used on pretty-much any tripod head.
(1) Using the Nikkor Bellows PB-4 in standard mode, we have horizontal tilt (side to side). If I want vertical tilt, I used the short end of my L-Bracket to mount the camera on the tripod, which leaves the PB-4 sitting sideways and hanging in mid-air. I wish it were more stable, but it works fine.
(2) Using the Nikkor Bellow PB-4 and the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube Geared-Head with the Arca Classic Quick Release. I can have horizontal tilt in standard position, and by flipping the C1 Cube on its side I can get almost vertical tilt (62-degrees), and can get it to 90-degrees by turning the upper geared axis to complete it. This provides a quite stable environment, good for elaborate focus stacking, in my experience.
(3) Using Panoramic gear (in this case RRS), you can get the vertical tilt, but it is unwieldy.
(4) Using a technical camera, in this case the Rollei X-ACT2 system, we can get all movements, but at the price of lack of mobility.
(5) And finally, it looks like the Novoflex Castbal Tilt-shift Bellows that attaches to the Novoflex Casterl-Q Focusing rail with Arca-Type Quick Release will be the most compact setup if I can be happy with Tilt, albeit both horizontally and vertically.
So, there you have what I know as this date. I am sure it looks like a lot of equipment and pain to get something simple that works, and it is and does. On the other side, I find working with the various movements by-eye, just fine, and it adds A LOT (IMO) to photos, especially if I am stacking photos. I can use Vertical Tilt to move two flowers (for example), where one is in front of the other, much closer by tilt so that far fewer layers are needed, and the effect is also very nice.
So, there you have it. You may have suggestions on other equipment that does this, which I would like to hear, please.
