Tilt-shift lenses create a great miniature effect on photographs of everyday things. The problem? These specialized lenses are insanely expensive (think $1,000 range).

Transform ordinary photos into convincing miniature model scenes with this selective focusing technique—commonly known as ...

For the purists, sure it's cheating. But tilt-shift lenses start at $1200'ish and only rise in cost from there. Most people won't be running out to buy a lens that expensive for a little hobbyist fun.

Tilt-shift lenses also can be used to selectively make objects in or out of focus within a photograph or to make scenes appear to be of miniature scale.

The lenses can also be used to capture that characteristic tilt-shift effect that throws the bottom and top portions of the image out of focus, making real-life scenes look like miniature models.

In the description for the video, Biela details that the footage is real tilt-shift photography using the proper lenses, versus a digital plug-in that simulates the tilt-shift effect.

Tilt–shift photography uses camera movement — tilt — for selective focus to simulate a miniature scene. Shifting the lens results in a very small region in which objects appear sharp. Before digital ...

Canon is adding three new tilt-shift macro lenses, along with its first stabilized 85mm lens with a bright f/1.2 aperture to its lens lineup.

“I take a lot of pleasure in looking through a camera and seeing New York as a miniature,” he says. “There are a lot of nice digital ways to use tilt shift as well, even Instagram has a ...