It’s true that mastering a tilt-shift takes a lot of practice. I’m not sure how much yet. But doing useful things with one, especially a wide angle like the 24 can be accomplished with a little chimping and some common sense. (For those who don’t know what chimping is, its when you look at the shot in the camera’s LCD and go “ooh,oooh,oooh”).

Using the shift function to alter perspective for architectural photos can be done by two methods. The first is the scientific method and involves lots of study and practice. The second is just play with the damn thing and chimp away until you get what you want. Sometimes you’ll nail it right away. Sometimes (like when I took a shot that made our three story building look like a pink Mayan step-pyramid) you’ll get something that will remind you why you don’t do drugs anymore.

Compared to other tilt-shift lenses, this one is, well, interesting. It’s pretty sharp wide open in the center, but even stopped down the corners are weak, and they’re weaker when tilted. It has some chromatic aberration and that gets much worse when shifted (it also gets worse stopped down). You can correct that in post, of course, but that reduces corner resolution even further. To be honest, if you want to shoot at f/5.6 or f/8, I’d just as soon get the much cheaper Rokinon 24mm tilt-shift If you’re shooting wide open, then I definitely prefer the Nikon.

May, 2013