Tilt-Shift
The focus plane is tilted off perpendicular, leaving a narrow band sharp across the frame. On a wide view it makes real places look like models.
The focus plane is tilted off perpendicular, leaving a narrow band sharp across the frame. On a wide view it makes real places look like models.
- Reads as
- Artistic
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Runs in
- Keyframe · Director · Infinitum
- LensKeyframe · Director
Canon TS-E 24mm
Tilt-shift for selective plane of focus and perspective correction.
circular bokeh · minimal flare · sharp
Best for: Architecture, Miniature effect, Selective focus
Picking the technique sets these controls; it does not paste text into a prompt. The setting can be re-run, checked against the settings beside it, and carried into the next shot.
Also in composition
What the glass does to the frame: how much of it is sharp, how wide it reads, what the edges do.
- Shallow FocusBasic · Cinematic, Romantic
- Only a thin slice of the scene is sharp. Isolates the subject from its surroundings and is most of what makes an image read as 'cinematic'.
- Deep FocusAdvanced · Dramatic, Documentary
- Everything from foreground to horizon is sharp. Lets action play out on several planes at once instead of directing the eye by focus.
- AnamorphicIntermediate · Cinematic
- Squeezed capture that yields a very wide frame, oval bokeh and horizontal blue flares. The most recognisable 'big film' signature there is.
- Vintage GlassIntermediate · Nostalgic, Romantic
- Older uncoated lenses: lower contrast, swirling backgrounds and flares that bloom easily. Imperfection used deliberately.
- Split DiopterAdvanced · Dramatic
- Half the lens carries a close-up element, so a near face and a far face are both sharp with a visible seam between them.
Reads the same way
Other techniques that read as artistic — a light or a lens to pair with this move.
- Bird's Eye ViewIntermediate · Artistic, Cinematic
- Straight down from directly overhead. Flattens the scene into pattern and geometry, and detaches the viewer from the action entirely.
- Steep OverheadIntermediate · Dramatic, Artistic
- Steeply down but not fully vertical. Keeps faces readable while a true bird's eye loses them — the usual choice when you want the detachment but still need performance.
- Profile ShotBasic · Artistic, Dramatic
- Dead side-on, ninety degrees to the subject's facing. Reads as formal and observational — you are watching rather than being addressed.
- Extreme Wide ShotIntermediate · Cinematic, Artistic
- The figure is small against the landscape. Scale is the subject — the person is there to give the environment a size.
- Locked OffBasic · Artistic, Documentary
- The camera does not move at all. A deliberate choice, not an absence of one — stillness reads as composure or as unsettling patience.
- ChiaroscuroAdvanced · Dramatic, Artistic
- Extreme contrast between light and dark with very little in between. Borrowed from Baroque painting; the darkness does as much work as the light.
- SilhouetteIntermediate · Artistic, Dramatic
- The subject is unlit against a bright background, reduced to outline. Identity withheld — shape carries the whole shot.
- Blue HourIntermediate · Nostalgic, Artistic
- The twilight window after the sun is gone but before full dark. Cool, even, and just bright enough to hold detail in the sky.
- Neon LightingIntermediate · Cinematic, Artistic
- Saturated coloured light from signage, usually two clashing hues. The look of a city at night in almost every film made since 1982.
- MoonlightIntermediate · Horror, Artistic
- Cool, dim, directional light with deep shadows. Cinema's moonlight is a convention — real moonlight is far dimmer and has no colour at all.