Tilt-Shift Videos

I've been wanting to post some great tilt-shift video for quite a while now. but can't seem to find a great collective website that actually put it up there. Well most of great quality videos are posted on Vimeo. Not just the tilt-shift video ok, other creative videos, shorts, 2D/3D animations, music videos, or just plain awesome cinematography. In the case of creative content it is much better than YouTube. For one it can project better result in both SD and HD. Second there are less junks there compare to YouTube.

Enough about Vimeo and lets carry on to the main topic. Now, the Wiki's explanation about Tilt-Shift is this;

"Tilt-shift photography" refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras, and sometimes specifically refers to the use of tilt for selective focus, often for simulating a miniature scene. Sometimes the term is used when the shallow depth of field is simulated with digital postprocessing; the name may derive from the tilt-shift lens normally required when the effect is produced optically.

To me, in the laymen's term is a photography technique that uses a special lens that would make the result to look like miniature models. Your subjects would actually, literally look like man made miniatures but they are actually real buildings, people, cars, ships or what have you.

The first time I knew about this was at work when my colleagues were actually talking about it and looking at videos on the net and looking at the lenses. I wanted to see what's going on but I was too busy with my work, then a few days later I went with my friends to see some mummy exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore and there were other exhibitions as well there (duh, of course). Part of those is, I believe it was photography contest about some theme about Singapore National Day. Then there they were, tilt-shift photos.
One photo I remember the most was the F1 race with a wide angle shot and the F1 car at the turning corner. I believe it was this one



Go to Boston.com for more of these F1 photos, awesome ones too. But this is the 2008 ones.

Well, as you can see it does look like a miniature toy right? It's just an eye illusion thing. Depth of Field, distances, angle manipulation, bla bla bla. What ever it is it looks freaking cool I would say. It's like when you can achieve this effects by yourself, you would feel that you have the world on the palm of your hand doesn't it?

I found a site that actually collects videos from Vimeo of, may be, the best tilt-shift effects time lapse. So they took the photos and put it in an editing software, put them together and become a video. I did read some where that you can actually achieve the same effect using a normal footage and treat it at post, apply some filters and blur here and there. But I would say nothing beats the real thing doesn't it?

So here they are from Photoble.com, 10 Astonishing Tilt-Shift Videos. Oh yea they always have great music accompanying the videos :-)

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Small Worlds - Preview. from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.