Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
You’ve heard about tilt-shift miniature faking photography before. Basically, the photographer is trying to emulate what you’ll see when viewing a miniature model set – with a very narrow depth of field plus a colour-wise souped up version of the scene (usually model designers love colour saturation a lot). This is slightly different from the real tilt-shift photography when the photographer actually have to use special lenses to achieve the similar miniature-model effect. The technique became wildly popular with photographers, and we see tutorials (one, two and three) being written to help you achieve the same effect, as well as an amazing gallery from SmashingMagazine. displaying 50 beautiful examples of it. Hang on a second – there’s even a Flickr group for photos too!
Creating a video like what pioneer Keith Loutit did requires a little more effort. My best guess will be having freeing out a day or two, grabbing a tripod along (preferably with a remote shutter release for your convenience) and lots of patience. Last, but not least, the post processing part, which involves passing the slew of photos you’ve taken through some pre-made Photoshop action and then using a video-making programme to put everything together. It’s a lot of work, so big kudos to Keith for making it possible :)
Keith also have many other more tilt-shift time lapse photography video on Vimeo, be sure to check them out!
p/s: In case you’re wondering, the song in the video is titled Clementine, performed by Megan Washington. What a lovely song, isn’t it?
Last, but not least, some samples from me:
Tilt-shift Photography - Spinner @ Genting Highlands Theme Park
Not a particularly good example since it is recommended that photographers use photos that are taken from the top, viewing down – simply because it’s hard for you to bring your camera to ‘ground level’ in a miniature set, right?
Tilt-shift Photography - Bukit Timah Road
Tilt-shift Photography - Shuttle Bus on Campus
Tilt-shift Photography - Sentosa Beach
Tilt-shift Photography - Sunway Water Theme Park
If you have any tilt-shift photography works, feel free to link them in your comments :) I’ll be more than happy to see your works, heh!
[Edit]: Here’s another time lapse video (not tilt-shift, but it’s too cute I can’t leave it out) of a baby playing with his toys. Four hours of fun!
If you could snap from higher ground, I bet you can produce a mouth watering photo using tilt shift effect. Non-the-less, admire the talent bro ;) Keep going since you’re on the roll.
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I’m wondering, where else can I get a great high vantage point for photos suitable for tilt-shift miniature fakes. My university is full of it, but I don’t know anymore out there, hah :D thanks for the compliments and encouragement!
Oh wow, this is a pretty brilliant technique. I have seen it used before yet never knew exactly what it was. Thank you for sharing! Really enjoyed the links and photos. I especially loved your Beach one. It really makes them all look like little plastic toys! Hah, I wanna try this now. :) If I can manage to create a decent photo, I will definitely share it with you!
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I’m glad that this post has enlightened you on the technique of creating fake miniature model photos, teehee. I can’t wait to see what photos you’ll be making, so do keep me updated about it, heh.
p/s: Happy belated ninth anniversary!
Will do!
Oh, and you’re not late. Our ninth is actually in July. :) But thank you for being the first to congratulate me! heh
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ha ha, I see NTU! nice! I’m studying in NTU, my friend (also from there) showed me this blog.cute photos!
I tried tilt-shift faking a while ago just for fun, and did one of NTU too with the 179 as the subject :p
http://disconance.livejournal.com/348468.html
quite a few flaws here and there in my work though, and it wasn’t done too excellently.. but it is very fun to play with :)
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Hi there, Grace! Thank you for dropping by, and your friend for recommending this blog. I have to admit I smiled and had this warm fuzzy feeling coming up from the inside when somebody actually came by via a recommendation. Thanks thanks thanks!
Nice tilt-shift photos you have there, I adore the photo taken at Genting Highlands. I was on the same bridge, took almost the same photo but I couldn’t find it in my photo archives. Meh!
Thanks for the link! They’re not that flaw-y afterall – lovely photos!
p/s: Have a great week ahead. Hope this neutralises some of the Monday blues!
Thanks! I love the Genting one as well, but that bit of the lamp-post shouldn’t be in focus =p
Kevin (hamletshero.blogspot.com) was the one who showed me here, by the way!
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Hah! That’s one problem with tilt-shift photography – some objects appear at the wrong place and it’s a pain in the butt trying to select them in Photoshop during the post processing part.
Thanks Kevin, hah!
Have a great week ahead. I’ve heard from him that life isn’t easy in NBS, with all the essays and all. He gawked at me when I told him that I didn’t have to write any essays for my business finance elective. Oops. Take care, and hang in there!
p/s: What camera are you using?
I’m using a Canon 400D :) saving up for a 10-22mm wide-angle… I think I’ll be renting one out for my New Zealand backpacking trip in May, can’t wait!!
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Wow, that’s an OSSOM camera! I’ve got a few friends using it and all I heard from them are praises of its build and feel. I’m wondering how much does a wide angle lens is going to cost, but one thing for sure – if you’re heading to New Zealand, you definitely need one of those wide angle / fish eye monsters! NZ is a perfect country for landscape photography. It’s either panoramas, or wide angle lenses.
Yup I’m confident NZ will be awesome through wide eyes :D the 400D’s a good value buy (I got it at 25% staff discount from my boss’s bro, too), and it’s perfect for me cos I’ve got smaller hands.
I’ll be sure to post lots of photos of NZ when I go, just visit my blog during the late may-early june period!
great artwork. wish i could do it using my digicam. hehe :)
Haha the ‘Spinner’ is kinda a failure I think, but the last one is a perfect success of tilt-shift photography. Before reading the whole text, I just scrolled down to your post and I thought the last image was really a miniature toys of a water theme park. =D
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That, I have to agree. The first four photos are not exactly the best ones aorund, but the last one is my personal favourite :) taken from a high vantage point approximately 8 storeys above the water theme park, the original photo makes a good candidate for tilt-shift manipulation.
Wow, that looks very cool! I have actually never seen this type of photography before, so you’ve enlightened me!
That baby video was so cute! I definitely could not have done that as a child. He played for a long time without crying or falling asleep. I would have been exhausted after all that. (:
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i’ve read about this tilt-shift photography somewhere..but i forgot where..it teaches how to do it the correct way…by looking at the pictures…i can it’s perfect…
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MAN, TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH THE BABY! =D
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Haha, I just noticed the Baby video you included. That was the funniest thing! I am just amazed.. that a 9mo could be so happy and content for such a long period of time. I love observing babies and toddlers.. so much fun they are! So I really enjoyed that. :P My only thought though.. did his parent really leave him alone for 4 hours?.. lol
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When I first watched the video I couldn’t help but smile :) looks like the baby explores the room in an anticlockwise manner, and during the process, scattering toys all around the place. Haha!
According to the dad who made the video, there were adults around the baby during a few instances but he edited them out to give a better sense of continuity. There are some parts of the video where you’ll see shadows moving around – that’s mommy and daddy hanging around.
I figured as much, I saw a few shadows as well. :P That was just the coolest video. And you’re right about the anticlockwise thing! It’s one of those videos I could watch over and over.. :D
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@KNizam: You could! All you need is a decent photo and photoshop :) and you’re ready to go! Nobody would really want to spend on a real tilt-shift lens because the effects can be replicated pretty much easily in photoshop, heh. Even for the photographer behind the video, he used the photoshop technique.
@Anork: Thank you! Yea, the baby is being a wonderful explorer in the video – exploring the room for whole 4 hours with little intervention from the parents. I don’t think I could last half that time, teehee. Amazingly, the baby wasn’t sleepy at all!
@|1f34|-|1r3: Basically faking tilt-shift photography simple involves selectively blurring part of the image. The assumption of the technique describe in the online tutorials is that every object horizontally across the photo are almost the same distance away from the viewer. So you’ll get weird, awkward results if you have foreground and background objects on the same horizontal position in the photo.
@ingsiang: Me too! When I first watched the video I couldn’t help but smile. Too cute to be true!
I like the one of the Merry Go Round. It looks fascinating to see what a camera could do. You’re just tempting me to get a DSLR to learn even more. ;)
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look like very2 small tiny ‘creatures’ huhu. Amazing vid!
[...] · Leave a Comment Here’s another example of fantastic tilt shift photography, found here. Those pool floaties look [...]
oh..they call it tilt-shift photography?? I thought miniature effect something like that..
nice picturesssss
the one with the swings disturbs me for some reason…
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