How important are rear movements?

[Donald Miller]

I consider rear swings and tilts to be vitally important. I have never used a camera with rear rise/fall or rear shift so I can not comment on that.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

I consider rear swings and tilts to be vitally important. I have never used a camera with rear rise/fall or rear shift so I can not comment on that.

Rear shifts are probably the last thing that you need for landscape photography, but they really come into their own in studio still-life work when you have set up all the other camera movements perfectly but find you need to change the picture composition slightly without pivoting the tripod head around and throwing the sharpness off!

 

[roteague]

Rear shifts are probably the last thing that you need for landscape photography, but they really come into their own in studio still-life work when you have set up all the other camera movements perfectly but find you need to change the picture composition slightly without pivoting the tripod head around and throwing the sharpness off!

Jack Dykinga has an excellent example of using a rear shift/swing in his book "Large Format Nature Photography", although I haven't been confronted with the need myself.

 

[vet173]

How much are you spending and how much can you get out of it when you sell it to get one with rear movements. The whole purpose of a view camera is to have the control that movements give you. Don't shortchange yourself. If movements are not wanted, why not just use a crown.

 

[kswatapug]

I own the TOYO AX and recently played with a CF. A nice camera, the CF, but I'm spoiled by the few additional movements of the AX and more flexible controls. I was formerly was a fan of front tilt, but now go for rear tilt first and front for any additional. As such, I found the rear tilt mechanism on the CF not as ideal as my AX, and the lack of rear swing a downside. There have been times in the field that I've almost had the camera tied in a knot working to capture what turned out to be some of my favorite images. I'd have been very disappointed to pass those images up on account of lack of movements. At roughly 12 inches, both are a little short in the bellows draw department to my taste. I've used everything from a 65mm to a 360mm. The CX is no good with anything wider than 90mm. You might consider making a matrix of your priorities and sort through the various models to see which best meets your needs.

 

[kaiyen]

Hm...kind of on this note...is there a good book on how the different rear movements affect an image? My Seneca improved has only front rise and fall, but has rear swing and tilt, too, and I'm not entirely sure when to use them.

For instance, since I don't have tilt on the front, can I aim the camera downward and tilt the back to vertical and effectively get front tilt?

Robert cited Dykinga's book, but does that include a lot of examples of what different movements do?

I'm hooked on 5x7, by the way...
allan

 

[Donald Miller]

Hm...kind of on this note...is there a good book on how the different rear movements affect an image? My Seneca improved has only front rise and fall, but has rear swing and tilt, too, and I'm not entirely sure when to use them.

For instance, since I don't have tilt on the front, can I aim the camera downward and tilt the back to vertical and effectively get front tilt?

Robert cited Dykinga's book, but does that include a lot of examples of what different movements do?

I'm hooked on 5x7, by the way...
allan

Yes, you can tilt the camera itself forward and move the back to vertical and have the same effect as front tilt...it would be a pain to get it precise but it will work.

Rear movements will introduce distortion into the image. For instance the looming near objects that Adams used in his near/far relationships were accomplished by using rear tilt.

That distortion aspect is true of all rear movements with the exception of shift because the film plane is being moved and not the axis of the lens as is the case with front movements. This distortion aspect can be used to reduce receding lines or it can be utilized to increase the apparent depth in an image.

 

[kaiyen]

Thanks Donald - that helps a lot. My teacher told me something very different, but my results and your comments don't agree with that. Hm. Well, it works, and that's what matters.

allan

 

[roteague]

Robert cited Dykinga's book, but does that include a lot of examples of what different movements do?

Not a lot, but it does provide good examples of the movements you need. Also consider Steve Simmon's book on the View Camera.

You would be surprised at those who don't know what the back tilt is used for; I know a commercial photographer who said he never heard of using one for depth of field. As Donald points out, there is some distortion involved, which would probably kill you in the studio, but is perfectly acceptable doing landscapes.

 

[Campbell]

I don't use back swing much and don't remember ever using back rise and fall but back tilt is IMHO a very important movement for many types of work but especially for buildings. If you photograph buildings (or any other tall object that contains parallel lines such as some trees) it's often necessary to tilt the camera up when you run out of front rise or image circle. To make parallel lines in the subject parallel in the photograph after tilting the camera up you need to be able to tilt the back so that it's parallel with the subject. You can also use back tilt to enhance the size of foreground objects (e.g. rocks) in landscapes. I wouldn't buy a LF camera that had no back movements.

 

[kswatapug]

If you can find a copy of Leslie Stroebel's book "View Camera Technique," it is quite good. It gets a bit technical, but all the information is there. I found a six pack and the book were all I needed to work it out. I sat down with the camera on a tripod in front of me with an empty on a small table in front of that and just played with the movements until I finished the six pack. Actually, I only managed two beers, but I'm a lightweight and by then it seemed fairly easy to get the camera to do what I wanted it to.

 

[Jim Jones]

If you can find a copy of Leslie Stroebel's book "View Camera Technique," it is quite good. . . .

There are many editions of Stroebel's excellent book. If you use newer equipment, a late edition might be best.

 

[127]

...when you run out of front rise or image circle.

I think this is the key point - the different movements are interdependent, so there's no ONE that's important.

Personally I think in terms of rear shift/rise/fall and front swing/tilt. Thats my mental model, but physically I might need to do things differently.

Mentally the back gets oriented to be parallel to the objects that need to appear square, and shifted (either front or back) to frame the subject. Then the lens gets turned to set the dof.

I think that's the cleanest method IF you had a perfect camera that could do any movement to any degree. In practise you hit a physical limitation, so have to start doing something else (using front and rear tilt to replace rise/fall for example), but aside from personal preference/practise, and specific cameras/lenses there's no MUST HAVE feature.

Ian

 

[sanking]

I think this is the key point - the different movements are interdependent, so there's no ONE that's important.

Ian

This is not really true. Some movements are interdependent, but not all of them. There is a significant difference betwen rear movements and front movements. Rear movements control both sharpness and perspective, while front movements control only sharpness. Rise and fall and lateral dispalcement can be had with either rear or front movements.

Rear movements are far more important to me than front movements, even for landscape work. Of these, the most important is the rear tilt, which allows us to correct perspective when the camera is pointed up or down. I *always* use this control with landscape work as the first movement applied. Then I usually go to front movements for further rise or fall and for control of sharpness. If I had to rate the importance of movements in landscape photography, for my work, here is the order. 1) Rear tilt, 2) front rise and fall, 3) front tilt and swing, 4) rear swing. Shift is rarely needed in landscape work.

Sandy

 

[127]

Rear movements are far more important to me than front movements, even for landscape work. Of these, the most important is the rear tilt, which allows us to correct perspective when the camera is pointed up or down.

Not wishing to start an argument with someone who knows LOADS more about this than I do, but I think you've missed my point...

You (personally) use rear tilt because you've pointed the camera up or down. You could (in theory) have kept the "camera" level (whatever that means), and used rise/fall. In practise this might not be possible, or you might just not like working that way.

Personally (in the abstract) I'd define the camera as being "level" when the back is vertical - the bed/rail is just a physical support so I don't see any point in thinking about it's orientation (again in practise it can be more of a problem).

Ian

 

[df cardwell]

I'll venture that most great images were made by a camera no more complex than a Kodak 2D or Crown Graphic. To the degree one's vision exceeds Weston or Adams, one needs more camera movements.

I've always thought the world starts getting interesting about a half mile after the road stops. And the general creative spirit begins after a couple days walking a trail. When you're covering miles with all your stuff on your own back, you rethink essential. Tripod heads stay at home with the laptop.

For the Rear: Tilt and a little Swing. For the Front: Rise/Fall and a little Tilt. Leave the Sinar in the Studio.

.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

You (personally) use rear tilt because you've pointed the camera up or down. You could (in theory) have kept the "camera" level (whatever that means), and used rise/fall. In practise this might not be possible, or you might just not like working that way.

I don't know if you are an LF camera user, but if you tried to use falling front to correct a composition after setting the camera level, you would find that
a) most field cameras are not equipped with vertical shifts, so you could not physically use falling front (or rising back)
b) a shift movement of course does nothing to maximise depth of field. If you had a monorail camera and applied a vertical shift to obtain a desired composition, you would then need to tilt the back backwards or the front forwards to obtain the desired DOF, effectively doing the same as if you had tilted the camera down and then returned the back to the vertical, except that this would be much quicker!
A further reason to use back movements rather than front out of doors is that it is all too easy to use excess front tilt and run of lens coverage without noticing (I find this happens to me particularly with an Intenscreen, which makes it hard to spot image fall-off).

Regards,

David

 

[sanking]

And that is pretty much what virtually all of the old field cameras had in the way of movements, including the banquet and panoramic cameras: tilt and swing on the rear, rise and fall on the front, and if you were really in the gravy, a bit of forward tilt.

Sandy

For the Rear: Tilt and a little Swing. For the Front: Rise/Fall and a little Tilt. Leave the Sinar in the Studio.

.

 

[sanking]

First, level for me means that the camera back is at at 90 degree orientation with respect to the plane of the earth in the vertical, and parallel to the plane of the earth in the horizontal position.

Granted, one could maintain the back in the vertical position by starting with the camera level and using rise or fall, or by pointing the camera up or down and then using tilt to establish the vertical. However, if you have both tilt back, and rise and fall on the front, as virtually all of old field cameras did, you more than double the amount of correction possible.

In any event, the major purpose of my previous message was to point out that while some of the movements on the rear and front are interdependent, they primarily differ in that rear tilt and swing control perspective, while front tilt and swing control sharpness.

Sandy

Not wishing to start an argument with someone who knows LOADS more about this than I do, but I think you've missed my point...

You (personally) use rear tilt because you've pointed the camera up or down. You could (in theory) have kept the "camera" level (whatever that means), and used rise/fall. In practise this might not be possible, or you might just not like working that way.

Personally (in the abstract) I'd define the camera as being "level" when the back is vertical - the bed/rail is just a physical support so I don't see any point in thinking about it's orientation (again in practise it can be more of a problem).

Ian

 

[Donald Miller]

I have found quite often recently that I do use rear swing coupled with front shift when photographing some of the old architecture around here. Rear swing will increase depth of field with a receding wall (for instance). When rear swing is used, it moves the composition on the ground glass and front shift allows it to be recomposed as I had intended.

I wish sometimes that my camera had rear shift but front shift does accomplish the desired result.

 

[juan]

I read this thread last week, then thought about it as I photographed on Saturday. I realized I would have a very difficult time without rear movements on my 8x10. I think it has a lot to do with the rear movements being much more accessable from the rear of the camera with the 12 1/2" and longer lenses I usually use.

When I shot a lot of 4x5, I used rear tilt occassionally, but didn't use other rear movements much at all.
juan

 

[Ole]

And that is pretty much what virtually all of the old field cameras had in the way of movements, including the banquet and panoramic cameras: tilt and swing on the rear, rise and fall on the front, and if you were really in the gravy, a bit of forward tilt.

Sandy

A good description of my four antique plate cameras (well - one just looks antique). They cover both "travel cameras" (German "Reisekamera") and banquet cameras.