Making progress w/my 4X5

[bluefin]

I have had my first LF camera, (a Sinar F2), and several lenses for a week now. I have been reading Ansel Adams “The Camera”, various resources from the web, and the Sinar manual. Although rise and fall, sliding left and right, swiveling left and right appear to be important controls to master, I have been concentrating on tilting the front and rear standard to increase depth of field. This appears to be initially the most critical function for me to learn as a landscape photographer.

I’m leaving on Monday for a two week trip up in Northern California and will be working on a specific portfolio, (not for a client), and want to make sure I have managed my DOF controls properly.

It seems as if I can get the far and near focus fairly sharp with the aperture wide open. The middle is always fuzzy but it sharpens up as soon as I start to stop down the lens. Is the middle supposed to be soft wide open? Am I missing a step?

I tried to tilt the camera on the tripod and then tilt the rear standard parallel to the plane of focus but found it much more difficult to get this method to work for me. Logically it should be similar to tilting the forward standard but I haven’t been able to make it work. Should I keep working on this method?

At first I was hesitant to tilt the front and rear standard more than 5 degrees but found it manageable up to 20 degrees using both standards. Is 20 degrees outrageous or sometimes not enough?

Lastly, the Sinar F2 has two measurement dials on the rear focus knobs. The left one indicates degrees of tilt required and the right one determines the f stop required to ensure the appropriate DOF. Does anyone trust these dials?

Any advice is very much appreciated…..Mark

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Used properly, those dials are useful.

The tilt/swing calculator is very useful, as long as you place the plane of focus accurately. The situation you're describing where the near and far points are in focus, but not the middle ground is a common issue. Say you have an upward sloping landscape where you're in the valley looking toward the hills. Beginners usually imagine the plane of focus going from the ground under the tripod to the horizon at the ridgeline. Better to imagine the plane of focus going from the ground under the tripod to a line about 1/3 the distance below the ridgeline, so you don't "waste" the DOF above the plane of focus, which is in the shape of a wedge.

Now imagine another scene where you've got tall vertical structures, like trees, in the middle distance as well as mountains in the far distance. In this case, it might be better not to tilt and just use hyperfocal technique. This is where the DOF calculator comes in. It works as well as the DOF calculators on manual focus lenses for 35mm and MF cameras--if you're not making a big enlargement, you can use the recommended value, or if you like things a little sharper, you can stop down one or two stops from the recommended f:stop, which is what I usually do, considering whether I'm entering serious diffraction territory. Usually insufficient DOF is a bigger problem than loss of sharpness due to diffraction.

 

[dslater]

Hi Mark,
If I'm shooting a landscape, I will usually use a rear tilt instead of a front tilt. Doing so will introduce some distortion. However, with most landscapes, the distortion will not be noticed. The advantage to using a rear tilt is you don't have to worry about vignetting.
Also, just a little nit-pick - tilts and swings do not increase DOF - they just tilt your plane of focus.
If you haven't already looked, http://www.lfphoto.info has a number of very useful articles on LF focusing techniques.

 

[bluefin]

Guys, thanks for the tips. I will pay more attention to the two calculators on the focus knobs and learn to use them more effectively. I can relate to the rear standard tilt suggestion as well.

I will say I have been to the largeformatphotography.com many times and found it very useful however, statements like the one below from the "How to focus the view camera" section make me want to send all the equipment back to KEH:

“When you rack the standards back and forth, the subject plane rotates along the "Hinge line". The Hinge line is the intersection of the plane through the center of the lens and parallel to the film with the plane perpendicular to the lens axis and one focal length in front of the lens.”

When I read this I went straight to the medicine cabinet and got some Excedrin!

I’m sure there will be a day when I understand and use the physics applied in this paragraph, but not next week!

 

[dslater]

Guys, thanks for the tips. I will pay more attention to the two calculators on the focus knobs and learn to use them more effectively. I can relate to the rear standard tilt suggestion as well.

I will say I have been to the largeformatphotography.com many times and found it very useful however, statements like the one below from the "How to focus the view camera" section make me want to send all the equipment back to KEH:

“When you rack the standards back and forth, the subject plane rotates along the "Hinge line". The Hinge line is the intersection of the plane through the center of the lens and parallel to the film with the plane perpendicular to the lens axis and one focal length in front of the lens.”

When I read this I went straight to the medicine cabinet and got some Excedrin!

I’m sure there will be a day when I understand and use the physics applied in this paragraph, but not next week!

I believe you're referring to this article:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/how-to-focus.html

That is the article I used to learn focusing. To be honest, I just skimmed over that stuff and went straight to Procedure 1.

It's important to make sure all your tilts and swings are at the neutral position before starting.

In my case, I have base tilts, so focusing with my rear standard, I will first focus on the far point with my standards parallel. Then I will use a tilt to bring the near point into focus. Then I will usually need to re-focus on my far point with the focusing know, then tilt again to bring the near point into focus. Sometimes I may need to repeat this procedure again. If I find myself repeating it more that 2 or 3 times, I will usually start over as I have probably done something wrong.

Understanding the Scheimpflug rule and being able to visualize it is very helpful.


Hope this is helpful.

 

[Discpad]

Harold Merklinger has excellent PDF booklets on focusing view & other cameras...