A tilt–shift lens can make the focus plane no longer parallel to the plane of the film. This can help make a narrower range of focus for a scenes at middle dist

A tilt–shift lens can make the focus plane no longer parallel to the plane of the film. This can help make a narrower range of focus for a scenes at middle distances than would be possible with a typical lens. A narrow depth of field is more characteristic of photographs of nearby objects, so people who are used to looking at photographs end up with the impression that the tilt–shift photograph is a picture of a much closer (and thus smaller) scene. This is not the only use of tilt–shift lenses. They can e.g. also be used to keep more of the scene in focus than would be possible with a typical lens.