50 Beautiful Examples Of Tilt-Shift Photography
Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique type of photography in which the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model. Below we present 50 beautiful examples of tilt-shift photography. All examples are linked to their sources. We strongly encourage you to explore other works of the photographers we’ve featured in this post.
To add good miniature effect to your photographs, shoot subjects from a high angle (especially from the air). It creates the illusion of looking down at a miniature model. A camera equipped with a tilt-shift lens, which simulates a shallow depth of field, is essentially all you need to start.
You may also want to take a look at the following related posts:
- Beautiful Examples Of High-Speed Photography
- 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
- 45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos
50 Amazing Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography
Christopher Chan
Sydney Apple Store Miniature; Fake tilt shift effect applied to a 3xp HDR.
Vesuviano – Nicola De Pisapia
Model of a model of reality. Vietri sul mare (SA) Italy.
Tilt-Shift Photography: It’s A Small World After All
oseillo
On the photo: Barcelona, Spain.
Tilt-Shift Videos
Beached from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video of Tamarama Beach, Sydney.
Bathtub III from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video of Sydney Harbor with tilt-Shift.
Bathtub II from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video at Sydney with tilt-Shift.
From Julien Vignali
Time Lapse video with Tilt-Shift.
Harrowdown Hill from Beggars
From Mrjerz
Multnomah Falls in Miniature from Andrew Curtis
Time-Lapse video at Multnomah Falls.
Monde liliputien (illusion d’optique) Uploaded by kronsilds
You can find further videos in a Metafilter round-up of tiltshift videos.
How To Make Fake Miniature Tilt-Shift Photos?
To add good miniature effect to your photographs, shoot subjects from a high angle (especially from the air). It creates the illusion of looking down at a miniature model. A camera equipped with a tilt-shift lens, which simulates a shallow depth of field, is essentially all you need to start.
Resources:
- Do-It-Yourself Tutorial: Tilt-Shift Lens
Create a tilt-shift lens yourself if you can’t afford to buy one. - Focusing the Tilt-Shift Lens
- Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Depth of Field
- Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Perspective
- Why does tiltshift photography make things look tiny?
- Tilt/Shift Photography Links
And if you don’t have specialized equipment, you can make use of Adobe Photoshop or any other image-editing software. Manipulate the focus in such a way that it gives the image the effect of having been shot with a macro lens. Secondly, increase the saturation and contrast in a way that the color looks like bright paint on a miniature model.
Resources:
- Tilt-Shift Photography Photoshop Tutorial
This tutorial shows you how to make photos of real life-sized subjects look like photos of miniature models. - Tilt-Shift Photoshop Tutorial
- Photoshop Tilt-Shift
- Fake Model Photography
With a very little effort, you can take existing photographs of everyday scenes and make it look like they’re actually of miniature models.
Sources and Resources
Here you’ll find links to further articles and related Area for further articles and related resources:
- 10 Tiny Tokyo Photos
- Flickr Pool: Tilt-shift miniature fakes
Consists of tilt-shift photos created using Adobe Photoshop. - Flickr Pool: Tilt-Shift HDR
Related posts
Please also consider our previous posts:
- Beautiful Examples Of High-Speed Photography
- 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
- 45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos
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Okibi
November 16th, 2008 2:49 pmWow interesting photo technique, intrigued now.
tusste
November 28th, 2009 7:40 amI think i will try this technique cause it looks amezing. (i replied to you cause i want to cut the line :D so i am no2. now :))
holllapoola
March 15th, 2010 9:40 amfuckin scrub
zero0x
November 16th, 2008 2:51 pmsecond :):)
nice article
Mike
November 16th, 2008 2:57 pmlol
My RSS reader picked up this story with the title: 50 Beautiful Examples of Tilt-Shit Photography
Patrick
November 16th, 2008 2:58 pmThere are certainly some fantastic photos in this article. Nice typo in the first h3 element, by the way.
SpacyRicochet
November 16th, 2008 3:02 pmThat’s because it says that in the secondary title.
But these photo’s are beautiful indeed.
James De Angelis
November 16th, 2008 3:02 pmMight want to re-check the spelling on the H3 there, not sure it’s saying what you want it to :)
Nice post otherwise!
JN
November 16th, 2008 3:16 pmThis is a funny technique, but I feel SM is beginning to focus more on quantity and less on quality with all the “X examples of Y”-articles which just lists a ton of photos/videos/links.
I wouldn’t want to see SM disappear in the endless list of blogs that do this already, so my friendly suggestion is to focus on the more exclusive material that you have here, which made me a regular reader in the first place.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
November 16th, 2008 3:42 pm@JN: thanks for your input. You see, we try to cover various topics and every week we try to offer the best mix for everybody. We’ll keep your suggestion in mind, but sometimes it’s just hard to be really good for everybody.
Jordan Moore
November 16th, 2008 3:49 pmI’d like to say that I really appreciate the effort that goes into articles like these, I had no idea that such things like Tilt Shift photography existed!
Quakeulf
November 16th, 2008 3:58 pmThe ones with the trains and cars in them were particulary awesome, probably because I’ve been doing my fair share of model railroading as a child. :3
Phobios
November 16th, 2008 4:11 pmSame for me as Jordan Moore.
I was unaware of such a interesting way of photography! Thanks!
Bimal
November 16th, 2008 4:13 pmYou continue to bring us great articles.. Smashing Magazine comes up trumps again! I worked out how to do this in photoshop a couple of years ago after seeing the technique in practice on flickr. Love the technique.
WilhelmR
November 16th, 2008 5:15 pmExpanding a bit on what JN said, I think the articles are fine, i just wish you expanded the opinions in each to make the the articles even more interesting and probably the comments a bit juicer, if that makes any sense :P
Matthew
November 16th, 2008 5:17 pmin response to Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (November 16th, 2008, 3:42 pm) -
Its great you do so many different things, and I do really like this kind of photography,
However, I am left feeling like you simply got every single tilt-shift image you could possible find on the internet to make it up to 50.
I feel it would have been a far better article if all the images were of such a good standard as the better ones, even if there were only 20 or 30 of them.
Klaas van Wachteren
November 16th, 2008 6:11 pmInteresting. And amazing.
Chris Broadfoot
November 16th, 2008 7:59 pmI think this article is a real shame — fake miniatures is not the only application of tilt-shift photography, and is really quite gimmicky.
Mike
November 16th, 2008 9:01 pmI havent seen photos like these since the beata 1983 collection.
Darth Brooks
November 16th, 2008 9:21 pm3/4 of these are awesome. I have a few that could beat out your bottom percentile.
Josh
November 16th, 2008 9:49 pmThe definition of tilt-shift photography is incredibly inaccurate.
Tilt-shifting is a reference to the fact that the focal plane is tilted (top to bottom) or shifted (left to right) so that the plane is no longer parallel to the camera. An after affect of which can be the surrealistic mini described.
Colin
November 16th, 2008 10:18 pmJosh (above) beat me to the punch. These photos are simply using a tilt-shift lens (or photoshop to fake the effect). You will find that tilt-shift lenses are used in many disciplines of photography including skateboarding, rock climbing and fashion.
more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography
horuzzz
November 16th, 2008 10:25 pmThis was been posted on digg repeatedly for the last year. What are you doing? clearing the comments and reposting a couple months later? this is getting really old. The last two times this article showed up on digg there were dozens of comments about fake fake images, ie: some of the supposed miniatures are in fact real photos of real places. I dont know about this, to be honest Im just reporting what others said the last time.
The only real gripe I have is that whoever wrote this article continues to post it in digg every few months. Im very curious about this activity on digg. There are many blogs that continue to COPY ARTICLE, DELETE OLD ARTICLE, PASTE ARTICLE so that the comments are deleted, the timestamp is recent and people think its “new and fresh.” From what Ive seen, anything you see on digg at any given time that isnt a current event article, has a 50/50 shot of being a repost of something from last year or even older!
Andris
November 16th, 2008 11:11 pmThis is an awesome technique I’ve never seen before. Pretty inspiring. Thanx.
linh
November 16th, 2008 11:12 pmstuff in those image look like a toys
Hotdesign
November 17th, 2008 12:09 amwow .. i like it .. please give us more of this set ..
thanks
Karl
November 17th, 2008 1:21 am@horuzzz: You’re a real smartass… This IS about real photos that look like miniatures… Geez…
Nik
November 17th, 2008 1:29 amSome really nice photographys!
Some Tilf-Shift-Stop-Motion Photography
Ant
November 17th, 2008 1:42 amLike others I was unaware of this technique, and am very pleased to have it brought to my attention. In places it is stunningly effective, but quite often the blurring that takes place in the refocusing element of the technique can distract to the extent that it takes away from the picture. While a couple do not achieve the required effect at all and just look like a picture with lots of blurry bits.
shaun
November 17th, 2008 1:43 amgreat post
Maurits
November 17th, 2008 1:55 amNice post!!!!!!! Great!
JAB
November 17th, 2008 2:07 amWhile many of the above are interesting uses of the miniature effect of an extreme upward tilt, I don’t like using “Tilt-Shift” as the title of this group. The primary use of view camera movements is to create perspective corrected images with deep focus, near and far.
Kedume
November 17th, 2008 2:18 amNice article. This is a very curious effect.
Erik R.
November 17th, 2008 2:26 amI love tilt-shifting. My favorite is this miniature Manhattan photo.
tct
November 17th, 2008 2:52 amSome very nice examples. Some though, don’t work that well.
James
November 17th, 2008 3:11 amSadly this article really is just a bit of digg-bait. Some of the examples are very well done but there are several photos that really just aren’t good examples.
I agree with a couple of the posters above about quantity over quality. The last article I read here was informative and well written about tidying up your coding practice. That was good. While I understand the need to cater to a large audience, SM should really try to make less of these digg type lists if they want the blog to stand out from the crowd.
Mike Redfern (FoxyMcSlick)
November 17th, 2008 3:14 amWow, one of my photos selected in the list! Thanks for the vote of confidence guys, it’s great to have your work recognised.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxymcslick/2422998216/
Mike Redfern (FoxyMcSlick)
mezu
November 17th, 2008 3:26 amWow..*picks jaw from desk :)
Julius
November 17th, 2008 3:32 amWOW… incredible great job!
Mr Smith
November 17th, 2008 3:59 amIt seems a tilt shift lens is not “essentially all you need to start.”.
I’m sorry but most of these TS’s are badly faked or just poor quality, there are some great examples of TS in there but they are spoilt. Again as stated quality over quantity guys.
Name to shame (not towards the artists but to editorial needing to fill the quota) :
Nicola De Pisapia
Lachlan Sear
B Tal
Eric Lafforgue
Timmy Toucan
Therealjasonruff
darktiger
patrix – *horrible
tHE PypEr
Wmandra
Angusleonard
Jeangenie
Tarkka
Shawn S. Ide
Vladimir.d
Toshio
Unknown
….not all the fakes but the others are good enough to pass.
blaadje
November 17th, 2008 5:47 amSome other examples:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvsdcm/2561131714
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvsdcm/2581216110/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvsdcm/2562108366
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvsdcm/2561132260
Andreas Overland
November 17th, 2008 5:57 amFew of these, if any, show signs of shift, and most of them are photoshop-tilts. “A few selective blur in PhotoShop photographs” would be even more accurate title.
There are loads of very beautiful and artistic tilt/shift photographs around. Should be enough to make a wonderful 50-photographs post.
A few examples at:
Tilt&Shift Group on Flickr
Barend
November 17th, 2008 6:14 amVery nice! I’m always wondering how much photomanipulation is used with this type of photography.
Torley
November 17th, 2008 6:24 amI enjoy seeing tilt-shift (or “tiltshifta” as I sometimes call it) quasi-applied to digital environments too, like the virtual world of Second Life. Here’s something I did awhile back: http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley/462433509/
stewe
November 17th, 2008 7:04 amgenerally when the band of focus is relatively small both in terms of narrowness and scope, the effect is fake, and there are indeed a number of photos in there where the t/s is created in ps. Focus can and tends to be a little more sporadic on the actual “film/digital” plane when using the lenses. And combining both tilt and shift is a bit gimmicky and has some specific uses, but it’s too bad you left out explanations and examples of why these lenses and technique (tilt and shift separately) is used beyond creating miniature worlds.
Payam
November 17th, 2008 7:23 amWow, it is a great collection. Thank you.
Kevin
November 17th, 2008 7:42 amAs a couple people already pointed out, this article’s description of tilt-shift is misguided. Tilt shift photography is most commonly used in commercial and achitectural photography to correct perspective and bring the focal plane in line with the subject. It is really interesting, however, to see it used in this manner!
MattT
November 17th, 2008 7:43 amMost of these are pretty good, but you can tell the fakes done by the folks who don’t get how this works. Faking it is more than just blurring everything but a narrow band, because that can result in fakes that don’t work. The top-down view of the Apple Store, for example, doesn’t work because it’s just a clear middle with blurred surrounding. There’s a bridge one that doesn’t work either, because part of the top of the bridge is blurred even though it’s the same distance from the clear part below, and closer than the far shore of the river, part of which is clear.
Everything that’s the same distance from the camera should be clear for the effect to work, I think.
SE7EN
November 17th, 2008 8:27 amwow! before I read the description what tilt-shift photo is, I thought these pics are the shot of miniature model!
gene
November 17th, 2008 8:55 amTotal misconception of TS lenses. Tilt lens can make these effects, but most of these in here were made with photoshop masking. Come on, there are really nice image out there using TS lenses, not these…
Austin
November 17th, 2008 9:19 ammore like “5 beautiful examples of tilt-shift photography and 45 beautiful examples of Photoshop” – hahaha. very resourceful post! Thank you!
Timothy
November 17th, 2008 12:51 pmI love this stuff
warzauwynn
November 17th, 2008 12:51 pmThis article is shameful if only because it specifies “Tilt Shift Photography” in the title, not “Tilt Shift Photoshop and Photography”. The worst part of is that any TS photographer can usually spot a fake a split second after looking at the image.
If it’s not photography just say so, there’s nothing wrong with doing it in photoshop if that’s your game. Just don’t tell unwitting readers that it’s something it’s not.
Kent
November 17th, 2008 1:11 pmMr. Laforet is an amazing photographer. ’nuff said. =)
honion
November 17th, 2008 1:18 pmAnother example
adina hutanu
November 17th, 2008 2:55 pmi tried some myself :) check my “miniatures” here: http://adinahutanu.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/un-fel-de-tilt-shift-photography-experimente/
adina hutanu
November 17th, 2008 2:56 pmI played using photoshop, because I don’t own a special tilt-shift lense :)
Bania
November 17th, 2008 4:17 pmSomebody needs to get some shots like this at Legoland!
Jeff
November 17th, 2008 5:13 pmThere are some tilt-shift photographs on CruiseJournals.com as well, in the Photography forum. Here’s a link:
http://cruisejournals.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=161&thread_id=2118
黯然销魂剑
November 17th, 2008 7:01 pmWOW~ Very nice!
Brian Talbot (B Tal)
November 17th, 2008 7:30 pmGreat collection! This is really some fun inspiration.
I noticed that you used my Fenway Park tilt-shift but gave credit to someone who had re-used my work without asking permission first. Would you folks kindly mind linking back to the appropriate original source? I hate to be a stickler, but would really appreciate setting things straight.
Thanks for including me in this list – its a real honor. If anyone has any questions or would like to know more about the Fenway or Beach shots, please just give a holler.
jc
November 17th, 2008 9:30 pmJust noticed that your Fenway park image is wrongly attributed to Timmy Toucan, when it should be pointing to Brian Talbot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-tal/123562758/
Thought you might want to know.
jc
November 17th, 2008 9:33 pmsigh… my apologies to Timmy Toucan, I wanted to say that the image attributed to “It’s A Small World After All” wasn’t correct. please do excuse my bumbles.
thanks.
Pete Morley
November 18th, 2008 1:13 am“The last two times this article showed up on digg there were dozens of comments about fake fake images, ie: some of the supposed miniatures are in fact real photos of real places. I dont know about this, to be honest Im just reporting what others said the last time.”
Oh wow. Smashing manages to attract some pretty ignorant comments but this is one of the best I’ve read.
Ignatz Horowitz
November 18th, 2008 7:23 amI don’t know which is worse…this, or the “fantastic HDR” post.
Dele
November 18th, 2008 12:46 pmi dont care whether or not the concept is misinterpreted. I love the work that went into the pieces!! Stunning :) Keep up the good work guys
fernando
November 19th, 2008 6:18 amvery cool pictures and videos!
fanta
November 19th, 2008 6:23 am“The last two times this article showed up on digg there were dozens of comments about fake fake images, ie: some of the supposed miniatures are in fact real photos of real places (..)”
- hahaha, will leave it without even commenting…
But anyway, I don’t like the dummy blur made in photoshop
Nag
November 20th, 2008 2:14 amVery nice photos, excellent photo technique and nice videos….. I like it
lookouts
November 20th, 2008 10:26 amI like the tilt-shift models, it very good and goes good with home country. Nice!
web
November 20th, 2008 1:59 pmSo cool! I wish I knew how to do that!
Mike
November 21st, 2008 6:31 pmSome pretty amazing images, something new to try!
BLOGS
November 21st, 2008 9:31 pmMOST OF ITS PLASTIC
Don Tonio
November 22nd, 2008 2:54 amJust amazing sources.
I did a post explaining what is tilt-shift and how this old technique became famous on digital photography.
http://www.quevoisje.fr/2008/10/18/tendance-photo-les-smallgantics-et-autres-tilt-shift/
It’s in french, but you can googletranslate it…
Gokhan
November 23rd, 2008 8:00 amhttp://dogangokhan.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/tilt-shift-miniature-fakin/
have examples from Turkey
MonsieurLâm
November 23rd, 2008 10:47 amHere’s one of mine :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monsieurlam/2844650241/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monsieurlam/2948679329/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monsieurlam/2948679291/
Enjoy
Cori
November 26th, 2008 11:06 amWow…i didn’t know people were so touchy about photography..I wonder, why I am even here, but then I just remembered that a lot of these pictures look exactly like toy models and this effect might not be a camera, but a program–say photoshop?
lucky
November 26th, 2008 2:52 pmI like it ))
flik
November 29th, 2008 12:33 pmwow… it’s awesome
brentklockars
November 30th, 2008 8:34 pmthanks
Wil Fernandez
December 7th, 2008 9:23 amThanks for sharing – some of these are outstanding!
I’ve been toying around with tilt shift photography myself.
Here are some “before and after” tilt shift shots of the Pepperdine University campus:
http://www.wilfernandez.com/?s=tilt+shift
fletcher d
December 12th, 2008 7:47 amo m g….
thesse pics are like sooo totally amazing!!!!!
Cameron Davidson
December 21st, 2008 4:31 pmAll that is old is new again.
Tilt shift has been a round for quite a while
Olivo Barbieri is an Italian photographer who has been shooting tilt/shift aerials for a long-time. Mark Tucker is a master at it, but has shifted (no pun intended) his focus. Claude Vasquez was shooting 4×5 Tilt/Shift portraits in the late eighties.
Nice technique for the right subject, but it is starting or has looked gimmicky for quite a while.
Personally, I would not be caught dead having a tilt/shift image in my book.
Desire Dupas
December 22nd, 2008 4:26 pmHi !
Thanks a lot for this post.
I’ve wrote an article regarding this amazing technique.
I also tried to do it myself and It works pretty good ;-)
Photoshop Tilt and Shift : Technique de Miniaturisation
Thanks a lot again.
Regards from Belgium
Dennis Wyers
January 10th, 2009 11:02 pmI found this site which allows you experiment without having photoshop.
http://tiltshiftmaker.com/
Nathan Saxman
January 21st, 2009 4:07 pmthis could be using a lensbaby too
Aku S.
February 8th, 2009 9:27 amCheck my Manhattan Tilt-Shift
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akkku/3202420084/
toe
February 10th, 2009 9:11 pmhere’s nine more fake tilt-shift photos. well, would be nine but one of them is already included in this massive set of fifty. anyway, here’s the link:
http://theopenend.com/2009/02/09/world-in-miniature-nine-examples-of-fake-tilt-shift-photography/
and thanks, Vailancio Rodrigues, for these images.
fabiola mexico
February 26th, 2009 11:58 pmsimply,,,,, amazing
mIGUEL
February 28th, 2009 9:17 amTHIS IS SO GREAT,
AND VERY POPULAR IN BRAZIL.
IT’S A AMAZING TECNIC
I’M SORRY FOR THE GRAMATIC MISTAKES
eric
March 6th, 2009 6:04 pmThis is absolutely amazing. I love the miniature scale it applies to everything. I really hooked and i want to try doing some photos myself
Thanks
JamesSpratt.org
March 7th, 2009 4:09 amIf I may add my own to this collection. Taken in Basrah, Iraq:
http://jamesspratt.org/blog/2009/03/07/basrah-tiltshifts/
Roh Hye Min
March 17th, 2009 4:40 pmThat picture is very amazing, I like that. I think my father like that, too because my father’s job is a pothographer. He He
Thiago Alexandre
May 10th, 2009 12:40 pmNice photographys! This is a very curious effect.
alex
May 18th, 2009 4:25 amlook at nice tilt shift video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfd3rKNnsK0
Anton
June 3rd, 2009 10:07 pmCool!
Ash Davies
June 7th, 2009 4:15 amThose are incredible. Especially the bathtub video.
If anyone’s interested, here’s a guide to create tilt shift of your own
http://www.photoguides.net/photoshopping-tilt-shift
Thanks for sharing
freshalex
June 13th, 2009 2:01 amHi I just posted a collection of tilt shift stop motion videos and tutorials on my blog
here: http://freshalex.blogspot.com/2009/06/amazing-tilt-shift-video-collection-and.html
image masking
June 15th, 2009 11:13 pmGreat compilation. Thanks for sharing.
Hans
July 29th, 2009 2:52 amHere is my first attempt at emulated tilt-shift. I am pretty pleased with the result. It is from Liseberg, a theme park in Sweden.
Liseberg i miniatyr
Danny
August 13th, 2009 5:47 amReally fantastic technique (w photoshop), and simple. I managed to do a nice one on the second try :)
http://www.webforum.nu/attachment.php?attachmentid=20654&d=1250171349
But! This link doesn’t work anymore: “Do-It-Yourself Tutorial: Tilt-Shift Lens” (Create a tilt-shift lens yourself if you can’t afford to buy one)
Joe
August 29th, 2009 12:25 amAnother example of Tilt Shift combined with time lapse, like the Bathtub videos…