Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tilt-shift miniature faking


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. A merge can be discussed more in-detail away from AFD. MuZemike 18:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Tilt-shift miniature faking

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete and merge into Tilt-shift photography. Article is unreferenced, the term "tilt shift miniature faking" is not in common use and the article is a magnet for people adding links to their own photoshop technique blogs. Reader undertanding would be best served by merged into the TS photography article, where the faked/PS version can be contrasted with the lens based approach. Mfield (Oi!) 05:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Without substantial cleanup and citation of reliable sources, I agree with deletion. But I don't think any material in this article should be merged into the TS photography article without qualification, or support from reliable sources. There are at least two serious flaws with the concept of this article, as well as with the brief citation in the Tilt-shift photography article:


 * 1) There simply is no such thing as “tilt-shift”, and anyone who would even think of using this apparent compound adjective does not understand camera movements.
 * 2) Though use of tilt for “miniature faking” seems to be quite in vogue, the term is largely a misnomer. In a close-up photograph, the DOF straddles a plane parallel to the image plane; with tilt, the DOF is wedge shaped about a plane at an angle to the plane of focus. To anyone who has actually photographed small-scale models and used tilt or swing in photography of full-sized objects, the two effects are quite different.

There is no question that many people are using tilt to give a shallow region of focus to scenes that normally would be sharply rendered, even if most don't really understand what is happening. In light of that, it may be appropriate to document the practice. But if any of this material is retained, I think the difference between what actually happens and what is often claimed should be clearly stated. And I'd consider using scare quotes, as I have above. The biggest challenge, as I've suggested on the Talk page for Tilt-shift photography, is finding a reliable source. JeffConrad (talk) 07:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

For the same arguments that JeffConrad put forward, I'd say keep, not merge. I recall it mentioned in the view camera class 25 years ago (it tilts and shifts and swings but isn't really a t/s, it's more than this :). The topic of "miniature faking" is now raised in every t/s lens review, although I cannot estimate its practical significance (perhaps some clever advertizing shots?). NVO (talk) 19:24, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose if a term is in common use, it may be better to have an article than pretend the term doesn't exist. Like NVO, I don't see the practical significance of “miniature faking”, but a lot of hobbyists seem to be fascinated with it. Certainly, there can be very effective uses tilt/swing for selective focus, but I think in most cases the fascination is more with the novelty than the art.


 * But that's not really relevant to this discussion. As currently titled and written, this article is a source of misinformation. If it remains, it should be moved to something more accurate, such as Miniature faking, with an indication that the term is a misnomer and an explanation of why that is so. The net result of using tilt or swing with a small f-number is selective focus different from that to which many viewers are accustomed, and when this technique is used in a image of a landscape or cityscape, the resulting unsharpness may initially give the impression of the shallow DoF that obtains from an image of a small-scale model made at much greater magnification. But a side-by-side comparison of the two images would quickly demonstrate that they look quite different. The difficulty in making such a comparison is in finding a good scale model of a full-size scene.


 * The article on TS photography already mentions selective focus; Whether this merits more than a few sentences is debatable. Again, it's important that if this article is kept or merged, the information be accurate. It may be difficult to find a reliable source supporting “miniature faking” as a misnomer, though the concepts of DoF and the Scheimpflug principle are well enough established that a reasonable argument can probably be synthesized. I think it will prove impossible to find a reliable source that supports miniature faking as a true effect. I've yet to even find an authoritative source for the term tilt-shift photography. JeffConrad (talk) 23:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Upon several rereads of this article, I'm inclined to agree with Mfield's interpretation of its thrust. It now seems to me as if the article attempts to describe a technique for faking a technique that doesn't really fake miniatures at all. Under Techniques, the second paragraph begins


 * It is perhaps improper to refer to this technique as "tilt-shifting".

This statement is absolutely correct; as I've mentioned, the DoF that obtains from using tilt to rotate the plane of focus doesn't look anything like that which obtains from close-up photography. In comparison, the technique used by Smallgantics actually appears to work. So it's not a question of which technique is better—using tilt to simulate a scale model doesn't work at all.

Accordingly, I'm against merging this into Tilt-shift photography; to the contrary, I think the mention of “miniature faking” in that article needs clarification. If using tilt to simulate close-up photography of a small-scale model is mentioned at all (in either of these articles or others), it should be made clear that although using tilt to obtain a small region of sharpness is sometimes claimed to simulate a miniature scene, it doesn't really do so, and in fact, it isn't even close.

If this article remains, and I'm inclined to think that it should, the sourcing should be improved and the and the intent of the article, especially its relationship to fake “miniature faking” using tilt, should be clarified.

I agree with Mfield that this article is a target for link spam, but the same is true for Tilt-shift photography, so moving this material there probably won't help. Many of the links in that article should be removed. JeffConrad (talk) 09:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that some kind of cleanup is required, but I don't think it should be deleted - the topic is popular at the moment and regardless of whether the name is technically correct (I don't know enough to make that call) that's what it's known as in the mainstream, and that's the term that people will come looking for. Possibly merging into the tilt-shift article could solve the problems, although I think people will come looking specifically for the "faking it" material, not real tilt-shift, whatever that is. That's what I'm here for.


 * So it's not a question of which technique is better—using tilt to simulate a scale model doesn't work at all.

I disagree - I'm no photography expert, but it looks like scale models to me. And I think most of the readers of this article, separate from the true tiltshift article will also be like me - not experts in this and looking for something specific. ShaneNZ (talk) 01:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The initial impression may be that of a miniature scene, but the difference is actually pretty obvious if you compare a photograph of a small-scale model with one of a full-scale scene that uses tilt to achieve selective focus. As I mentioned, though, the problem is finding two reasonably similar images for comparison. The most common images of scale-model scenes I can think of are those of model railroads; they really don't look anything like images that attempt miniature simulation using tilt.


 * I've cleaned up the article on Tilt-shift photography, trying to make it correct while still addressing “miniature faking”. It appears to me that this article is primarily about digital postprocessing, but the article really needs to decide what it is about. If the intent is to include tilt as well as postprocessing, a more appropriate title would be Miniature faking, as I've suggested. As I also mentioned, it's probably better to cover a topic that to ignore it, even absent truly reliable sources. But the material still needs to be accurate; otherwise, we do everyone a disservice.


 * Again, I recommend keeping this article but cleaning it up so that it's accurate. JeffConrad (talk) 02:59, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree on this, and on the changes you've made to the tilt-shift article as well. A rename is probably the way to go, especially if there are other photographic techniques/post-processings that are used to fake a miniature look. ShaneNZ (talk) 03:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions.  —PC78 (talk) 16:35, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Note: I've bolded each vote to make it more clear for the closer. I will not close the afd, since there is no clear consensus yet. JForget 23:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:08, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Merge To Tilt-shift photography. This was used in the CSI episode noted in the article, and was quite an impressive use of the technique. It made a real photo look like a miniature. Edison (talk) 04:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge per Edison. I am not particularly interested in photography but this is interesting enough that I have read several articles about it in reliable sources so I don't even have to research it at this time to say that the topic is notable.  It doesn't need a separate article, however, and is appropriately included in Tilt-shift photography. Drawn Some (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The topic indeed is interesting, but the Tilt-shift photography article is about photography, not about miniature faking as such. It would seem that the only material from this article appropriate for that article is that related to photography, so the material on Smallgantics would need to be excluded (except perhaps the brief mention already there). At present, the T/S photography article is introductory, but it's reasonably accurate and has reasonable support from reliable sources. Presumably, any material from here that would be merged would also be supported by reliable sources (which it presently is not). I suppose I could start by tagging some of the questionable statements and indicating the specific problems.


 * There also is an overarching question that may affect the decision: what exactly is “tilt-shift photography”? A Google search indicates that the term is in fairly common use, but as I've indicated on the talk for the tilt-shift photography article, I've yet to find an authoritative definition. To many people, it seems to mean selective focus using “tilt-shift”, often specifically in relation to “miniature faking”, but it also appears to find a fair amount of usage in the conventional sense of photography using movements on small- and medium-format cameras; for example, Canon have started to use it in the context of their tilt/shift lenses. So I think specific uses need to be treated as subsets of the general topic. And again, that article is about photography, so the material it includes must reflect that. JeffConrad (talk) 01:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.