College Football is Huge in Clemson's Death Valley

While looking for a photo of the entrance to Clemson's Death Valley football stadium, I found a bizarre form of photography that's exemplified by this picture:

Take a close look at the larger sizes of Steven Bower's image, which is called a tilt shift, and let me know whether you think it's a photo of a real scene or a miniature.

Photography · Sports · 2007/07/16 · 7 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

My read was miniature. I then researched tilt-shift photography. My best guess now is that it is real.

#1 · Bud Gibson · 2007/07/16

Without knowing the subject matter I would say it is a miniature.

The reason being is that there isn't enough randomness in the "dirt" that is real life. The bleachers are uniformly clean and too orderly and "toy-ish" looking. The incredible number of subjects on the "field" makes you question yourself for a bit, and then convinced me of the opposite - just too many people seemingly not having a purpose for being there with so few also in the "stands". Finally the lighting seems too harsh and not scattered enough for natural sunlight.

So....right? Or did I just totally miss the boat?

Regards,
etc.

#2 · The Perfect Storm · 2007/07/16

This is really cool isn't it? I first read about it on Boing Boing last year some time, but they've had a number of articles on the subject since, including a tutorial on how to fake the effect using photoshop (not that I've tried). Here's one of their more recent posts which has links back to older articles on the subject in case you're interested.

#3 · James Holderness · 2007/07/17

Camera Geek Alert...

Tilt Shift lenses are real. The above photograph would have been easy to do with such a lense. The interesting thing about tilt shift lenses is that you can tilt and shift the focus plane so that objects behind the focus plane go out of focus. The end result is a narrow band of focus that makes things look small.

Tilt shift lenses have lots of normal uses. You can shift the plane of focus to take landscape shots where everything, neer to far, is perfectly in focus. You can also use these lenses when photographing buildings. The tilt function can eleviate the Building-is-falling-backwards effect that happens when you shoot a tall building from the ground.

#4 · Barry · 2007/07/17

The original image on the Flickr page sure looks real, but all the rest look fake. Weird as hell ...

#5 · Uncle Mikey · 2007/07/19

The original thought here was that it had to be a miniature.
While an interesting technique, certainly, in the context of this particular picture Spud doesn't quite see the point to making real things look fake beyond creating a different aethestic.

The larger shot is more obviously real.

Be Well.

#6 · dethspud · 2007/07/23

It's real. That's Clemson Stadium, complete with the new retractable field goals.

#7 · ClemsonWIll · 2009/11/30