Borbin the 🐱

The cake was late for the shoot. One piece was already gone, but there was still time for a quick addition to the family photo album.

In earlier cake sessions, the usual approach was focus stacking: several frames with different focus points, later combined into one final image. That works well, but it also takes time, and this cake was clearly not in the mood for a longer production.

So this time the job went to a tilt adapter and a 35mm¹ lens. Instead of building the result from several images, the goal was to get the whole subject sharp in a single frame.

A tilt setup does not simply give more depth of field. What it changes is the angle of the focus plane. Instead of running straight through the scene, the sharp area can be tilted to follow the subject. For something photographed from the side, that makes a real difference. The sharpness no longer has to run mainly from front to back; it can follow the shape of the cake much more naturally.

That is what makes this so interesting. This cannot really be done in software without looking fake. The actual tilt effect has to come from the optics.

A quick text test

A simple text card as a test subject. With the tilted setup, the whole card stays sharp even though it sits at an angle. The current shooting angle is already very close to the limit of the setup, and at f/2 it gives a good impression of what the tilt adapter can do.

1/40s f/2 ISO 320/26° f=35mm

The Cake

Here is the actual subject. One piece of the round cake is already missing, because cakes do not always wait patiently for the photographic process to begin.

Even the sugar coating tells part of the story, with a few visible traces of a rather hurried arrival.

1/40s f/2 ISO 800/30° f=35mm

Same angle, no tilt: focus at the front The same view, but with the tilt set to zero. Focus is placed on the front part of the cake, and the rest falls away much more quickly.

1/40s f/2 ISO 320/26° f=35mm

Same angle, no tilt: focus at the back Again the same angle and no tilt, but this time focused farther back. The difference is easy to see, and it shows quite nicely what the tilt setup changes.

1/40s f/2 ISO 320/26° f=35mm

The Setup

The full setup with the cake on the table and the camera floating in the air, carefully aligned and locked onto the target.

1/25s f/4 ISO 400/27° 16-50mm f/2,8 VR f=25mm/37mm

Tilt adapter and 35mm lens

A closer look at the camera with the tilt adapter and the 35mm f/2 lens. A small addition, but one that changes the way this kind of image can be made.

1/30s f/3,2 ISO 400/27° 16-50mm f/2,8 VR f=33mm/50mm

If you look closely, you can still see the fine sand from the Sarasota beaches on the camera. This sand is everywhere. The camera bag did not escape either.

Back on the Coffee Table

Once the optics had done their job, the cake could finally continue with the coffee part of the story.

1/30s f/2,8 ISO 320/26° 16-50mm f/2,8 VR f=40mm/60mm