DIY Tilt-Shift Photography Lens

Tilt-shift lenses create a great miniature effect on photographs of everyday things. The problem? These specialised lenses are insanely expensive (think $US1000 range). This video from Make demonstrates how to make a DIY tilt-shift lens on the cheap.

Tilt-shift lenses work by slightly rotating the camera’s lens, creating a very shallow depth of field that makes pictures of normal things—like, say, a cityscape—appear to be macro photographs of miniatures. (Read more on Wikipedia.)

The results of this DIY version may not be quite as polished as a professional tilt-shift lens, but it’s undeniably cheaper. We’ve highlighted another method for tackling a DIY tilt-shift lens once before, so if this nice video walkthrough isn’t up your alley, that guide may be. If you’ve given it a try in the past—or you have experience with tilt-shift photography (apart from software-based solutions, let’s hear about it in the comments.

Weekend Project: Tile-Shift Photography [Make]