why tilt-shift photos make cities look like toys

How I got here

Started with

Why do tilt-shift photos look like miniatures?

Ended at

Depth of field

The Trail

1. “tilt shift miniature effect why” (google.com)
2. Tilt–shift photography (en.wikipedia.org)
3. Scheimpflug principle (en.wikipedia.org)
4. View camera (en.wikipedia.org)
5. Depth of field (en.wikipedia.org)

   our brains read a really shallow focus as 'this is small and close'

What I came away with

Tilting the lens relative to the film tilts the plane of focus (the Scheimpflug principle). Landscape photographers use it to get everything sharp; doing the opposite gives a thin sliver of focus across a wide scene, which your brain associates with tiny objects photographed up close.

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