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Tilt techniques, Would you care to share your thoughts and Techniques.


albert_martinez

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I'd like to start off by thanking those who shared Harold Merklingers

focusing techniques with me. While on vacation in Utah, I applied his techniques and found them to be very usefull and accurate.

I'm afraid however, his tilting techniques didn't quite click.

In all fairness to Mr Merklinger, I only read it once, casually on the way to Utah. I would prefer however, to poll the readers

of this fabulous site on what techniques you prefer.

 

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With depth of field issues behind me, I'm open for suggestions

on Tilting techniques. For those of you who have never heard

of Harold Merlinger, you owe it to yourself to read what this

fascinating gentleman has to share. I welcome your thougths...

 

<p>

 

Thanks again.

Albert

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Some will use all the math ever devised and get good results while

others will tilt & focus and get good results. It is personal

preference and varies with each photographers interests & desires. If

I can stay away from the math, so much the better. I look at the

image on the ground glass as I tilt, choosing either the front or

back standard as needed to exaggerate or minimize any distortion. As

I do this I re-focus an check with a small loupe when needed.

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Hay Albert:

 

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I'm with Dan on this one. I've read Merklinger's book "Focusing The

View Camera" and he is right on the money with his theory. However,

it is kind of difficult to apply in the field. It still seems to me

that the photographer must know, before hand, both the vertical and

horizontal distances to the principal objects in the scene that

determine the principal plane of focus. I might be wrong here, if I

am, please correct me.

 

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So I look at the scean and visualize where I want the plane of sharp

focus to be. I focus on the foreground, then tilt, then re-focus on

the foreground. Then I examine the ground glass to see if my

background object is also in focus. If not, I tilt one of the

standards accordingly. Then I start over. The process continues

until my plane of sharp focus cuts the foreground and the background

where I want it to.

 

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The trick is having an understanding of where the depth of field

planes go as the standards are tilted. Merklinger does a fantastic

job of describing this, but, I think an intuitive understanding

or 'feel' for it is sufficient. At least for me anyway.

 

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I hope this adds something to the discussion.

 

<p>

 

Regards,

 

<p>

 

Jason.

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I learned a technique from Tillman Crane at the Mammoth Camera

Workshop in June that is quite useful, especially with large cameras

where you can't easily reach the front standard from behind the

camera. With hindsight it seems obvious, but I've never seen it

mentioned in a book.

 

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Suppose, for example, you're photographing an elevation of a building

from an angle, and you want the plane of the elevation to be the plane

of focus. Assume you've composed and focussed. Just walk to the

position that is both in the plane of the elevation, by looking back

at the building, and in the film plane, by looking back at the camera.

Put something there, such as your camera case. The go back to your

camera and adjust the lens board so that its plane includes the camera

case. That's all there is to it. Scheimpflug without trial and

error.

 

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It seems most useful for determining front swing, but could also be

used, with appropriate modification, for determining front tilt.

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Rodenstock makes a plastic gadget for figuring tilt on one side and f

stop on the other. B&H sells it for about $25.

 

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My only caveat is the f stop finder seems to assume a circle of

confusion about the size of jelly doughnut. So I stop down about

another stop or two.

 

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In actual practice I rarely use it. But it is good while you're

getting the hang of tilting. One thing I got from Merkinlinger is

that a little tilt goes a long way. I rarely use more than about three

degrees for landscapes with longer lenses. Usually none for shorter

lenses.

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One thing I have found that helps a bit is an old ditty "Focus for

the far, tilt for the near, then focus & tilt til all is clear". (I

think it was Steve Simmons that told me this one) Whatever way you

use, don't get it too complicated or you will find all the

calculations eating into time better spent photographing.

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Focus on the far, then tilt for the near works well with base tilt

cameras. Generally the tilt will shift the focus, but with practice you

get so you just automatically adjust tilt with one hand and focus with

the other till it all comes together. If the camera has axis tilts, you

would focus somewhere in the middle, then tilt to get the near and far,

again ajusting focus. Practice in the field may be more useful than all

the study and calculations you can do without the groundglass in front

of you. Always bear in mind that you can never get a three dimensional

scene into focus with tilts alone. A planar subject like beach and surf

seen from above can be focused wide open with tilts alone. But if the

picture is beach, surf, and then a tall lighthouse, the lighthouse will

be way out of the plane of focus. Then you choose a compromise: you

might run the focus plane (visually on the GG) from halfway up the

lighthouse back to the edge of the surf. Then stop down to get the top

of the lighthouse and the nearer part of the beach. ---Carl

 

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PS: this is one place where bigger is better. It's much easier to see

what's going on with a big groundglass so I actually find it faster and

easier to find the right focus with my 8x10 than with smaller cameras.

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I found Merklinger's book "Focusing the view camera" highly

instructive, and very useful for focusing: it may appear a bit

difficult at the beginning to estimate where the plane of focus should

run unter the camera, but with a little bit of practice you just tilt

once and then focus with the loupe. Sometimes I have to readjust the

tilt a little, but if necessary, this is also done easily and fast,

once the principle is understood. I have written the tilt degrees for

the different lenths of j on the lensboard of each lens, and patched a

rough angle scale on both of my wooden field cameras.

For me at least, this procedure is easier and faster than any other,

and I miss less scenes because the light changes before i am able to

press the trigger.

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