tilt/shift photography!!!!!!!

[Christie Photo]

Pete, regarding your comment on application in landscape work, I use slight tilt a great deal...

Interesting. Can you post a sample?

I doubt it would be evident in a sample.

Erie... don't you agree? Especially working with lenses that short, a person would be hard pressed to see the benefit... unless there are some big, puffy clouds in the sky... out of focus.

-Pete

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Ok, yes, that does and thank you for playing along. And you are making a secondary point that I have tried to make a few times, ie we should be looking at prints rather than images on the web.

I have seen enough of my photos on the web to know they don't look quite the same. IMHO, the web is not the best place to look at photos and, therefore, it is not the place to judge them.

 

[Christie Photo]

Oh... nearly forgot. I wanted to get in on the love-fest too.

Good to see you back, Helen!

-Pete

 

[epatsellis]

Interesting. Can you post a sample?

As other's have said, it's hard to show unless done wrong. I don't keep that detailed notes on my images, though I'll dig and see what I have and if I remember.

Coming from a fixed camera standpoint, you really can't get a feel for just how versatile camera movements can be. It's something that many struggle with for a long time, until the "a ha" moment, then it all becomes clear.

Here's one that illustrates movements very well, but not landscape:

There is no way you can maintain focus sharply across the entire assembly using anything else but camera movements, this particular piece is approx 48" wide, and shot with a scanback on a Sinar P.

Another, this time a landscape photo shot on 8x10 film, if I remember right, with front tilt and swing as well.

Another, with movements made to maintain (as best I could in the freezing cold) the plane of focus on the fence posts

All of these are subtle, I have a print of the lake image 50" wide, then it's very obvious, on smaller prints, it's not so obvious.

 

[epatsellis]

To give you an idea of the shooting conditions for the last shot, here's a few snaps from my wife:

(I had to chip pockets into the ice to get the tripod to stay put)

 

[epatsellis]

Here's another I just found, along with the setup shot:

and the camera setup (showing max front tilt, to get more I would need to start tilting the rear in reverse which changes the geometry of the image) Aperture looks to be around f16 with 210 Symmar-S:

 

[Mike_E]

If I might give it a try?

When you focus a lens the of depth of focus is roughly a square box where the point of focus is (again roughly) one third of the way into the box.

When you tilt the lens you move the shape of the box in the same direction. So your depth of field becomes

thereby making the things close to the ground in focus closer to the camera and the things in the air more in focus further away.

Have I confused things any further?

Forgive the drawings. They're from short notice.

 

[epatsellis]

If you google schiempflug you'll find a much better explanation. (you may want to try hinge rule as well.)

 

[epatsellis]

Some things to keep in mind, DOF is really only a way of saying "acceptably unsharp", there is only one plane of focus. In a fixed lens camera, that plane is parallel to the lens/imaging unit plane. (consistent with Schiempflug, which states that the planes of the film, lens and subject much all meet at a single point). When you tilt either the lens plane or film plane (or both), Schiempflug must still apply, and there is only one plane truly in focus, which must meet the lens and film plane at some point.

With a large format camera, you can use this to your advantage, if you have a plane that you want in focus, you can visualize the planes and roughly determine how much swing or tilt you need to employ.

In the case of having the ground consistently in focus front to back, a front lens tilt or rear film tilt will have the same effect, IF the 3 planes are coincident at some point. It does take practice, and experience, but once you are able to use movements to control the plane of focus, your visual choices and controls are vastly expanded.