I currently have the 17, 24 and 90 mm TS lenses. The concept of tilt and its application are actually quite simple and easy to understand and use. Making this function “easier and more automatic” seems to me to be foolish. If a person is unable to grasp how to properly use this function, given that he or she reads maybe three paragraphs and sees two illustrations about it, then that person is unlikely to actually need to use this function. I guess this is the natural outcome of the current cohort of “advanced” amateur and newbie professionals in the digital age. In my older generation of higher end working professionals who grew up with film, almost all of us had to learn how to use “view” cameras which had full front and back standard movements. Of course, the TS lens functions are merely slightly constrained versions of view camera front standard movements, so understanding how to use TS lenses was a given for a real advanced amateur or professional at that time. Although this is not a perfect analogy, due to human speed and reflex limitations, as goes focus, so goes the TS function - camera makers want to reduce the requirements of human skill sets from the ability to create better images. I guess this could be viewed as “dumbing down” the process by some, or perhaps “democratizing” access to image making by others. Eventually of course, this trend is leading to un-manned network photography and, finally, AI image making which will require absolutely no photo skills whatsoever. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether this trend is a good or bad one, but it certainly veers away from the original ethos of photography by photographers.
So your point is that they shouldn't do research? And then people complain that they're boring, and not innovating etc etc etc ...
Can you adjust tilt and focus at the same time and fast enough to keep up with unpredictable subjects?
His cohort also manages exposure and re-silvers the glass plates in real time. Film, digital and other new fangled things are only there to dumb down the process!
At minimum, the automation will get more attention than the typical new lens announcements.
Do you choose the 45 over 50 for the slightly wider focal length, lower weight or something else?
If you buy a TS lens for fast moving subjects, you are not only very unique among purchasers, but you are buying a class of lens that is purely the wrong choice for those kinds of subjects, like buying an 800mm f/5.6 lens to shoot tabletop shots of jewelry. TS was designed to be a solution for difficult focusing issues in more contemplative technical and architectural work which don't require fast focusing, in order to replicate the slow and deliberate use of the front standard movements of a monorail view camera, . If you want to keep up with unpredictable subjects, buy fast prime and zoom lenses, not TS lenses. Buildings and product shot subjects don't move at all, predictably or not, except perhaps in an earthquake. On the other hand, if you want to buy such an "automated" TS lens, perhaps for the sake of novelty and GAS satisfaction, have at it; I'm sure you can have some fun with it. But for serious professionals, automation of TS functions will be expensive, superfluous and unnecessary. YMMV.
So now do you understand why having autofocus and automated tilt shift could do something new?
Thanks for being a gatekeeper, we really need helpful people like you to tell us what serious professionals need and what amateurs with money can waste it on. Well done!
