Tilt Adapter, should I bother?

[KBeezie]

I've messed with tilt (and shift ,and swing, etc) mainly on a 4x5 camera, but I've always wanted to mess with it more or less on the likes of 35mm format.

Ever since switching to m4/3 on account of mainly using old orphaned lenses most of the lens I use are adapted. And I noticed that most of the native tilt lens are roughly 8 degree's capable such as this adapter shown here:

Tilt Pentax Lens Adapter for Micro 4/3 Olympus E-P1 E-P2 E-P3 E-PL1 E-PL2 E-PL3 | eBay
View attachment 232366

I use an Olympus Pen E-P3, and I already use a SMC Pentax-M 50/1.4 (via PK to MFT adapter) and Tamron 90/2.8 1:1 (via Adaptall to MFT adapter, but I can easily make the 90/2.8 into a Pentax-K mount since I got the adaptall mounts for that). So was thinking of that Pentax-K to MFT tilt adapter.

The problem that comes to mind however is that unlike native tilt lens I imagine that the degree of tilt and it's visual impact will probably be significantly reduced due to the fact that the micro-4/3rd sensor is roughly a 2.0x crop over full frame, as such the shallowness I could hope to achieve is also significantly lower.

I guess what I'm looking for is someone who has actually bothered to adapt a 50 or 90 to a MFT camera (or similar crop) with such a tilt adapter and how did they like the result.

 

[DeeJayK]

I picked up a tilt adapter (Pixco brand, IIRC) a couple months back and I've found it to be quite fun to shoot with. Unfortunately I don't have any examples handy to share, but here are some threads with examples shot by others on this forum:

• Tilty trainyard
• Tilt adapter - first attempt - tips?
• Real street thread
• m43 in Charleston South Carolina - my favorite shots

As you can see from these examples the tilt effect can actually be quite pronounced.

One caveat is that my particular adapter doesn't even come close to focusing at infinity, which makes it more or less useless as a general-purpose adapter. I don't know if that is just an issue with the adapter I chose or if it's somewhat endemic to the tilt design, but it's something you'll want to be aware of. If you've already got a solid adapter for your lenses, then that shouldn't be too big an issue for you.

One other thing I've noticed is that most scenes in which I find I'd want to play with the tilt effect generally call for fairly wide angle lenses. I found myself constrained in shooting with a 50mm, but had more success with a wider angle (28mm) lens. That may just be a personal preference, though.

 

[KBeezie]

I received the link adapter, but the listing says:

"The lens adapter can be rotated 36o degree for adjust tilting position."

However I can only tilt with it, there seems to be no way to rotate the lens, so it's kind of stuck in a 45 degree angle (as opposed to tilting straight up or down or left or right).

 

[KBeezie]

never mind, I popped on a rear lens cap, and I started turning against it counter clockwise, it rotates, but it's extremely stiff between "clicks".

 

[spatulaboy]

They're rather cheap so it's not like a risky investment or anything. I love playing with mine. And yes it rotates, easier to do when mounted on the camera.

These are with my Minolta MD 50mm 1.4

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vftsai/7810094872/" title="P1370554-1 by Vincent-F-Tsai, on Flickr">

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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vftsai/7780149190/" title="Charleston, SC by Vincent-F-Tsai, on Flickr">

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"600" height="800" alt="Charleston, SC"></a>

 

[KBeezie]

Test shot, bird house. 8 degrees downward with my Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 1:1 @ f/4 (adapted Lens -> Adaptall to Pentax-K -> PK to Micro-4/3 Tilt adapter)

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[KBeezie]

They're rather cheap so it's not like a risky investment or anything. I love playing with mine. And yes it rotates, easier to do when mounted on the camera.

Yea was bout 51$ for me. I just get paranoid applying too much force to something, but as you said it does rotate, I just have to twist it a bit. It's probably safest for me to turn it clockwise by grabing the lens and doing it rather than the base (where the tilt ring is) that way I'm pushing against the mount rather than against the pin that locks it in place.

PS: love your second shot.

 

[KBeezie]

PS: with that particular one, it appears to be about "3 clicks" to do a quarter turn, thus 12 clicks for a full rotation. Makes it easy for me to do the rotation without looking. I kind of wish the tilt was also in clicks and some kind of marking indicator to what exact degree I'm using. Infinity appears to be mildly effected at 8 degrees on some lens.

 

[speedandstyle]

The best tilt adaptor out there for m4/3 is the "Tilt Transformer" from Lensbaby. It allows the use of Nikkor F lenses only but is very well made. I have seen it in person but never used it so I can't say how well it works. I have been trying to find one at a good price because they are a bit pricey{for what they are}. It is also discontinued by Lensbaby since they now have the "Composer Pro" for m4/3.

 

[KBeezie]

The best tilt adaptor out there for m4/3 is the "Tilt Transformer" from Lensbaby. It allows the use of Nikkor F lenses only but is very well made. I have seen it in person but never used it so I can't say how well it works. I have been trying to find one at a good price because they are a bit pricey{for what they are}. It is also discontinued by Lensbaby since they now have the "Composer Pro" for m4/3.

$250 for an F mount adapter that basically acts like a ball head thus lacking any sense of precision, doesn't say how many degrees it does (I'm guessing 10-12 ish by the look of it), and I don't have Nikon mounted lens.

I've found that ever since LensBaby has become popular (ie: back when they had the 80-99$ "lens baby") they've basically pushed up the price quite a bit. So far I'm more comfortable with this 50$ adapter that also acts as a normal Pentax-K adapter cuz I can actually set it in 0 degree tilt position. I would not be able to do that with that $250 adapter. I mean they would probably pull a 150$ price addition if they had to put any kind of locking precision on there with a markable degree.

So basically I'm just having a difficult time seeing how that would be considered the best.

Couple I did from the ebay link above. And I know it's exactly 3 clicks per turn to do a quarter twist (meaning 6 if I want to flip the tilt to the exact opposite).

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[KBeezie]

Looks like the one I got is the exact same manufacture that this shop uses.

Pentax Lens to Micro 4/3 Tilt Adapter | rugift.com

PS: The stiffness of the rotating ring cleared up after using it for a day.