Make your own DIY tilt-shift lens for only $30

So far we’ve given you plenty of interesting ways for creating tilt-shift effect. You can use a lens to do it or even use Photoshop or Lightroom. In this tutorial, Mathieu Stern gives you a quick and easy tutorial for turning vintage Helios lenses into tilt-shift with some DIY magic. And the best of all is – you need only two elements and $30 for the entire build.

Lensbaby lenses are awesome, but they are pretty pricey. So, if you’d still like to achieve tilt-shift effect on the lens, you can use our very favorite approach – do it yourself. For this, you will need:

• A vintage Helios lens. Mathieu uses Helios 103 and Helios 44-2. The prices vary, he found them for $20, and they can get even cheaper.
• A rubber adapter which you can find here for $10.

How to make:

The assembling is very easy. First, unscrew the front part of a Helios lens. Then, plug it inside the rubber tube I linked above. The rubber has a mount on the back, which you will then attach to your camera. And this is all!

Focus by moving the lens back and forth or up and down, to create the tilt-shift effect on your photos. I especially like how it works for portraits. The wonderful swirly bokeh is even more prominent than usual, and it gives kinda dreamy look to the portraits. Take a look at some examples from Mathieu’s video.

[How to Turn Helios Lenses into a DIY 30$ tilt Lens Baby | Mathieu Stern]