this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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The one in the video is a Canon TS-E 90 - that's a 1000 bucks USED. And that's not really what you want if you're going to be doing landscape stuff. You want the TS-E 24 for a much wider field of view. Those are even more expensive.
You CAN however buy cheaper, new lenses. Brands like Laowa and Samyang produce tilt-shifts that cost less than half of what a Canon costs if you really want a new example.
That said though... anything in photography is expensive anyway, and these are niche lenses. They do some things that other lenses really can't, like this magic trick. And while you can replicate some of its effect digitally - like the miniature effect - the best way to do things like that is always in camera. If you take a good shot to start with, you'll alsways have a better end result.
I'm personally looking to buy a TS-E 24 one of these days, assuming I find a gently used - and gently priced - example.
I was like, ooh, I didn't know there were newer Nikon tilt-shift lenses (Nikkor PC-E) for the F mount that are still available for purchase new... ...and the bloody things cost like 1900€. Even the older PC-Nikkor lenses cost a pretty penny in second hand market.
These lenses are firmly in "would be extremely neat to have, but are both on the very expensive side and also I don't know how much use I'd get from them in practice" category of photography gear. ...which doesn't narrow much down if we're talking photography gear, but hey.
The best strategy when it comes to expensive niche lenses like this is: save up and buy a good used example of a lens that won’t limit you and will let you grow as a photographer. There’s always people selling gently used lenses because they either don’t use them or they’re switching systems.
I’ve always bought better lenses and gear than I needed at the time and never regretted it. If you buy a cheap lens, it often comes with tradeoffs that the expensive lenses don’t have. If you buy a good lens - especially dumb, manual lenses like a tilt-shift, you can always use them on other cameras down the line or sell them to another eager photographer without losing a lot of money.
Owning niche gear like this is kind of its own joy anyway. It’ll let you do and experiment with things that others can’t do. You might not use it every day, but you’ll be ticked pink to use it when you can. I can’t really tell you what I paid for some of my specialty gear, but I can damn sure tell you about how much I smile when I use it :D