Tilt-shift Macro Phography – Laowa 55mm f2.8 Tilt-shift Macro Lens – Watch on YouTube

Tilt shift photography and macro photography might seem like two techniques at the opposite end of the same spectrum. Tilt shift photographers use their lenses to make people and buildings look tiny, where as macro lenses make small things look big!
However, both styles of photography require manipulation and careful control of the plane of focus. As primarily macro photographers ourselves, we’re quite enamoured with the look and feel of tiny toy images. So the ability to make real people look like they were photographed in macro is very fun!

Laowa 55mm f/2.8 Tilt-shift 1X Macro Lens
To have a lens that is capable of both macro photography and tilt shift photography means we can explore both types of photography under the same metaphorical roof.
The Laowa 55mm f/2.8 Tilt-shift 1X Macro Lens is just such a lens. It packs a punch with both 1x magnification, and tilt shift functions. You can take this lens out to photograph on the streets, or into the forest to capture some mushrooms!

The lens it’s self is quite bulky and heavy for a 55mm lens, but there’s a good reason for it. Positioned between the camera and the focusing ring is a set of dials designed to offset the angle of the lens.
By changing the angle of the lens in the middle here, we can shift the plane of focus in various ways. The most obvious is vertically, to artificially replicate the shallow depth of field found in macro shots. This has the fun effect of making people, cars and buildings look tiny!

Tilt-shift Photography Tips
While we have only had a short while to test the lens and learn a bit about tilt shift photography, we did pick up a few tips.
Firstly, take your time to choose the right plane of focus, and focal point. Unlike normal photography where you can only choose how deep into the image to focus… Tilting the plane of focus opens up a 3D world of possibility. One must think a little out of the box when choosing where and how to position the focus in the image.
The lens also features mechanisms to rotate the camera in-situ, so you can get very creative with the position of the focal plane within the image. Combinations of tilt, rotation and angle can make for some unusual images.

Next, if you want to shoot tiny people like we did, an elevated angle is helpful. Shooting downwards replicates the angle a macro photographer would look at a scene, looking down onto a smaller object.
Using your new tilt-shift macro lens from an elevated position exaggerates the illusion of everything being small. Try to find windows high up to shoot down onto the streets. It’s not always required, but it’s an iconic viewpoint for this kind of photography.

Lastly, try shooting some video. Movement is really nice to watch as people and cars move in and out of focus in unexpected ways. There’s a satisfying feel to tilt shift videos. Of course, a lens like this is more than capable of taking stills too.
In fact, we took some regular shots without using the tilt shift functions, and the image quality and sharpness surpass most normal lenses too. Coupled with being a fast lens at f2.8, it’s a surprisingly versatile lens for low light and all-round shooting. Here’s a shot from a live act, without the tilt shift effect in play.

Tilt-shift and Macro Photography
All of the above still applies to macro photography too. The tilting and shifting controls on the lens come in very handy for making adjustments while you shoot, and the lens mount makes for a balanced setup despite the heavy nature of the lens.
While we didn’t explore the full possibilities of a lens like this for macro photography (we plan to get much more creative in future articles and videos), the clarity and sharpness is fantastic at 1x magnification.


We took the image above using some additional lighting from the Adaptalux Studio lighting system, and stacked the image using helicon focus. The resulting image rivals that of any other macro lens we have used, and they don’t have a tilting mechanism in the middle!
While tilting the lens made little obvious difference to this shot, it could certainly be useful for manipulating the plane of focus in shots where you need to plane to match a flat surface, like that of a watch.
We’re going to explore the applications of a variable focus plane in future articles, so stay tuned for a more in depth look at what this lens can do for macro photographers!
Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more macro photography tutorials, ideas and inspiration!
- Drilling into wood is a fun macro photography idea to shoot at home! - 9th February 2025
- Enhance your watch photography using tilt-shift! - 27th January 2025
- 2024 Winner Announcement – Adaptalux Macro Photography Awards - 23rd January 2025