New Autofocus RF mount tilt-shift lenses expected after next round of camera announcements

[Nemorino]

I do not think tilt/shift would work for that unless the butterfly would stay perfectly still.
Try stopping down your aperture.

TSE 90mm +R5 handheld @f/4

New Canon Tilt-Shift lenses in the wild [CR2]

I highly doubt it will be motorized. However, it would be great if the TS movements were encoded, as that would allow automated lens corrections based on TS settings. Not expecting it for this generation of TS lenses, but dropping hints for a certain manufacturer to implement in future...

www.canonrumors.com

 

[EOS 4 Life]

These new auto focus RF TS lenses are all about being useful to video shooters.

I would not go that far but I am still about to go pretty far.
I think such videos would take over YouTube like those probe video lenses did when they first came out.

 

[koenkooi]

[...] If I had one suggestion to explore the use of using T/S lenses without renting or buying one first: Start with Coopers book on T/S or some of his videos about that.

This! I bought the TS-E90mm for macro work, but it turned out that image quality took a nose dive when focused at MFD and further deteriorated when tilting. And for those distances, you need a lot more tilt that the lens can do.
I sold it a few months later, it didn't outperform the MP-E or EF100 non-L for my use cases. For non close-up work it was great, but that's not what I was into back then

 

[blurryeyedbeast]

But especially motorized Tilt with a faster and somewhat "more intuitive" way to determine & setting the tilt would be really nice for me and make Tilt something I'd use more often handheld.

There are some posts here about choosing 3 points to define the tilt plane. Imagine, if you will, going into live mode on a R5m2 with a new TS lens and starting a tilt mode shot. You go through using the touch screen to select 3 points on the back for the camera to autofocus on individually and it then works out the correct tilt and sets the lens for you when you push the shutter button.

 

[blurryeyedbeast]

If I'm doing HDR's I don't want autofocus. If I'm shift-stitching I don't want autofocus.

Autofocus would work like on all lenses, something you can turn on/off on the lens.

In this case of shift stitching, if the lens movrment is motorised, imagine if you could tell the camera to shift from -10 to +10 and stitch in camera to produce a single raw file. Granted we probably won't get that, instead it might be like AEB and you have to set -10,0,+10 movements, and then for each shot the camera shifts the lens to the specified position prior to you pressing the shutter release and have to merge the 3 pics in Photoshop.

 

[blurryeyedbeast]

If they have motorised tilt and shift, Autofocus when paired with the new RF cinema cameras sounds like a great tool.

What about something like all of the new TS lenses also being Z lenses?

 

[miketcool]

There's people much more knowledge than me, but my understanding was the lack of autofocus on the ts-e was there was no good way to allow the various mechanical movements and provide a pathway of electricity to where motors for the AF would need to be.

There is no separation in a tilt-shift lens. The entire lens is moving along the same axis inside the housing. This image illustrates what’s happening inside. The issue to be resolved would be how the sensor adapts to a shifted focal plane to find the focus of the target. A tilted image plane would affect the accuracy of the dual-pixel parallax focus mechanism. A quad-pixel AF may overcome this limitation which is why a new generation AF TS lens would be limited to upcoming quad-pixel camera bodies.

 

[roby17269]

Is there any recent rumor about the new TS lens(es?) being motorized? I have the TS-E 24 II and 17 and they are fairly heavy to move. Motors would have to be powerful enough and I'd wonder about size, weight and battery consumption.

I am in the "use them hand held" camp. But AF would be of modest interest to me, unless tilting and/or shifting would impair the MF aids which I find to be excellent in the R5.

Still, after the disappointment with the 35 1.2, this news excites me Always been a fan of TS. Although I'd prefer longer focal lengths at this point

 

[Del Paso]

Is there any recent rumor about the new TS lens(es?) being motorized? I have the TS-E 24 II and 17 and they are fairly heavy to move. Motors would have to be powerful enough and I'd wonder about size, weight and battery consumption.

I am in the "use them hand held" camp. But AF would be of modest interest to me, unless tilting and/or shifting would impair the MF aids which I find to be excellent in the R5.

Still, after the disappointment with the 35 1.2, this news excites me Always been a fan of TS. Although I'd prefer longer focal lengths at this point

I believe you should keep hoping for an RF 35 F 1!

 

[roby17269]

I believe you should keep hoping for an RF 35 F 1!

ANd I would be happy if they do it (and I would pre-order one ASAP)... but I assume a 1.2 is slightly more likely... <fingers crossed>

 

[Nemorino]

Is there any recent rumor about the new TS lens(es?) being motorized? I have the TS-E 24 II and 17 and they are fairly heavy to move. Motors would have to be powerful enough and I'd wonder about size, weight and battery consumption.

The patents posted in CR had an internal tilt mechanism which would IMO need as much power as the IS of a lens.

I hope we get a set of longer focal lenght like the three macro TS lenses. These have a larger need of AF.
I'm not expecting auto tilt, maybe the second generation of AF TS lenses will support it.

If Canon releases new macro lenses , I would hope for 1:1 mag, only tilt and to be as short as possible.

 

[Photomichl]

New RF mount Tilt-Shift lenses have been rumored for quite some time, and one of the big features coming is that they will be the first tilt-shift lenses that we know of to have autofocus. We have seen a series of patents for these lenses, and in the last six months or so, they have

See full article...

I´m working with tilt-shift lenses since 25 years ... and never ever had the need to use autofocus

 

[LDS]

I don't really see the point of shift any more since keystoning is trivial to fix digitally.

No, it is not - especially in high resolution images when the "trick" may be visible - the algorithm needs to interpolate. Shift had other uses also.

I would like more a stabilization system than AF, for handheld images, probably - sure, AF would make easier to use these lenses also as general purpose lenses, but they are still bulkier and somewhat more delicate. But once you can put motors everywhere - automate everything. Anyway for critical focus images I switch off AF even on AF lenses.

 

[EricN]

Agree!
I was being careful about handholding the TSE 17mm, since I do not own one. When I still was TSE inexperienced, I once borrowed one. My results were less convincing. I too I'm certain that I'll soon handhold the TS 14mm...hating tripods. They slow you down when visiting a city. But I'm no professional architecture shooter, so I'm not always looking for the 100% perfect results.

I hate the tripods, too. Unfortunately it's a nnecessityfor me sometimes and I find myself spending the extra time setting it up (while if I'm with someone, they watch with annoyance....).

 

[DSB]

Autofocus would work like on all lenses, something you can turn on/off on the lens.

In this case of shift stitching, if the lens movrment is motorised, imagine if you could tell the camera to shift from -10 to +10 and stitch in camera to produce a single raw file. Granted we probably won't get that, instead it might be like AEB and you have to set -10,0,+10 movements, and then for each shot the camera shifts the lens to the specified position prior to you pressing the shutter release and have to merge the 3 pics in Photoshop.

Ok, that would be incredible, but I didn't discuss it because, as you said yourself, that's not what we'll likely get.

A motorized shift would be awesome: automated movements paired with bracketing - man, that would really rock. But even if this does happen, it still doesn't require autofocus and even if the autofocus was available, I would still use the lens in manual mode because that's what makes sense.

One other thing to note is that I rarely shift the lenses. They're usually fixed on a tripod and it's the camera that I move. That way there are zero parallax issues and I get perfect stitching results every single time. Which means that this theoretical motor would have to be powerful enough to shift left/right and up/down a whole camera body.

The more I think about the mechanics involved, the motors and the powerdraw, the more I think none of this will ever happen. The lens would almost certainly be absolutely huge, very heavy and require it's own batteries, or external power source. I think Canon will leave the tilt and shift manual and only add focusing motors to the first element (the one closest to the camera).

 

[roby17269]

The patents posted in CR had an internal tilt mechanism which would IMO need as much power as the IS of a lens.

this would imply a completely new Tilt design, as the current TS-E lenses tilt all elements altogether.

I hope we get a set of longer focal lenght like the three macro TS lenses. These have a larger need of AF.
I'm not expecting auto tilt, maybe the second generation of AF TS lenses will support it.

I hope we get a mix, like a 14, a 24 and a 90ish
I am more a tele guy than a wide guy, but TS makes sense to have both wide and long options.
But I am aware that we're talking niches of niches, so they will probably take a long time to appear.
In the meantime, the TS-E still work fine

 

[Del Paso]

I hate the tripods, too. Unfortunately it's a nnecessityfor me sometimes and I find myself spending the extra time setting it up (while if I'm with someone, they watch with annoyance....).

I own (stupidly) 5 very good Gitzo tripods (the real ones, French made ). The only time I need them is for adjusting MFA of my 5 D IV or to carry a slide projector when looking at old Kodachromes.
I'd dislike walking through cities with supplemental ballast. Tripods mean for me losing spontaneity. Am I right or wrong???
Anyway, it's my choice.

 

[blurryeyedbeast]

The more I think about the mechanics involved, the motors and the powerdraw, the more I think none of this will ever happen. The lens would almost certainly be absolutely huge, very heavy and require it's own batteries, or external power source. I think Canon will leave the tilt and shift manual and only add focusing motors to the first element (the one closest to the camera).

The extra power draw required might be why "new cameras only" - the older ones simply don't support providing the required power via the RF mount.

 

[EricN]

This! I bought the TS-E90mm for macro work, but it turned out that image quality took a nose dive when focused at MFD and further deteriorated when tilting. And for those distances, you need a lot more tilt that the lens can do.
I sold it a few months later, it didn't outperform the MP-E or EF100 non-L for my use cases. For non close-up work it was great, but that's not what I was into back then

Any ideas on why they marketed the lense as macro when it's not that good so close?

 

[EricN]

I own (stupidly) 5 very good Gitzo tripods (the real ones, French made ). The only time I need them is for adjusting MFA of my 5 D IV or to carry a slide projector when looking at old Kodachromes.
I'd dislike walking through cities with supplemental ballast. Tripods mean for me losing spontaneity. Am I right or wrong???
Anyway, it's my choice.

You are exactly right. Using a tripod is making a deal with the devil. As I always say, everything has tradeoffs. I probably use my tripod once a week after some planning (i want to do a panorama, focus stacking or long exposure here, here, and here). I'm wasting time doing it and probably missing something great. Limiting my usage is the best compromise I have come up with.