Best lenses for tilt photography

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with tilt-adapters or -bellows and got some opinions on effective lenses for tilting. I have tried a lot of lenses but don't feel like I have gained enough insight to say something definitively... I'm particularly looking for lenses which can take a significant amount (> 12°) of tilt before the image quality completely deteriorates.

A couple of lenses I found to be quite good for the things I've tried are the following:

Leitz Focotar-2 50 mm f/4.5

Twofold unfold by simple.joy, on Flickr

Tomioka Copal-E36 71 + 82 mm f/4

Fall… in love with colors by simple.joy, on Flickr

A fresh pair of eyes by simple.joy, on Flickr

Duck and cover? RUN! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Konica Hexanon-EL 90 mm f/5.6

Of stone and time by simple.joy, on Flickr

Shapeshifter by simple.joy, on Flickr

Do you have any recommendations for adapted lenses that work well when being tilted?

If so, I'd really appreciate you sharing them here.

I don't have personal experience, but I would suggest you try medium format lenses on FF or FF lenses on APS-C or MFT.

Tilting a lens requires a larger image circle, the more you tilt, the larger the circle.

You can tilt almost all lenses a little with good results. But you can't say how many degrees you can or need to tilt one lens.
It depends on focal length and shooting distance. At landscapes 1-2° of tilt on 50mm lens is enough to get everything in focus.
At macro shot you want or need more tilt. 12° is quite a lot.

If I had to say one important thing it was chromatic aberration. Or missing of CA. Tilting increases CA and it does it asymmetrically,
so it's hard to correct in post. I agree that enlarging lenses are good for tilting but not all.

My best lenses are apochromatic or almost APO lenses like Apo-Symmars or Apo Sironar Digital lenses.

Here I tested El-Nikkor 2.8/50mm (non-Apo). I don't remember exactly anymore, but I guess 10-12° tilt.
A lot of CA and unsharpness at f/2.8. The scale at measuring tape is in centimeters.

f/2.8

f/2.8

f/11

f/11

If you tilt the lens it requires a little larger image circle, not as much as shifting. If you tilt the sensor or film no extra IC is needed.
And in close distances IC is bigger.

Thank you very much - that's very helpful. I have tried the El-Nikkor 50/2.8 N as well but wasn't impressed, same with the El-Nikkor 63/2.8 - it's good, but no match for the Focotar-2. Your shots look very good though, so perhaps I don't have a really good sample of the El-Nikkor 50 or there's something wrong with my setup.

I own a Makro-Symmar 120 mm f/5.6 (non apo in name, but actually one of the best corrected lenses I own) and as expected it's pretty good when tilted (even better than the Focotar-2):

However 120 mm is quite long for most things I want to experiment with in terms of tilt. A lens between 50 and 90 mm seems best for me usually. I've tried some Apo-in-name lenses as well (for example the Apo-Rodagon 50 mm f/2.8) but they were not superior to the Focotar. Interesting that you would recommend an Apo Sironar Digital lens. I have one (the 48 mm version) but while I'm sure it's great in terms of using the image circle sweet spot, it's a large format lens after all, so I would have assumed that it might actually lag behind a very good enlarging lens. Do you have a different experience with that?

Will certainly have to experiment some more. You're right 10-12° is a lot. I don't use that very often. It's actualle more like 7-10° which seems quite interesting for close-ups.

Many thanks! I've tried medium format lenses (Nikkor-P 75 mm f/2.8 and Mamiya Sekor-C 50 mm f/4.5) and wasn't impressed, but I've seen some very convincing videos on the dpreview forum with a Pentax 645 lens, so I assume I've probably not used the best ones for that. The problem with medium format lenses is, that they are often quite cumbersome to adapt and particularly the shorter focal length lenses don't leave enough space for tilting effectively when you finally get them on. I use everything on my bellows so dedicated tilt/shift adapters are no option for me and also seem overly expensive.

Look at my f/2.8 detail picture in big size. Quite bad!

I think 90mm/4 Apo-Rodagon is well corrected and sharp but not as sharp as my Apo Digitar M 120mm which is just the same lens as your Makro Symmar!

I have only 135mm Apo Sironar Digital lens. It is good, more MF than large format.
I have not seen 48mm version. www.rodenstock-photo.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/Objektive%20digitale%20Fotografie%20e.pdf

Something happend in Germany standards in 1990's.
DIN (Deutsche Inustrie Norme) changed German standard for APO lenses ( yes, they had that standard ) so that it was easier to call a lens as APO.
Schneider renamed their Symmars to Apo-Symmars and Rodenstock did the same to Sironars. But if I know Leitz did not do those Apo-in-name lenses.

Also Apo-Rodagons are different design than Rodagons, not only different in name.

Is your bellows limiting tilting?

I've been curious to try the TT Artisan Tilt 50. They also recently released a tilt macro.

You're right - got the focal length wrong: I have the 45 mm version:

A Rodie as the main act by simple.joy, on Flickr

It's a nice lens, but I don't think among the best I've tried. The lens I've taken this shot with (a minilab lens) seems better for example.

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, I know they're different. And they're excellent lenses. It's just that most of them are not truly apochromatic according to some tests online. The Makro-Symmar 120 mm pretty much is though.

No, not really usually but it depends on the lens. It's not a bag bellows, so it always takes at least 25 mm of additional space and of course it can't be tilted anymore. The problem with some MF lenses is, that they're big and bulky and don't fit inside of my bellows. So I can't use them on a recessed lensboard. Many large format lenses will fit inside (like the Apo Sironar Digital 45 mm) but I think apart from some extremes (like the HR Digarons) they're not up to the best MF lenses in terms of resolution. So the best lenses I found so far are high-end industrial (minilab, scanner etc.) and enlarging lenses.

Thanks a lot for the tip - will have to look into that one! I've read that the macro is somewhat dissapointing though.