While this lens has a 'standard' focal length, it's other characteristics aren't so standard - it has controls to move it in relation with the camera sensor, akin to a large format view camera. These two movements are called 'tilt' and 'shift'. Tilt swings the lens in increments away from perpendicular to the sensor, allowing you to change the plane of focus, and shift allows you to move the lens parallel to the sensor surface, altering perspective and vanishing lines.

These attributes make this lens great for three things - one, it's a fantastically sharp lens with great bokeh even when just using it as a standard lens, albeit it is manual focus only. Two, it can be great for architectural, landscape and product photography - for instance the shift movement can straighten the receding lines of a building's facade and the tilt movement can match the plane of focus to the plane of the facade, ensuring everything is in focus even at a relatively bright f-stop. Three, it's an amazing creative tool - with the same tilt function you can make the plane of focus shallow and independent on the distance an object is from the camera - making a person and something in the background equally sharp while blurring out everything else. You may have seen this used for making a city or bridge look like a miniature model, or some creative composition in wedding photography.

All in all, this lens is incredibly versatile and with a bit of composition, a powerful creative tool and interesting shooting experience.

KEY POINT: As with all Tilt/Shift lenses, this is a manual focus only lens. No autofocus here, folks.