I know I've referenced my Canon 24mm tilt/shift lens that I put on my 5D back, but I wanted to show in photographs why I like this lens so much. This lens allows you to DOUBLE your total field of view. To use it, you shift the lens all the way to the left, snap the picture, then move it to the middle, snap a picture, and move it to the right and take a third. It requires some fairly minor assembly of the photos, but NO stitching. I just put the middle picture on top of the other two and then use a fuzzy eraser to erase the edges and get the 3-photo composite image that is twice as big. Remember - this is a 24mm wide angle lens, so it isn't a fish-eye and you don't get a lot of distortion.
Here's an example of one of the images.
As you can see, you can't really tell where the three images overlap because they are perfect overlays. (This is because the camera body does not move (it's on a tripod), but the camera lens is on rails and shifts left to right.
The blue rectangle is a 35mm lens that I put on my Canon back. The camera stayed in exactly the same position and I just took another photo.
The red rectangle is the Nikon point/shoot pocket camera that I use for other quick shots. As you can see, it gives a photo very similar in field of view to the 35mm lens, but not quite exactly the same.
As you can see, the 24mm shift lens gives a total image that is about 4 times as large as the point/shoot camera. If one were outside, this wouldn't necessarily be a big advantage. Often, you can just keep backing up until you get the image of the house framed the way that you want. BUT INSIDE, you might be able to back up a few feet, but you quickly hit a wall. AND THAT'S WHY the camera's field of view matters so much. After I rented a 5D with a shift lens for a few photo shoots, I decided that I just could not get the results that I wanted to get with my point/shoot cameras.
Please understand....point and shoot cameras are GREAT, and I use them for all my pole photography of miscellaneous work. But if you want to take your interior photography to the next level, then you need to think seriously about getting more field of view.
I understand that there have been some special point/shoot cameras with extremely wide angle lenses. And I've heard that those can yield good results. I just never saw any of them at the circuit city and the rental shop did not carry point and shoot cameras.
I hope that helps explain why we are getting the kind of great field-of-view results from our rig that we're getting. Just comment if you have any questions and I will try to respond.
Margaret Hokkanen, Carlsbad Real Estate
PS: That's my California living room. We try to have fun at the house. Be nice.....
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