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A tilt-shift lens works much like the bellows of a large-format view camera to obtain correction of perspective distortion (shift) and alignment of the focal plane (tilt) to enable creative effects in architectural photography, product photography, and other effects such as miniature look and selective soft focus.
This 80mm f/2.8 tilt/shift lens is manufactured in Ukraine and sold under several names: Arsat, Arax, and Photex. It is available in an amazing choice of mounts: Nikon AI, Canon EOS, Canon FD, Minolta Dynax, Minolta MD, Pentax K, and M42 (Zenit, Practica, etc.). Mine came in a nylon padded zippered pouch with no retail packaging or instructions: the same pouch shown in the pictures. It is composed of 6 multicoated elements. It shifts 11mm in one direction only, however the entire lens rotates 360 degrees giving the ability to shift in any direction. It has lock stops at 12 angles. It tilts plus or minus 8 degrees. The tilt and shift axes intersect at a 90° angle and it doesn't appear that they can be modified from that. I would prefer on-axis because I think it's more useful. It focuses from 0.6m to infinity and the manual-only aperture goes from f2.8 to f22. There is a stop-down aperture ring which allows you to open fully for focusing and down for the exposure. There are no electronic connections, this is a fully manual lens only. You could glue a focus confirmation chip on the mount to allow focus beep and light confirmation; I haven't tried that (yet).
Image quality is surprisingly good for a lens made by a somewhat obscure Russian lens company. It's not tack sharp wide open but very acceptable, and holds its image quality into the corners pretty well. There is almost no vignetting even wide open, because being a tilt-shift lens, the image circle is quite a bit larger than the 35mm sensor. Stopping down, the image sharpens up nicely with a "sweet spot" around f/5.6. Shifting to the extreme doesn't degrade the image appreciably.
Compared to the Canon 90mm TS-E: Both are composed of 6 elements. The field of view is very similar (this lens seems to almost match the field of view of my 85mm lenses). Tilt and shift amounts are exactly the same. The Canon can focus slightly closer at 0.5m. The build of course is not as robust as the Canon TS-E lens, however for the price it's quite solid. All the Canon TS-E lenses are thought to be among the sharpest lenses in Canon's line up. I'm not going to claim that the image resolution is that good, but when viewed at typical sizes the image quality is surprisingly good. At only a third of the price of the Canon 90, this lens is going to allow first-timers to get their hands on a tilt-shift lens without breaking the bank.
When I read about tilt-shift lenses, writers invariably bemoan the learning curve, but I got the hang of it in just a few minutes, aligning the plane of focus with some product surfaces to give the illusion of extending the depth of field. If you know what you're trying to accomplish it's not that difficult. I have to add that one advantage of these lenses is the ability to stop down further than usual without suffering appreciable softening due to diffraction. It's nice to see a third-party lens manufacturer enter into the tilt-shift arena, and this lens is a good value. I recommend it if you want to try out a tilt-shift lens and expand your creative possibilities. It's also a good manual focus video lens, whether you use the T/S features or not, since you can use it on just about any format (like micro 4/3) with an adapter, and still have control over the aperture. I hope we see more direct Canon mount lenses from this company in the future.
Note: there are some versions of this lens that cost less but they only tilt. Be sure to get the kind you want.
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