If you like the look of photographs that use tilt-shift and macro lenses, but have no budget for expensive gear, here’s a little trick you can try on your DSLR. It’s called “freelensing”, which sounds vaguely dirty and/or drug related, and does risk getting dust and moisture into your camera body so be careful!
Basically you detach your lens from the camera body and tilt/move it away. It gives you lots of control over how your shot is focused, but also brings into play uncontrollable factors like light leaks. It’s a bit of fun anyway, here are a couple of shots I’ve been playing around with this afternoon….
Definitely need some more practice! There’s a good visual tutorial and some explanations here on Luke Roberts’ site. And you can see some examples of incredible shots people have created using this technique on Gizmodo, here.
Clare Fletcher 