Tilt/Shift lenses are traditionally used for architectural photography, but they have seen a recent surge in popularity as photographers discover their versatility and use them for creating amazing effects for both portraiture and senic photography. They are also useful for creating the illusion of "miniature" scenes, and can be fun for stop-motion videos. This lens allows the photographer to change the plane of focus in dramatic ways to make exciting compositions that draw in the viewer's eye. Nikon has updated their lineup recently, and this telephoto version gives you a lot of versatility with its narrow field of view and extremely close-focusing capabilities (0.5x macro!). If you haven't tried tilt/shift before, you owe it to yourself to rent this lens and see the amazing results you can get. Remember, all tilt/shift lenses are manual focus.