A miniature Tower of London

[John Hamilton]

So, I spent this past weekend in my basement, constructing an exact replica in miniature of the south-facing crenelations of the Tower of London overlooking the River Thames. 

Okay, so not really.     Anyone else here doing tilt-shifts?


River Thames Miniature by johnchamilton, on Flickr

[Karen Wojcik Berner]

Fun, John! Would you mind explaining what a tilt shift is? I've never heard of it before. 

[John Hamilton]

Fun, John! Would you mind explaining what a tilt shift is? I've never heard of it before. 

Hey Karen, thanks!  Tilt shift is a lens procedure used with medium- and large-format cameras to control the plane of focus.  You can simulate the effect with small-format film or digital cameras in Photoshop by applying a Gaussian blur top and bottom and over-saturating the colors.  It gives a scene a kind of fake miniature look.  Fun stuff.

Here's a better explanation on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_shift

Thanks for stopping by!

[◄ Jess ►]

Interesting, I've actually never seen that effect before! I really like it. I'll have to try that out sometime in photoshop.

[John Hamilton]

Interesting, I've actually never seen that effect before! I really like it. I'll have to try that out sometime in photoshop.

Thanks, Jessica.  Tilt shifts are great fun.  A high angle seems to work best. Here's a tilt-shift I did of a geyser going off in Yellowstone.


And here's from a local rodeo:

[Dara England]

Cool. I really thought these were miniatures at first. 

[Karen Wojcik Berner]

Thanks for the explanation. Very cool.