Design Your Own ULF Camera

[wfwhitaker]

I'm wondering to what degree those of you using 8x10 and larger utilize the perspective controls (movements) of the view camera. My own experience has been that I use front rise fairly frequently, either front or rear tilt occasionally and swing rarely. Anything else is extra baggage and expense most of the time. I'm pretty certain that I could still make good use of a view camera which had only front rise and rear tilt.

I am curious what the APUG-izens deem necessary and am attaching a rudimentary poll to try to determine just that. Please select the movements which you feel you could do without and still be able to photograph in your own style much of the time. You may select more than one option (even all of them if you're a Hobo user...). Pretend you're ordering a custom-made camera and each movement you can do without saves $500. How low can you go? Remember this is for 8x10 and larger.

 

[Ole]

The landscape around here tends to be more or less vertical, so I use front swing quite a lot. And front tilt, rise and shift - on those of my cameras that have it. Back movements are less important, to me, at least.

 

[fujinonA]

I 'will use soon a 11x14 hand made camera.I didn't build up the moviment gears for swing and shifts since I'm agree 100% with you on

" I'm pretty certain that I could still make good use of a view camera which had only front rise and rear tilt. "

1) because I have only three lenses with just right the IC to cover the format (250-360-450 mm).

2) If I think too technically I loose the possibility to "feel" the light, to use the intuition moment and so on (this is my personal point of view' it'ssuitable with my slow mind).
I do it also with an hand made panoramic 7x17.
That's all and enough.To print is another task, I prefer to spend more mental energy there.

 

[bobfowler]

My first choice of things to live without wasn't listed - rear rise/fall.

I live without front tilt on my Eastman 5X7 and 8x10 cameras, but I'd be dead in the water without tilt on my 4X5's.

 

[Robert Hall]

The lenses for my 12x20 have little room for movement. I'd love to use more movement but I can't without vignetting.

I don't think I've used rear shift ever on the 12x20.

On my 8x10, however, I use all movements much of the time.

 

[Jim Chinn]

You really need at least front swing/tilt for perspective control and setting up near/far relationships. I seem to use front rise and fall quite a bit on 4x5 and 8x10, but as others have pointed out, lens selection will really determine to what extent movements can be used.

Shifts are mostly for architecture, when you are limited as to camera position and need to include, exclude objects when you cannot move the tripod.

Rear swing and tilt provide more options but with landscapes not really neccessary. Rear swing is a pretty simple thing to add to you plans but tilt requires quite a bit more planning and hardware.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I like full front movements for landscape and architecture, and the rear movements I'm usually using when I want indirect movements, because I've exceeded what I can do on the front standard alone. I don't usually like the exaggeration of the near/far relationship, for instance, that you can get with rear tilt/swing (though you can also use it in the opposite way of course).

Shifts are really useful for interiors, say when you want to look straight down a hallway, but you don't want to put the hallway in the center of the frame. Sometimes they are handy for landscapes in the same way. For instance, say you are photographing a field of mown hay. If you stand in the middle of the field with the lens centered, looking down the parallel rows, they will radiate out from the center of the bottom of the frame. But maybe the clouds or landmarks in the scene would work better if the parallel rows were to radiate from a corner of the frame--you could walk to the edge of the field and shift in the opposite direction to reframe.

Rear rise, fall, and shift are more important for macro and tabletop photography, where moving the front standard will create a more dramatic change in perspective.

 

[smieglitz]

I usually am working on fairly close subjects rather than the grand vista. Because of my proximity to the subject, I find front and rear shifts (along with front rise/fall) to offer a lot of convenience in terms of critical framing. I use them in parallel to tweak the position of the camera often rather than moving the entire camera on tripod setup. While I haven't done so on the ULF cameras I currently own (because they lack these movements), I frequently use them on smaller formats. In the 11x14 I'm building, I will definitely incorporate shifts for this purpose, especially since the larger camera & tripod will magnify the difficulty of a small camera position move.

The movement that gets the most use would have to be front tilt.

Joe

 

[Deckled Edge]

I have two ULF cameras and rely heavily on rear tilt and swing. The panoramic formats, especially need swings, and rear is much more convenient that front. I don't remember a shot in the last 6 months (all landscapes of one sort or another) where I didn't need some swing for the 7x17. My 11x14 Eastman suffers from inadequate rear tilt and no front tilt, so I'm often hypo-Scheimpfluged. Thank heaven for f128.
As for shift: front + rear swing = shift. On the Deardorff you get shift that way. On the Eastman and Korona, no front swings, so you are SOL for shift.
I went blithely swinging and shifting away with lenses inadequate for the task, getting vignetting all too often. My lens choices now reflect my needs, so I never venture for a lens that won't cover the next larger format.
As far as the creative vision thing, that crops up here from time to time, but, call me a Boy Scout, I want to be prepared for anything my creative vision throws my way. I try to be prepared. Just don't give me wind.

 

[jimgalli]

I've been using a couple of old flatbeds lately even though there is fancier stuff in the collection. I find front rise fall / rear tilt/swing very intuitive. So with the Deardorff I would just tilt up front, where with any of the Eastman / Korona / Folmer I start by tilting the back for Scheimpflug, returning the back to level with platform tilt, raising the front to regain the original scene, and Voila. Only 3 steps to accomplish what the 'dorff does in one. Somebody remind me why I use this old stuff again. I couldn't live without those 3 movements but luckily that's what almost any of the useable antiques have. I don't waste any time wishing for new. I simply can't have it.