Auto-Tilt Photography

Tilt-shift camera lenses are a powerful artistic tool to achieve effects like selective focus with very shallow depth of field. Typically they are used by professional photographers only, which is due to the high cost and weight, and the intricate, non-intuitive handling. We introduce the auto-tilt mechanism which is as easy to use as the standard autofocus. It allows automatic sharp focus of objects not parallel to the image plane, such as in landscape photography where getting everything sharp is often desirable. In contrast to pure computational approaches that are based on resampling from focal stacks, our approach based on true exposures enables time-dependent scenes and higher image quality. Auto-tilt can also be controlled via a simple sketching user-interface letting the photographer quickly define image regions inside and outside sharp focus. We demonstrate auto-tilt using a simple rapidly prototyped experimental setup that tilts the sensor (as opposed to classic tilt-shift lenses), and describe possible implementations in off-the-shelf cameras. We also outline future prospects with flexible image sensors currently being developed.