Circa 1975

<p>Hi All,</p>

<p>I found this print while cleaning out a filing cabinet and I scanned it to show here. It's from a series I did on restaurant/piano bars a long time ago.</p>

 

<p>Comments welcomed.<br />Steve<br />steve@stevesint.com</p>

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<p>Nicely done Steve!</p>

<p>Back in the 1970's I was shooting 4x5 on shoots like this. It would have been easy to straighten the verticals with large format. Today the 24mm Nikon PC lens would do the trick.</p>

<p>"Today the 24mm Nikon PC lens would do the trick." - Or the perspective correction tool in Photoshop.</p>

<p>Strange how the eye and brain will accept converging horizontals without question as a natural phenomenon, while converging/diverging verticals aren't quite so readily palatable.</p>

<p>Re: Back in the 1970's I was shooting 4x5 on shoots like this.<br>

Me too, but this was shot on a Hasse with a 50 mm Distagon. I just eyeballed the back of the camera to get it almost parallel to the room's columns. The rag I was working for bitched about the cost of roll film and would've gone nuts if I billed for 4X5.</p>

<p>RE: while converging/diverging verticals aren't quite so readily palatable.<br>

Actually, I don't think that is still true. I think it has to do with the public just getting used to seeing converging verticals in the photographs they see everyday. But, I still think a box of cornflakes (or anything else) looks better squared up. The problem with the 24mm Nikon PC (and all the others of that ilk) is you can't do a swing and a tilt at the same time....it's one or the other.</p>

<p>This particular picture had me over-exposing my B&W film and then under-developing it so the highlights wouldn't blow out...sort of like a seat of the pants zone system solution...:)</p>

<p>SS</p>

<p>"The problem with the 24mm Nikon PC (and all the others of that ilk) is you can't do a swing and a tilt at the same time....it's one or the other...."</p>

<p>True but I've seldom had to do both a swing and a tilt at the same time on a scene such as yours above. You can do a swing or tilt along with a shift at the same time. More importantly, a tilt of the lens in your photo above would help get the DOF deep across the entire scene at a wider f/stop and shorter shutter speed. That's going to help when you're including people in a shot like that.</p>

<p>You can fix those verticals in Photoshop or Capture One easily enough, but you can't add more DOF at the same f/stop without a tilt lens. Focus stacking would be impratical to use when people are in the shot.</p>

<p>No argument from me Brooks...you're preaching to the choir.<br>

SS</p>

<p>Well, thanks for preaching, some of the singers in this choir haven't learned that tune.</p>

<p>JW wrote:<br>

"Well, thanks for preaching, some of the singers in this choir haven't learned that tune."</p>

<p>My apologies JW, and it was Brooks who was preaching...:). For the singers in the choir who don't know the tune here are the notes:</p>

<p>Most SLR (and consequently DSLR) users don't know this but one of the things you pay big bucks for when buying a DSLR is that the lens plane and imaging plane are locked into parallelism and centered one on the other. It's one of the reasons why high end/pro cameras have metal mirror boxes instead of plastic (excuse me, poly carbonate) ones. A metal mirror box, usually an aluminum or magnesium casting that has then been machined so that the front (where the lens goes) and the rear (where the imaging chip is) are perfectly parallel and centered, holds that parallelism better than a plastic casting does.</p>

<p>But, before DSLRs there were view cameras (that were considered the standard studio, still life camera) that had the ability to move the imaging plane and lens plane out of parallelism and being centered one on the other. By doing so you could accomplish things a rigid camera just couldn't do. By moving the imaging standard (where the film or imaging chip is) independently of the lens standard (where the lens is) you can change the shape of the subject, and by moving the lens standard independently of the imaging standard you can extend depth of field from the lens' surface to infinity even when using the lens' maximum aperture. These movements are called swings and tilts and entire books have been written about their use - beyond what can be covered in an internet posting.</p>

<p>Furthermore by decentering the lens and imaging standards (which is different than moving them out of parallel) you can accomplish other changes in how the final image looks. These movements are called rise, fall, and shifts. By using a camera that has a full set of movements (swing, tilt, rise, rise, fall, and shifts) on both the imaging and lens standards you can make your camera look like a pretzel (joke...:)) and create images that a rigid camera just can't.<br>

There are many pages about this on the internet (many of them junk because it is becoming a lost art), but I can tell you that many high-end commercial studios in big cities are using view cameras with digital backs adapted to them because, as said above, it allows you to do things a rigid camera just can't.</p>

<p>SS</p>

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