Experience with Samyang/Rokinon tilt shift on Fuji X

michaeladawson wrote:

Sjeupie wrote:

michaeladawson wrote:

Here is one example of an image taken using shift using the Kipon tilt-shift adapter for Nikon F mount lenses. ... .... However, Nikon's is only 19mm, the Canon is a little better at 17mm. For APS-C you sometimes need a wider lens.

Idem to you; a very elaborated and helpful addition to this thread.
The moustache distortion is indeed evident as soon as you pointed it out. A shame.

Is there a specific reason people tend to go for the Nikon mount rather than Canon EF f.e.?

Are you talking about the adapter or the dedicated tilt/shift lenses?

In my own case I happen to be a Nikon shooter with Nikon lenses. So the Nikon mount adapter makes sense. If I had no full frame gear at all I don't know which adapter I would pick. I think the Nikon mount may make sense because there is a lot of Nikon manual focus gear out there with aperture rings.

If I was a Fujifilm owner exclusively, but wanted to buy a dedicated t/s lens I might go the Canon route. The 17mm is wider, which is slightly better for APS-C. Overall, the Canon t/s offerings were historically better than Nikon. It wasn't until the Nikon 19mm that they finally decoupled the axes for tilt and shift. The 19mm is a beauty of a lens.

The adapter, yes. Although I just realised that Kipon for example doesn't make a Canon EF to Fuji X tilt/shift adapter. So that rules out that option
I have a little bit of Nikon gear but that's all dx. So I thought about Canon cause if I were to change to a different platform for FF, I think I'd go Canon simply for the bigger variety of lenses. And with the RF mount perhaps there's some good second hand EF deals to be found. 
Anyway, curious to try one of the adapters first tbh based on what I've seen in this topic.

Sjeupie wrote:

michaeladawson wrote:

Sjeupie wrote:

Rod McD wrote:

Here's a couple of examples taken with a Kipon Nikon F to Fuji XF TS adapter. Posted before.... ... the buildings needed correction for significantly converging verticals.

Thanks for that elaborated reply. Very helpful!
Fyi: it seems Kipon now makes a TS adapter than can tilt and shift at the same time. Also for fuji x. Pricy adapters though.

Pricey? In my opinion, not really that bad. Have you priced out an actual tilt/shift lens?

I find $414 for a 'dumb' adapter quite some money, yes. You don't think so? The Fotodiox is $169 for example.
An actual TS lens is obviously more expensive but quite a bit more sophisticated too as a product.

$414 is for the G version that has extra controls to support aperture?  I have the regular F mount (non-G) version.  A bit cheaper at $345.  It was the only real option out there when I bought it 5 years ago.  You can get a shift only lens for $142.

I know nothing about the Fotodiox.  If it's significantly cheaper than Kipon then buy that one.  If you think the Kipon is expensive go price out Novoflex equipment.

It's a dumb adapter in the sense of having no electronics.  But it is accurately machined with moving parts.  An actual tilt shift lens is not really that much more sophisticated.  It's the expensive low distortion optics that raise the cost by a lot.  It's a lens with an "adapter" permanently attached.

The current Nikon 19mm t/s lens is $3400 at B&H.  The Canon is a lot cheaper but still $2150.  So an adapter plus a used good quality manual focus lens is still a lot cheaper than a dedicated tilt/shift lens.

Sjeupie wrote:

michaeladawson wrote:

Sjeupie wrote:

michaeladawson wrote:

Here is one example of an image taken using shift using the Kipon tilt-shift adapter for Nikon F mount lenses. ... .... However, Nikon's is only 19mm, the Canon is a little better at 17mm. For APS-C you sometimes need a wider lens.

Idem to you; a very elaborated and helpful addition to this thread.
The moustache distortion is indeed evident as soon as you pointed it out. A shame.

Is there a specific reason people tend to go for the Nikon mount rather than Canon EF f.e.?

Are you talking about the adapter or the dedicated tilt/shift lenses?

In my own case I happen to be a Nikon shooter with Nikon lenses. So the Nikon mount adapter makes sense. If I had no full frame gear at all I don't know which adapter I would pick. I think the Nikon mount may make sense because there is a lot of Nikon manual focus gear out there with aperture rings.

If I was a Fujifilm owner exclusively, but wanted to buy a dedicated t/s lens I might go the Canon route. The 17mm is wider, which is slightly better for APS-C. Overall, the Canon t/s offerings were historically better than Nikon. It wasn't until the Nikon 19mm that they finally decoupled the axes for tilt and shift. The 19mm is a beauty of a lens.

The adapter, yes. Although I just realised that Kipon for example doesn't make a Canon EF to Fuji X tilt/shift adapter. So that rules out that option
I have a little bit of Nikon gear but that's all dx. So I thought about Canon cause if I were to change to a different platform for FF, I think I'd go Canon simply for the bigger variety of lenses. And with the RF mount perhaps there's some good second hand EF deals to be found.
Anyway, curious to try one of the adapters first tbh based on what I've seen in this topic.

Based on your other response, if you just want to try this out to see how well it works maybe you should just go cheap with the Fotodiox version.  Maybe you can find a used Laowa Zero-D lens in F mount for a good price.   I looked at KEH and the widest Nikon MF Ai lens they have right now is only 24mm.  Only $200 though.

To summarize some things so far and give some indicative pricing.

There are fours ways to get a Tilt/Shift option:

1. Get the Samyang/Rokinon 24mm TS for fuji X.
2. Move to a different FF brand (Canon/Nikon) and buy native TS lenses.
3. Get a FF Tilt/Shift lens and use a dumb adapter to mount it on the fuji.
4. Get a FF wide angle lens and use a TS adapter to mount it on the fuji.

Option 1 - Samyang 24mm TS

The only native mount TS option out there I believe. Fairly narrow though.

- Samyang/Rokinon 24 TS (850,-)

Option 2 - Move to FF brand

This is a clear option and does not need further clarification. It is the most 'serious' option if one wants the best possible quality. It is also the most radical/expensive.

Option 3 - FF TS lens with adapter

Any FF tilt shift should do.
- Canon 24mm TS (2150,-)
- Samyang/Rokinon 24 TS (700,-) (supposedly not very sharp)
- Nikon 19mm TS (3400,-)
- Canon 17mm TS
- Laowa 20mm TS (1400,-)
- Laowa 15mm TS (1300,-)

Any dumb adapter should do (50,-) on a manual aperture controlled lens. Watch out with Canon EF; often there is no aperture ring on the lens! Idem for Nikon G lenses. Otherwise one needs a smart adapter (150,-)

So minimum costs around 750-

Option 4 - FF lens with TS adapter

Fotodiox (170,-_) and Kinon (400,-) are popular options. Needs to be combined with a low distortion wide angle. Advantage is that it is easier to get multiple (wider) focal lengths. Like above: watch out with Canon EF; often there is no aperture ring on the lens! Idem for Nikon G lenses.

Proven working options:

- Samyang 14mm (350,-) (moustache distortion)
- Laowa 12mm (1000,-)
- Laowa 14mm (550,-)
- Irix 15mm (600,-)

Legacy lenses like:
- Nikon AIS 20mm
- Nikon AIS 28mm

So minimum costs around 500,-

That's a nice summary.

Regarding option 1, the Samyang 24mm T/S lens in X mount, reviews of the lens which I have read last year indicate rather poor optical performance. I would not recommend this lens.

Regarding the IRIX 15mm lens, the lens is manual focus only but at least on the EF mount version does not have its own aperture control ring. So you would be stuck with whatever aperture the lens is set to.

I don't know about aperture control on the Nikon F mount or Pentax K mount versions of this lens (also note that there is a somewhat cheaper version of this lens).

With dumb adapters, pay close attention to focus and aperture control on the lenses.

The advantage of these adapters though is that you can easily achieve T/S with a number of different lenses and focal lengths.

There may be some very good all-manual medium format lenses available with a large image circle, and a matching version of the Fotodiox adapter.

Tim van der Leeuw wrote:

There may be some very good all-manual medium format lenses available with a large image circle, and a matching version of the Fotodiox adapter.

For sure there are some good medium format lenses out there.  The issue is that you will be limited to longer focal lengths that will limit where you can use the lens on APS-C.  Older medium format lenses are going to be longer than 30mm.

Newer medium format lenses may go as wide as 20 to 24mm.  But they will be very expensive.  At that point a used Nikon 19mm T/S with dumb adapter would probably be cheaper.

michaeladawson wrote:

Tim van der Leeuw wrote:

There may be some very good all-manual medium format lenses available with a large image circle, and a matching version of the Fotodiox adapter.

For sure there are some good medium format lenses out there. The issue is that you will be limited to longer focal lengths that will limit where you can use the lens on APS-C. Older medium format lenses are going to be longer than 30mm.

Newer medium format lenses may go as wide as 20 to 24mm. But they will be very expensive. At that point a used Nikon 19mm T/S with dumb adapter would probably be cheaper.

That's true, very good point, I didn't think about that. When I was investigating the Fotodiox T/S adapter myself I was primarily looking at lenses with a somewhat longer focal length indeed, although hoping to have flexibility in focal lengths (and when using shift for panoramas, having a bit more flexibility in what focal length to use).

In the end I did not yet buy anything though and it might indeed be best to try with one of FF mounts.

Aperture control is the issue though: I do have a couple of Canon EF mount lenses, but with electronic aperture control. So I'd still need to buy some good glass with manual aperture control.

Following Rod's comments, you can accomplish a lot with a multi-step process: expose with relatively high aperture, so that all is in reasonable focus; use PS or other software with skew adjustment to make parallels parallel again; stretch transform in the vertical direction. not perfect, but works in many situations,

Rod McD wrote:

Sjeupie wrote:

Would you mind posting/referring to some of your images? As per my initial post, I originally discarded the adapters idea (including the Kipon) as I deemed it finicky and not working well as I barely see people using it. So I'm intrigued about your positive feedback.

Here's a couple of examples taken with a Kipon Nikon F to Fuji XF TS adapter. Posted before. One uses the AIS 20/2.8, the other the 28/2.8 AIS. Which demonstrates a good thing about TS adapters - you can change focal lengths easily where TS lenses only come in limited options. I'll go back to my earlier statement and say that TS adapters are really no more finicky than a TS lens once you've got the lens mounted. Which is not to say that TS lenses aren't finicky - they take some practice and patience.

Hi Rod, I'm working on a personal project where I'm photographing some buildings in NYC. I was looking at a the Kipon adapters and noticed they offer shift-only adapters along with the tilt-shift adapter. For mostly architecture / exterior building facades do you think the shift-only adapter will be sufficient?

I was looking at the Fuji > Olympus adapter since I prevously found this article that recommends some lenses. But it's good to know that you had success with Nikon. I don't own Olympus or Nikon lenses so I'll need to pick one up. Do you know of a lesser priced wide Nikon lens that may work for this project? I still have to determine the focal length. I'll take my 18-55 to do some testing although I believe I'll need something quite wide.

Thanks much,

Matt

HappyThoughts wrote:

Rod McD wrote:

Sjeupie wrote:

Would you mind posting/referring to some of your images? As per my initial post, I originally discarded the adapters idea (including the Kipon) as I deemed it finicky and not working well as I barely see people using it. So I'm intrigued about your positive feedback.

Here's a couple of examples taken with a Kipon Nikon F to Fuji XF TS adapter. Posted before. One uses the AIS 20/2.8, the other the 28/2.8 AIS. Which demonstrates a good thing about TS adapters - you can change focal lengths easily where TS lenses only come in limited options. I'll go back to my earlier statement and say that TS adapters are really no more finicky than a TS lens once you've got the lens mounted. Which is not to say that TS lenses aren't finicky - they take some practice and patience.

Hi Rod, I'm working on a personal project where I'm photographing some buildings in NYC. I was looking at a the Kipon adapters and noticed they offer shift-only adapters along with the tilt-shift adapter. For mostly architecture / exterior building facades do you think the shift-only adapter will be sufficient?

I was looking at the Fuji > Olympus adapter since I prevously found this article that recommends some lenses. But it's good to know that you had success with Nikon. I don't own Olympus or Nikon lenses so I'll need to pick one up. Do you know of a lesser priced Nikon lens that may work for this project? I still have to determine the focal length. I'll take my 18-55 to do some testing.

Thanks much,

Matt

I have the rokinon TLT ROKR tilt/shift adapter, which I don't think was mentioned in this thread. Anyway, most of my lenses are Pentax, and they don't make it in K mount, so I bought it in Canon mount and adapted it. In a way it's kind of funny to have an EOS mount because it's impossible to use electronic lenses, but it can be adapted to a multitude of different lens mounts.  Since the tilt shift adapter is pricey, it's good to be able to only own one and adapt lenses to it

Hi,

Yes, the shift-only adapter would work for shift-only uses, including avoiding converging verticals in architecture if that's your goal.  Bear in mind that you may one day have another project with another goal that would benefit from tilt......

Be aware that there are limits to how much correction you can obtain....  I don't know NYC, but I suspect that its high rise would be tall enough to challenge any TS adapter or indeed TS lenses - there is a limit to the coverage that lenses can provide.

As you saw, I used the AIS 20/2.8 and 28/2.8 with some success - they're the only two options I tried in Nikon mount.  Another FL in Nikon that gets mentioned with TS adapters  is the AI / AIS 18/3.5 in MF, and the faster variant 18/2.8 on AFD.  Not cheap even now.  A cheaper option is the Tokina 17mm.  There was an earlier 'RMC' version and then their ATX AF version.  The ATX was Tokina's more advanced line, but I've read quite a few posts where people have found the older RMC version just as good or better.

The adapters are also made in Contax mount.  (The thing you really need is an adapter ring to be able to stop down.  You will need to.)  I tried the Contax 28/2.8 as well.  There's not much between them.

Legacy film era lenses wider than 18-20mm were pretty adventurous designs at the time.  I suspect that lenses like the 14mm lenses from Sigma and Tamron might not be that sharp, particularly in the outer image where you need it for shift lenses.

Another option may be more recent UWA zooms.  Some members have reported trying them.  I haven't, and can't comment from experience.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Rod

"For mostly architecture / exterior building facades do you think the shift-only adapter will be sufficient?"

Yes.  You only need the shift.