Best Camera Lens

I had this lens for close to a year now, and have used it in many opportunities. It has a great specialty lens if you frequently shoot what it is best at, and those type of shots are worth the money you spend on the lens.

There are two separate purposes for this lens: Shifting the field or shifting the plane of focus. The shifting the field applies to architectural and landscape photography. Tilting plane of focus is among other things an interesting and unique portrait style.

I've found that I use the shift 95% of the time on both architecture and landscape. I've found the tilt to be marginally usable on this lens, mostly because at 24mm this is not a great portrait lens - you would go for the 90mm version. The facial distortions at 24mm (particularly on full frame bodies) are just plain hideous and overpower any benefit gained from the tilted depth of field.

Any time you photograph a building this lens is exceptional in allowing you to retain the proper perspective. That's what tilt-shift lenses are famous for.

However, I've also found it helpful in landscape shots where I want to the move the horizon up or down to avoid a 50/50 split without introducing curvature on the horizon due to the wide angle. That can be particularly helpful when shooting canyons from the rim in Arizona, or wide angle beach scenes, both of which have strong horizon lines.

The two challenges to master with this lens are that it is manual focus only, which many of us are not as used to anymore with today's cameras, and the fact that a significant shift plays games with the camera's exposure meter. I've found that I either have to meter the scene with a light meter, or meter in camera unshifted, then switch to manual mode and shift the lens. Both workable, but extra steps forcing this to be a lens for very deliberate shooting.

People interested in selective focus may want to check out the Lensbaby lenses, which are purely artistic, but allow a lot more play with selective focus then this lens, which will only tilt in one direction.

In summary, I enjoy having this lens, and it has served me well. But it takes some time to get used to and to know which scenes it will help and which ones it will not work with.