# Tilt-Shift — composition technique | AIM Previz

https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/tilt-shift-miniature

[Previz](https://aimpreviz.com/) / [Techniques](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques) / Composition · Advanced

# Tilt-Shift

Tilt-Shift is a composition technique: 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. In PREVIZ picking it sets the lens in Keyframe, Director and Infinitum.

Published 29 Sep 2026Updated 4 Oct 2026by the PREVIZ team

What it does to the frame

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

The control it moves in PREVIZ

- Lens Keyframe · 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 Focus](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/shallow-focus)

Basic · 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 Focus](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/deep-focus)

Advanced · 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.
- **[Anamorphic](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/anamorphic-wide)

Intermediate · Cinematic** — Squeezed capture that yields a very wide frame, oval bokeh and horizontal blue flares. The most recognisable 'big film' signature there is.
- **[Vintage Glass](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/vintage-glass)

Intermediate · Nostalgic, Romantic** — Older uncoated lenses: lower contrast, swirling backgrounds and flares that bloom easily. Imperfection used deliberately.
- **[Split Diopter](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/split-diopter)

Advanced · 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 View](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/birds-eye)

Intermediate · Artistic, Cinematic** — Straight down from directly overhead. Flattens the scene into pattern and geometry, and detaches the viewer from the action entirely.
- **[Steep Overhead](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/overhead-steep)

Intermediate · 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 Shot](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/profile-shot)

Basic · 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 Shot](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/extreme-wide)

Intermediate · Cinematic, Artistic** — The figure is small against the landscape. Scale is the subject — the person is there to give the environment a size.
- **[Locked Off](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/static-shot)

Basic · 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.
- **[Chiaroscuro](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/chiaroscuro)

Advanced · 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.
- **[Silhouette](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/silhouette)

Intermediate · Artistic, Dramatic** — The subject is unlit against a bright background, reduced to outline. Identity withheld — shape carries the whole shot.
- **[Blue Hour](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/blue-hour)

Intermediate · 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 Lighting](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/neon-lighting)

Intermediate · 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.
- **[Moonlight](https://aimpreviz.com/learn/techniques/moonlight)

Intermediate · 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.

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