Just a tip for anyone considering this who ISN'T going to write off £4k as a business expense: just use a 20/24mm prime - the best you can get, then step back a bit. Give you composition a bit more outer edge space. Then just use your geometry tools in post to bring back perspective, and crop the image. Distortion always happens most on the outer edge. If you're shooting interiors and its not possible to step back, it is better to stitch your images. Indoors its likely that your lighting is controlled anyway, so you'll get a far superior (and larger) image stitching two or three over using a super wide. I normally use a prime 35mm or 50mm for indoor work on my full frame nikon d800, and shoot 4 images. Stitched they look amazing and i rarely need to do any final adjustments to geometry. I can't really see a useful application for this lens, other than real estate photography where you might have two or three jobs per day, you need corrected images more or less straight from the camera, and ultimate image quality isnt so necessary. No serious architecture photographer or landscape photographer would use it with such poor image quality. They'd likely just use medium format and stitch the images.
Does it mean a review for the 18-105mm lens is coming? Yay! Had that lens for 4 years and, while not being the sharpest tool in the shed, no one really complained about image quality. An image I made with that one even won an honorable mention in a Wikipedia contest.
Your test is flawed because an adapted lens will ALWAYS perform worse than intended. I own this lens and with my D850, it is a superior performer and is extremely dependable for high resolution output that easily pays its way in my bag.
Hey Chris! Just out of curiosity - at 2:22 you said that due to this lens' wide focal length it would be much more useful for architecture photography than product photography, and I totally agree with that statement. My question is - have you ever encountered a lens that is 50mm or more which still incorporates a tilt function? if so - which one? Great review as always! Love your work!
In 2018, Canon released a 50mm, 90mm and 135mm tilt shift lens. I haven't had any experience with the 135mm, but the 50 and 90mm are incredible lenses. I own the 50mm and it's easily my sharpest, most resolving lens.
No, I would not say completly outclassed. It is a specialist tool. As long as people don't start pixel peeping this is a great lens and saves a lot of time in post.
@@oliverlison I disagree, modern software can do in less than 2 minutes 90% of what people will ask these lenses to do. Actually the fact that these lenses didnt got modern replacement, from any lens brand, quickly tells that its obsolete tech.
@@GordoFriman Wrong. Architectural photographers who make a living at it use these lenses all the time. They have to deliver the best possible quality and distorting the image in software degrades the image and you end up losing quite a bit of the image area as well. These lenses are not 'obsolete', they are even used frequently on real estate shoots and in landscape photography where the tilt feature insures exact front to horizon sharpness. They are rare because they are expensive to design and are mostly used by a small group of professionals, a 'niche' market, not your average 'snap shooter'.
@@GordoFriman the purpose of this lens is to have to avoid time in post replicating what it can do without atrocious loss due to cropping. It is THE tool to use in the first place.
Nearly everything has has been said why a TS lens is better than any software. There is also another effect of a TS lens apart from getting the lines straight. Tilt shift lenses also allow for greater control over an image’s depth of field. Traditionally, anything the same distance from the camera as the subject will appear in focus-that’s because those objects lie on the same focal plane. On a normal lens, the focal plane is parallel to the camera. Tilt the lens, and the focal plane tilts as well, becoming a diagonal line, instead of one that’s parallel to the camera. This creates the appearance of a much deeper depth of field than shooting a traditional lens at the same aperture. With the focal plane as a diagonal, it’s also possible to have two objects that are parallel to one another, with one item in focus and another not.
Thanks for your amazing review! These tilt shift lenses are super interesting and I use them very often for my work. I use a lot the Laowa 15mm f4.5 shift lens and even though it only shifts, not tilt, I find it extremely useful! I sometimes I plan my work around it, because I know that at the end I can take the picture with my shift lens. Images look a bit soft when shifted, same problem with slight vignetting on the most stretched corners, maybe slightly less than the Nikon 19mm? I can’t tell for sure. By the way you already reviewed the Laowa shift lens, so you know better than I do! Anyway thanks for your passion about reviewing lenses. I bought so many lenses because of you, including the Laowa I mentioned.
People were very satiusfied with less MP. The lens is great. It is a specialist tool. Certainly there are drawbacks but there is noting else that a built-in perspective control. If you work within a certain margin and avoid extremes then the image quality is very acceptable. In the end no one has ever asked me what kind of lens or camera am I using. I also want to mention that Christopher's reviews are often somewhat distorted and badly researched, which I don'4t like at all. Field tests are often very different.
Hey Chris, i was wondering if you could do a review on the new Sony full frame kit lens, i bet a lot of people would like to know how it's like with your amazing reviews
After using my 24mm PC-E for many years, I finally got the 19mm (used, like new for only 2K). I have to say that the 19mm is easier to use compared to the 24mm PC-E.
@@loomasshido4509 Mechanically the 19mm is better build (smoother and more precise movements) and on the 19mm you can rotate the lens to all directions at the same time, shift and tilt, (you can't do that with the other Nikon PC-E lenses).
I prefer unshifted perspectives rather than the artificial looking shifted images….both via this contraption and via post. So it’s a ‘definitely not’ from me. But great review anyway!
Same here. Walking up as close as possible with my fisheye lens and then taking a lower position (frog's eye) so that all the lines which are not in the center start to warp.
You may prefer uncorrected images of architecture but architects do not. These lenses are used by commercial architectural photographers to achieve a more natural perspective rather than a 'key stoned' view that is decidedly unnatural in reality.
My 19mm tilt-shift stopped showing the aperture. Since it is not a manual aperture lens, there is nothing I can do. What I did was to use the Non-CPU menu and entered the lens info there. It woks, but I can't adjust the aperture. Has anyone here also had this problem?
there are different ways in photographing architecture where you will need the tilt funktion. shifting to straigten out lines is one ways, but tilting is as important. so the review is biased cause the laowa can only shift.
Hello sir, I confused about 2 lens.... Sigma 35mm 1.4 art DG HSM & tamron SP 35 1.4 Di Please suggest me which one should I buy !! My priority better sharpness, better bokeh, better color reproduction... I'm Nikon D750 user. Please help me🙏🙏🙏
Hello guys. What lens is similar in sharpness to this Nikkor 19mm? Maybe zeiss distagon zf2 18mm f3.5? Or zeiss distagon zf2 21mm f2.8? I have kipon tilt shift adapter nik z/ nik f and want to try in architecture. Thanks in advance
I've always heard zeiss' wides weren't all that good. I know the Nikon AFS 20mm f1.8 is very sharp.. Or why not try an old nikkor 20mm f 3.5? If you're going to manually focus anyway..
whenever i see a tilt shift lense im tilted so hard i need to shift back upright in my chair :D i never had the opportunity to use one, and there seem to be no new ones made and they are so prohibitively expensive im not seeing myself buying one but... they intrigue me to no end :D
@@77appyi 25 years in photography, i’ve never needed to shift focus. Surely could have been useful in the early DSLR days where focus points were limited which is when I imagine this lens was made. Now correcting perspective, absolutely. But in 2021, is $3,500 really necessary for shift focus? I’d imagine the number of people actually needing that feature on a lens these days has to be few and far in between.
@@airdailyx i don't think you understand how a tilt-shift lens works or what it for ,,it has nothing to do with AF points or lack of them...it can shift the focus further away on one side of the photo and bring it closer to the other side ..a tilt-shift lens is the only way to do this..
So not that great, it's poor quality and corrections achieved are limited , so maybe a comparison with a software lens corrected image vs shift correction would be interesting
Frankly, photoshop has made these lenses paper weights! For most real estate photography and display online, the resolution is rather low, so nobody will be tell the difference is the T?s lens captures much sharper images!
Wow, an 18-105 with a unique tilt shift function at 19mm... Incredible 😏
Oops! Just noticed this haha :-)
Now that I've corrected the thumbnail, people who read this in the future are gonna be v confused ;)
@@christopherfrost Obviously 😂😂
Just a tip for anyone considering this who ISN'T going to write off £4k as a business expense: just use a 20/24mm prime - the best you can get, then step back a bit. Give you composition a bit more outer edge space. Then just use your geometry tools in post to bring back perspective, and crop the image. Distortion always happens most on the outer edge. If you're shooting interiors and its not possible to step back, it is better to stitch your images. Indoors its likely that your lighting is controlled anyway, so you'll get a far superior (and larger) image stitching two or three over using a super wide. I normally use a prime 35mm or 50mm for indoor work on my full frame nikon d800, and shoot 4 images. Stitched they look amazing and i rarely need to do any final adjustments to geometry. I can't really see a useful application for this lens, other than real estate photography where you might have two or three jobs per day, you need corrected images more or less straight from the camera, and ultimate image quality isnt so necessary. No serious architecture photographer or landscape photographer would use it with such poor image quality. They'd likely just use medium format and stitch the images.
So now you see the tilt-shift Canon TS-E 17mm f/4 is not bad at all, after all.
Got wrong thumbnail, the thumbnail is shown 18-105 kit lens.
Does it mean a review for the 18-105mm lens is coming? Yay! Had that lens for 4 years and, while not being the sharpest tool in the shed, no one really complained about image quality. An image I made with that one even won an honorable mention in a Wikipedia contest.
Yes that lens is coming :-)
Scheimpflug Principle! Nice! I've always wanted to try a tilt/shift lens. Pretty common practice on large format film cameras, too. Hope you're well!
Your test is flawed because an adapted lens will ALWAYS perform worse than intended. I own this lens and with my D850, it is a superior performer and is extremely dependable for high resolution output that easily pays its way in my bag.
Makes the Canon 17 ts-e looks pretty good. Very hard lenses to be optically superb under severe tilting and shifting.
It is an incredible lens but regarding the price tag I think I'll buy myself a ladder instead. Great reviews Chris!
Exactly what I was thinking lollllll
Hey Chris! Just out of curiosity - at 2:22 you said that due to this lens' wide focal length it would be much more useful for architecture photography than product photography, and I totally agree with that statement.
My question is - have you ever encountered a lens that is 50mm or more which still incorporates a tilt function? if so - which one?
Great review as always! Love your work!
Yes, there are a few of them around made by various manufacturers.
The first lens that comes to my mind is the canon 50mm f2.8 macro tilt shift lens ✌
On mirrorless apsc you can also use tilt adapters with dslr and vintage lenses.
In 2018, Canon released a 50mm, 90mm and 135mm tilt shift lens. I haven't had any experience with the 135mm, but the 50 and 90mm are incredible lenses. I own the 50mm and it's easily my sharpest, most resolving lens.
Software has clearly outclassed these lenses. decent ultra wide angle lens + software = better results for a quarter of the money
No, I would not say completly outclassed. It is a specialist tool. As long as people don't start pixel peeping this is a great lens and saves a lot of time in post.
@@oliverlison I disagree, modern software can do in less than 2 minutes 90% of what people will ask these lenses to do.
Actually the fact that these lenses didnt got modern replacement, from any lens brand, quickly tells that its obsolete tech.
@@GordoFriman Wrong. Architectural photographers who make a living at it use these lenses all the time. They have to deliver the best possible quality and distorting the image in software degrades the image and you end up losing quite a bit of the image area as well. These lenses are not 'obsolete', they are even used frequently on real estate shoots and in landscape photography where the tilt feature insures exact front to horizon sharpness. They are rare because they are expensive to design and are mostly used by a small group of professionals, a 'niche' market, not your average 'snap shooter'.
@@GordoFriman the purpose of this lens is to have to avoid time in post replicating what it can do without atrocious loss due to cropping. It is THE tool to use in the first place.
Nearly everything has has been said why a TS lens is better than any software. There is also another effect of a TS lens apart from getting the lines straight.
Tilt shift lenses also allow for greater control over an image’s depth of field. Traditionally, anything the same distance from the camera as the subject will appear in focus-that’s because those objects lie on the same focal plane. On a normal lens, the focal plane is parallel to the camera. Tilt the lens, and the focal plane tilts as well, becoming a diagonal line, instead of one that’s parallel to the camera. This creates the appearance of a much deeper depth of field than shooting a traditional lens at the same aperture. With the focal plane as a diagonal, it’s also possible to have two objects that are parallel to one another, with one item in focus and another not.
Thanks for your amazing review!
These tilt shift lenses are super interesting and I use them very often for my work.
I use a lot the Laowa 15mm f4.5 shift lens and even though it only shifts, not tilt, I find it extremely useful! I sometimes I plan my work around it, because I know that at the end I can take the picture with my shift lens.
Images look a bit soft when shifted, same problem with slight vignetting on the most stretched corners, maybe slightly less than the Nikon 19mm? I can’t tell for sure. By the way you already reviewed the Laowa shift lens, so you know better than I do!
Anyway thanks for your passion about reviewing lenses. I bought so many lenses because of you, including the Laowa I mentioned.
Nikon's best ultra-wide lens. Also, an ultra-geek lens. It is not for those who won't/can't take the time to learn how to get the best out of it.
Sorry, but when the stretched corners are this soft, i dont see the advantage to stretching the picture in post. Especially with a >40mp file :-(
People were very satiusfied with less MP. The lens is great. It is a specialist tool. Certainly there are drawbacks but there is noting else that a built-in perspective control. If you work within a certain margin and avoid extremes then the image quality is very acceptable. In the end no one has ever asked me what kind of lens or camera am I using.
I also want to mention that Christopher's reviews are often somewhat distorted and badly researched, which I don'4t like at all. Field tests are often very different.
Thank you I'm thinking aboute getting a used one. I got the test of Nikon PC lenses.
Hey Chris, i was wondering if you could do a review on the new Sony full frame kit lens, i bet a lot of people would like to know how it's like with your amazing reviews
After using my 24mm PC-E for many years, I finally got the 19mm (used, like new for only 2K).
I have to say that the 19mm is easier to use compared to the 24mm PC-E.
why do you say it is easier, could you elaborate please? Thank you.
@@loomasshido4509 Mechanically the 19mm is better build (smoother and more precise movements) and on the 19mm you can rotate the lens to all directions at the same time, shift and tilt, (you can't do that with the other Nikon PC-E lenses).
I prefer unshifted perspectives rather than the artificial looking shifted images….both via this contraption and via post. So it’s a ‘definitely not’ from me. But great review anyway!
Same here. Walking up as close as possible with my fisheye lens and then taking a lower position (frog's eye) so that all the lines which are not in the center start to warp.
You may prefer uncorrected images of architecture but architects do not. These lenses are used by commercial architectural photographers to achieve a more natural perspective rather than a 'key stoned' view that is decidedly unnatural in reality.
@@everettengbers3553 If that is the case increase the focal length and the subject distance.
@@everettengbers3553 I know!
My 19mm tilt-shift stopped showing the aperture. Since it is not a manual aperture lens, there is nothing I can do. What I did was to use the Non-CPU menu and entered the lens info there. It woks, but I can't adjust the aperture. Has anyone here also had this problem?
Chris, if at all possible, please review the Nikon Z 24-200
So what Lens mount is it? ? The discripition is somewhat ambiguous about lens mount mentioning both Z and F mounts.
It's an F mount lens being used on a Z camera with an adaptor.
there are different ways in photographing architecture where you will need the tilt funktion. shifting to straigten out lines is one ways, but tilting is as important. so the review is biased cause the laowa can only shift.
Such a shame nikon didn't add these golden details in their mirrorless lenses.
Did you focus (or refocus) when the lens was shifted ? I wonder if the monstrously curved front element could change the plane of focus
Hello sir,
I confused about 2 lens.... Sigma 35mm 1.4 art DG HSM & tamron SP 35 1.4 Di
Please suggest me which one should I buy !!
My priority
better sharpness, better bokeh, better color reproduction...
I'm Nikon D750 user.
Please help me🙏🙏🙏
Hello guys. What lens is similar in sharpness to this Nikkor 19mm? Maybe zeiss distagon zf2 18mm f3.5? Or zeiss distagon zf2 21mm f2.8? I have kipon tilt shift adapter nik z/ nik f and want to try in architecture. Thanks in advance
I've always heard zeiss' wides weren't all that good. I know the Nikon AFS 20mm f1.8 is very sharp.. Or why not try an old nikkor 20mm f 3.5? If you're going to manually focus anyway..
@@coutopraze Hi. Thanks for your comment. I bought sigma 20-40mm f2.8 and kipon adapted tilt-shift nik z/f.
I hope you can do the 200mm f2 vr2.
af-s nikkor 18-105 tilt shift full frame lens review :D
whenever i see a tilt shift lense im tilted so hard i need to shift back upright in my chair :D
i never had the opportunity to use one, and there seem to be no new ones made and they are so prohibitively expensive im not seeing myself buying one but... they intrigue me to no end :D
So buy one of the old versions. They preform the same functions cost much less, are sharp and you can even add a chip.
Just seeing the bulbous front element gives me anxiety 😬
As someone who owns 3 very expensive Canon tilt-shifts, it's not at all clear to my why Nikon charges over 3k for this one.
Sharpness
Buy this lens @ $3,500 with its image quality or use a far superior wide angle lens and correct in post.
Seems like a “no brainer to me”
you cannot shift focus in post...only tilt
@@77appyi 25 years in photography, i’ve never needed to shift focus. Surely could have been useful in the early DSLR days where focus points were limited which is when I imagine this lens was made.
Now correcting perspective, absolutely. But in 2021, is $3,500 really necessary for shift focus? I’d imagine the number of people actually needing that feature on a lens these days has to be few and far in between.
@@airdailyx i don't think you understand how a tilt-shift lens works or what it for ,,it has nothing to do with AF points or lack of them...it can shift the focus further away on one side of the photo and bring it closer to the other side ..a tilt-shift lens is the only way to do this..
@@77appyi great explanation. This is an incredible tool and save a lot of time in post/
I was expecting better from a modern lens. Big deception.
Tilt shift! I think you never reviewed one of this! (Also, first!)
Canon has a17mm T/S lens that is cheaper, so it is a better choice for people who want to adapt this to their mirrorless bodies!
So not that great, it's poor quality and corrections achieved are limited , so maybe a comparison with a software lens corrected image vs shift correction would be interesting
when you are here so early that it says 3 views, and 5 likes.
funny thumbnail
Frankly, photoshop has made these lenses paper weights!
For most real estate photography and display online, the resolution is rather low, so nobody will be tell the difference is the T?s lens captures much sharper images!
As is often the case with Nikon..... bonkers money
Over 3 grand for this lens?????? And the image quality is basically shit! Are they on drugs? I wouldn't even pay $500 for this piece of crap!
I'd assume it's a Z mount but assumption is the mother of all f☆k ups so, is it a Z mount?
First
Stopped down to f5.6 for more brightness. Wait, what?
just less vigneting..