40 Incredible Toy-like Pieces of Tilt-Shift Photography

Tilt-shift miniature faking is now the popular and fashionable method of making big objects look like tiny models. All you need to start is essentially a camera equipped with a tilt-shift lens which simulates a shallow depth of field. For this effect is usually achieved through creative technique in which a photographer manipulates the angle of a tilt-shift lens to distort the focus of a life-sized scene captured by the camera, thereby creating an illusive depth of field usually produced by macro lenses. Most faked tilt-shift photos are taken at quite good height to further imitate the effect of looking down on a miniature. In this post, we showcase a number of fantastic examples of tilt-shift photos. All examples are linked to their original sources and you’re recommended to check out other amazing works of their authors.

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Photo by alastair mitchell

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Photo by darktiger4u

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Photo by JoHa

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Photo by californiabirdy

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Photo by JeRoseL

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Photo by Bob Reck

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Photo by Thinklab

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Photo by isayx3

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Photo by gomi

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Photo by embr

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Photo by pongo 2007

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Photo by Chris Mc Roberts

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Photo by Yousef Askool

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Photo by akosihub

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Photo by jontlaw (doobrady)

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Photo by livingonimpulse

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Photo by 27147

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Photo by cloudsoup

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Photo by shamilo

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Photo by Vladimír Doležel

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Photo by angusleonard

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Photo by jamble

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Photo by countlazarus

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Photo by ArnarBi

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Photo by Daniele Pesaresi

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Photo by b4silio

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Photo by scaramanga

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Photo by forzart

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Photo by groomit41

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Photo by andrewyang

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Photo by handfat

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Photo by phoenixdk

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Photo by darktiger4u

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Photo by Lorenzo Baldini

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Photo by cheyrek

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Photo by Erik K Veland

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Photo by mcsixth

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Photo by camardella

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Photo by eRiQ

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Photo by Suviko

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Joe Nobody

Some of these are quite well done. the rest… CRAP.
sogfrog13

that is harsh, they’re all very good
George

the tilt shift is quite hard to pull off, but some are definitly better than others
A_little_me

They’re all quite nice, in my opinion. It is true, as the other said, that some are not as impressive as others, but all of them exceed my skill in photography. I would avoid those that have defined textures, such as sand, because you can obviously tell that it is not proportionate to the buildings. The people in most of your work, though is unbelievably impressive, it took me a minute to identify them as models.
mmmm

Some are pretty realistic looking, though a few could use some help on the focus.
mario

very nice:)
Joe Sombody

Some of these are making the StumbleUpon rounds. I once stumbled on a site that had whole stop motion movies from the UK. Very well made. I’d love to learn how to do this myself.
Danny

I like this type of photography. It’s weird how it makes everything look miniature or toyish. Very strange, but very interesting to see.
Randi

These pictures are amazing, and as a photographer myself, I want to go out and try this! The ones with the people in them are especially amazing, they don’t look real.
Mingsta

@ A_little_me..errr, they’re not models. They’re real scenes made to lllok like models. The sand is real sand at real proportions.
Rincewind

You can do this with Photoshop you know!
fdfsdaf

this is gay. They just look like someone used a bad blur filter. They look awful. I find myself reaching for some glass cleaner to clean the stupid blur.
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Steve

I can’t help thinking that most of the commenters have missed the point!
It’s real scenes made to look like itty bitty toys NOT the other way around. Sheesh!
Carl

It is amazing the comments some will write. Please understand what you are viewing before you comment. Steve is correct. The photos are of real life scenes shot with a special lens to blur the foreground and background. In addition the saturation level of the photo is increased in post production. This gives the effect of a small 3D model. A “toy like” look. If you look at the photos from this perspective, I think you will appreciate the craft much more.
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Lenseye

There are some excellent tilt-shift photos out there but the majority of these are quite poor.

It’s not as simple as taking any shot and applying the photoshop techniques, the original shot has to lend itself and most of these don’t frankly.

Check out the World Press Photo shortlist from a few years back. Some great black and white tilt-shift pieces of sporting events.
Gretter

This looks fun and I’ll be sure to try it.
Thx for sharing.
Jamie

I can’t believe that some of these are REAL pictures! Very cool!
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Pingback: FWD: 40 awesome examples of tilt-shift photography. #photo #art #tiltshift | Brandon Wu's Road to Where He Wants to Be
Pingback: FWD: 40 awesome examples of tilt-shift photography. #photo #art #tiltshift | Brandon Wu's Road to Where He Wants to Be
http://www.bpm.co.za Vivienne

To my eyes, without care for the technical details, these photos are facinating and a pleasure to see… stupid people are critical of amazing work, just because others, better or not, exist!! these take me out of ordinary life using ordinary scenes. What else could anyone want from an image?
http://www.devereauxprints.com Edmund Devereaux

I keep thinking the first time I did some fake ones from my father’s old slides when I showed him he said “did I take those so out of focus”. I guess it is not for everybody but these are good.
Nathalie Scully

OK.. this is cool!.. I gotta get a better camera!!..
great stuff… thanks for sharing your photos.
http://www.davidnh.com David Hardwick Photography

Wonderful photography. These look like models.
Joao

There are some true gems among this selection.
Such great work, although some images do lend themselves more than others.
The first one is truly wonderful, amazing colours!
matt3046

#29 has a giant spider…
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/jontlaw/sets/72157604621401422/ Jon Law

These are great fun to do. One of mine is featured (the steam train on the bridge). I add the effect post process.

A real tilt shift lens basically places a band of focus across the image. This works well for scenes that are essentially a flat plane (views from ESB, for example). What I like to do is pick on more awkward subjects and try and make those work as miniatures. This often means masking out sections of the image before applying the blur filter. There are some great examples of masking above – Pongo’s Church and Crane – corking!

Like I said – it’s great fun, but you don’t have to “get” it – I’ll still love ‘em all
Iamthepattern

A sculpture called “Maman” by Louise Bourgeois (who sadly died last year) at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maman_de_Louise_Bourgeois_-_Bilbao.jpg
Skt389

They aren’t models. They are pictures of actual scenery that have been manipulated to LOOK like models.

40 Incredible Toy-like Pieces of Tilt-Shift Photography

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