The miniature city effect is produced by the tilt & shift lenses and unique depth of field. The effect is particularly pronounced when shooting from high above your subject at a steep angle, which produces the illusion of looking down on a miniaturized model or toy.
Here’s some more video from a 5D Mark II – this time a store-bought production model. Again, it’s very pretty video; however, the stutter in the panning has bothered me since the first video samples came out. Anybody else see this as a problem?
Details on the video:
Video filmed by Guardian photographer Dan Chung entirely on a production Canon EOS5DmkII and adapted Nikon and Zeiss lenses using manual focus. The camera was purchased to use solely as a video camera with existing Nikon kit.
The film was shot an edited in about twelve hours directly after picking the camera up from a Beijing camera store and charging the battery.