Shift and tilt lenses are designed to gives some of the movements of large format view cameras to 35mm and medium format SLR's. Instead of having a flexible camera body like the view cameras have, here we have a flexible lensmount on a rigid body. As SLR's are generally not conceived to offer movements like shifting and tilting from the start, some compromises are made.

The reason for having a lens shift relative to the film is to have the lens 'look up', or down, or sideways, while keeping the film plane vertical, or at least parallel to the object being photographed. It is this film vs. object relationship that determines the geometry of the image, so that if the film plane remains vertical, vertical lines on buildings will not seem to converge, and yet your image will still appear as an 'upward' shot. Tilting a lens is useful for increasing your depth of field, or rather, controlling it. As 35mm lenses generally have a lot of depth of field, and wideangle lenses in particular, tilting lenses is not a big issue until you get very close. Then, by applying the 'Scheimpflug' principal, you can for example, when photographing a horizontal surface from an oblique point of view, make the whole of that surface you principal plane of sharp focus. This is useful for example when photographing architectural models of sites, or, with longer lenses like Canon's 90/2.8, when shooting small products.

It should be noted that due to the large depth of field of wideangle 35mm lenses, tilt lenses are not as useful in 35mm as they are in 4x5, where this type of camera movement is almost mandatory. 35mm tilt (and shift) lenses have a somewhat limited range of movements due to the constricting nature of the lensmount and mirror box of the cameras. Whereas tilting is not as important in 35mm, shifting is just as important, and that is why there are more shifting than tilting and shifting lenses in 35mm (or medium format), besides the cost of the lenses.

Tilt and shift lenses are very expensive. There are two main reasons. One is that few are sold; the second is that they are expensive to design. In large format photography the lenses are big, but they are relatively simple. By making basically symmetrical lenses of wide coverage, many lens aberrations are kept under control, and the cameras have to take care of providing tilting and shifting mechanisms and not obstructing the image forming light rays. In 35mm, all lenses 35mm and shorter have to be designed as retrofocus lenses, which make it difficult to control distortion, and distortion is the last thing you want in a lens that is designed to control image distortion in the first place. Overall, the image quality has to be very good and even, and cover a much larger area that just the 35mm format, if the movements are to get used. Then the light rays have to get squeezed through the hole in the front of the camera, and hit all the corners of the film. On top of that, each lens has to have its own mechanically complicated method of moving the front of the lens in a controlled fashion.

Starting with 35mm, there are two main camera systems that have shifting, or tilting and shifting lenses today, and two others somewhat out of the mainstream. There used to be more, but those have faded somewhat.

Nikon and Canon sell the most shifting, and in Canon's case, tilting and shifting lenses. Olympus has two shifting lenses, 24mm and 35mm, and Leica offers as part of its SLR line the Schneider 28mm/2.8 shift lens, which is also available for other cameras. This is a great lens, but putting filters on it is made far too difficult. Pentax and Minolta used to have some examples, 28mm and 35mm, respectively, but not anymore.

For medium format, the situation is a little bit more complicated. On the one hand, most camera systems which aspire to be called professional offer a shift, or a tilt and shift lens (all being called from now on T&S lenses), but the cost of these lenses is generally so high that one can buy a small view camera with a lens and a roll film back for the same price or less, so the rational photographer has little reason to choose a T&S lens for his medium format system in most cases.

The contenders: remember that in most cases, the photographer already has a system, and thus the lens choice is largely decided for him. However, sometimes a lens is chosen and a camera body bought to fit it.

The main reason to get a 35mm T&S lens is to be able to produce slides, or for compact travel photography. If travel photography is considered, ease of use and compactness are the most important criteria. If there is a choice of lenses, 28mm or 24mm is more use than 35mm. 35mm may be easier for camera manufacturers to produce, but that is not enough reason to buy one. If you get a 35mm focal length lens, you might be paying only half as much, but in my opinion you are getting less than half the value.

While it is definitely a good idea to use a tripod with these lenses if at all possible, they can be used handheld if a bit of care is taken. Unfortunately, some lenses do not lend themselves to handheld shooting, due to design problems. Having used the Nikon and Canon lenses the most, I would strongly favour the Nikon design for travel photography. Some of the Canon lenses win out optically over the Nikon lenses, but that is small consolation if you missed a shot due to clumsy handling.

The Nikons handle better due to the fact that they only shift in one direction. It is easy to re-center them, meter (which has to be done when the lens is centered, with one exception I know of - see Konica) and then shifted again to compose. With the Canons, it is hard to tell when the lens is centered unless you are looking at the scale. This applies to many of the other shifting lenses as well. You cannot do this while the camera is at eye level. In my opinion and use, this advantage in handling more than offsets Canon's advantage of setting the aperture on the camera. On the other hand, I like the 24mm focal length that Canon offers more than Nikon's 28, and while a shifting 90 would not make much sense, a tilting 90 is a great idea. As a result, one sometimes sees a photographer using mostly Nikons, but with a Canon body and a 24 TS attached. I have an old Canon 35TS which I use for architectural models which is great, and probably the highest performance lens optically of any of the tilt and shifts for 35mm (I have not tried the Canon 45mm lens, the Minolta 35 or the Schneider 35 Curtagon). In spite of its optical superiority over the Nikon 35/2.8, the Canon never comes out into the field with me, but the Nikon does.

In cameras for the 120 film size, if you need tilt, you have a couple of choices. You can either buy a camera which has tilts built in, such as the Rollei 66 series, or the Fuji 680, or any number of small view cameras for this format. Or, to stay on topic, you can buy the Schneider Super Angulon PCS. It is offered for the Rollei 6xxx series, and possibly still for the Bronica SQA. One of the problems with this lens, though, is that it shifts only 12mm, which is not enough for the 120 film size. If you forego the pleasure of this lens, you will have saved enough money for a small car. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this format, as a small Arca Swiss monorail camera, complete with a couple of lenses and a rollfilm holder is cheaper, and a lot more versatile.

Each of the main medium format camera systems has a shift lens, with the notable exception of Hasselblad. They have tried to get around this with the Shift-Mutar and the Flexbody, but these options were only offered after Rube Goldberg went to work for them. They are not substitutes, but then, as mentioned, a shift or tilt and shit lens is not as necessary in this format.

Besides Hasselblad's Flexbody, Rollei has now announced the 4500 PCS, which is also a mini view camera. This has some operational advantages for users of Rollei medium format lenses and backs, just as the Flexbody offers some advantages for Hasselblad users. It migh make more sense to look at Linhof's new M679, which promises to be a bit more versatile than either of the more proprietary cameras noted above. Where these bodies and their movements might prove their worth in the future is with digital backs, which can rarely take advantage of larger formats than 6x9.

One of the most practical and cost effective shift lenses in medium format is the 50mm/4 Mamiya lens for 645. It is equivalent to about 30mm focal length in 35mm photography, so it is a reasonable focal length. Most other MF shift lenses are more equivalent to the 35mm focal length, which as mentioned above, is a bit too long. Also, the Mamiya lens is designed mechanically on the Nikon model, which makes handling unproblematic. A decent lens. The shift range is 16mm, which is a bit skimpy, but useable.

For the Mamiya 6x7, and for the Pentax 67 there are 75mm/4.5 lenses (not the same, of course), which both offer 200 of shift, or about the same proportionately for their format as the Mamiya 645 lens. Unfortunately, the focal length is a bit long.

On a final note, you can buy 4x5 wideangle hand cameras, which allow the use of 4x5 film or 120 rollfilm, have shifting front panels, and accept lenses from 45mm on up in focussing mounts. I use such a camera with a 47mm Super Angulon XL lens, which on 4x5 is equivalent to a 13.5mm lens on 35mm film, and it still allows up to 12mm shifts! On another camera, also 4x5, I often mount a 72mm SA-XL, which is like a 20mm lens on 35mm film, and I can shift this lens 56mm vertically and 52mm horizontally (on a horizontal film format), which is equivalent to 16mm vertically and 15mm horizontally on the 35mm format. Boy, do I wish I had a 20mm Nikon shift lens like that!