Focusing middle compostion with view camera

On occasion when shooting a landscape with various degree of slope

and angles the middle section of the compositon does not focus on the

ground glass. Example: the distance mountains and foreground flowers

are in focus, however, the river in the middle ground will not focus.

What is the best technique to bring all subject material in focus?

In a situation like that you can either stop down or recompose. Sorry.

Probably add a bit of front tilt to make the plane of focus more horizontal, and stop down appropriately.

It may not be completely possible. You appear to be using Scheimflug correctly, I assume by tilting the front forward slightly, or the camera back toward you.

 

The best that you could do would be to place the plane of focus through the flowers and the mountains, then note where the lens standard is located. Refocus to the river by moving the front standard closer to the film. After noting the new standard locations, move your focus to half way between the two positions.

 

Then stop down until depth of field is adequate (maybe)

You probably already use front tilt to get the foreground in focus. Therefore the plane of focus runs from lower forground to upper background. High objects in the foreground will be out of the plane of focus as will low objects in the background. The debth of field above and below the plane of focus must be expanded by small f stops.

Even when using tilt or swing, you still need to make sure the focus is centered properly and the proper f-stop set before everything will be in focus. I've affixed a millimeter scale on the rails of all my LF cameras to assist with this. In your particular example, once the proper front tilt has been executed (where background mountains and foreground flowers are in focus), the plane of focus has been defined as a flat plane extending from the flowers to mountains. Now, along the entire traverse of that plane, look for the area or object that is most above and most below that plane, respectively; focus specifically on each point, and note the position of the focusing standard at each point on the rail (this is where the millimeter scale becomes handy). To take your photograph, position the focusing standard exactly midway between these two points on the rail, and set the f-stop based on the distance (D) between the two points per this article:

 

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/fstop.html

 

On complicated compositions, where it is not clear which particular object is most above or below the focus plane, I focus on several points and pick the ones that result in the largest focus spread (D).

 

This stopping down table derives from Paul Hansma, and is not the only technique being used. Jack Dykinga, for examples, just stops down to f/45 whenever possible to avoid this level of focusing complexity. But I am a sharpness fanatic who likes to avoid lens diffraction whenever possible, and the table allows me to use wider apertures than otherwise possible while remaining assured that everything will be in focus. This technique has worked quite well for me over the last five years.

This is one of the interesting problems of using a view camera. The world is 3D, and sometimes you just can't get it all in focus.

 

I use several methods to work with situations like this. One way is to push on with what you are doing. Once you have established the plane of focus (your foreground and background are in sharp focus), move the plane closer to the middle ground. Now just about everything is a little out of focus. Use an appropriate fstop to pull it back in.

 

The second way (this often works best for me) is to acknowledge that using tilt isn't going to work for this shot. Reset, pull your standards parallel again, and use hyperfocal distance at an appropriate fstop to pull everything into focus.

 

A third option is to let some parts of the photograph be out of focus, but pick judiciously. After all, there is no hard and fast rule that says everything in the scene has to be in sharp focus. Is there?

 

Finally, there is "the forth option" (insert appropriate fearful music here) - tear it down, enjoy the scene for what it is, then turn around and walk away. Not all beautiful scenes are photogenic.

 

Just my two cents. Clearly, YMMV.

I am just so glad that you asked this question. I have been struggling with the same issue. Picture Monument Valley. I have a beautiful weathered log in perfect focus in the foreground. I have one of the mittens in the background in perfect focus. The only problem is that some bushes in the middle ground are clearly out of focus. It makes sense to me since I achieved my plane of focus by front tilt using the foregroud log and the top of the mitten as my two points. Therefore if you think of a triangle, the bushes are at the third point of the triangle...way out of the focus plane. In this situation, I stop down to f22. My own unscientific thought was that I needed to establish my focus plane by using the foreground log and the middle of the mitten...not all the way to the top as I have a tendency to do. Therefore the top of the mitten and the bushes in the middle ground would be sort of equally out of the plane of focus. So, I guess what I'm saying is to use an object in the foreground and the midpoint of the distant mountain rather than the top of the distant mountain to establish tilt and plane of focus. Thoughts?

Thanks

Ok. Now that you have figured out that you need to move the back standard in order to change the perspective so that you have shortened the distance between the farthest and closest parts of the scene (probably tilting the top of the back standard forward), you now have to tilt the front standard forward too in order to bring most of the scene into focus. Then the last thing you do is close down the aperture for best focus. This is where a decent loop comes in handy. Here's the scene and the solution to your focus problems. Say that your scene has those distant mountains and the flowers out there beyond your feet somewhere. And lots of midground. We'll give the angle from the most distant thing to the closest as say for convenience 45*. I'd tilt the back forward about 30* and then split the difference with tilting the front standard in between these angles. I deally you'ld place the back standard on the same plane as the scene and then place the front standard there too but this is highly impractical and not really needed for scenes that fade to infinity. But the more you tilt the "back" standard away from you the easier it is to obtain good focus throughout your image. Too many people make too much of Scheimflug. The back standard changes perspective only and the front standard changes focus only. So when you tilt the top of the back standard away from you that shortens the optical distance of background elements as opposed to the foreground elements. Changing the front standard just changes focus of the elements on the ground glass. Go out and find a scene that has elements say at the end of a football field. Set something like your shoes about 20 feet away from the camera. Now try to bring the front standard to a point that brings into focus the 50 yd line. Now move the back standard forward and back until both the far goal posts are in focus as well as the shoes in front of you. Now rack your front rail back and forth until the focus is halfway between the 50 yd line and the shoes. Now stop down the lens. Everything will be in focus. Easy. Just do it. When I am out in the field and want the far trees in focus and the little flowers in front of me in focus, I set the camera up, focus on something in between (about 1/3 of the way to the farthest point In want in focus), then start tilting the back standard away from me until I see where I have the best focus(not necessarily in focus, just the best focus between the two elements), then I finish by tilting the front standard until the overall focus is at it's best. Then I finish by stopping down the lens. Practice makes perfect.

Using Tom Keenan's problem, you'ld first tilt the top of the back standard away from you until the log and the top of the Mitten were in focus, then you'ld rack the lens back and forth until the overall focus was ok. That's when you would stop the lens down. Too many start with changing the front standard first. The back is what changes the perspective which means it is what you use to shorten the distance between the far and near in order to be able to change the focus and the lens aperture to achieve good focus throughout. Use that back standard first. It's the key. But you need to play around with it at home so you know exactly what to do for a given situation in the field. Set up the camera, place the focus somewhere in the middle distance, then start tilting the back standard to get somehwere in focus everything you want. Make it just as blurry at the top of the glass as the bottom. Then move the front standard to finish focussing.

Many thanks to Gary for starting this thread. I have learned a lot by reading "most" of the comments. There are three points that I will take away from this.

 

1) In the examples that Gary (or I) presented, simple lens tilt may accomplish sharp focus. Focus on the near object (flowers or logs) and A POINT ABOUT HALFWAY UP THE VERTICAL DISTANT DIMENSION. Not the top of the mountain. This I confirmed by re-reading Stroebel's section on Swings and Tilts, and depth of field. To quote Stroebel..."By tilting the lens or back so that the plane of sharp focus includes point A (the foreground flowers or log) and point B, a point about halfway up the vertical dimension that is to be included.<p>

2)Great post by Eric and reference to "splitting the distance" and setting the f stop according to the table. This technique is also confirmed by Stroebel in my review this afternoon..." A technique used by some photographers when it is difficult to know where to focus...is to move the focusing standard forward and backwards to determine the minimun and maximum extensions that will produce sharp focus on any part of the subject, place a pencil mark on the standard for each position and set the focusing adjustment halfway between." Now I know I can set the ideal f stop according to a table based on the mm. between the focus points.<p>

3) Great post by James. Typically I only use front tilt when confronted with the situations described in this thread. I am going to practice FIRST tilting the BACK FORWARD. Then tilt the lens forward and then stop down the lens. I will need to learn this.<p>

 

Thanks to all. Do I have this right?

The fact is most of the time the landscape topography makes it impossible to get everything in focus regardless of any tilts and swings. That is because it is irregular from the ideal necessary. The background likely doesn't recede evenly on a plain back to infinity. You may have 1/3 of the frame foreground receding smoothly to a little rise, then suddenly the next element up in the frame is twice the distance away. No way can one get the top of the rise and the middle ground both in focus. And then maybe the middle ground recedes for some ways to some trees, with an abrupt change above the trees to distant mountain peaks a mile or more away. The top of the trees and bottom of the mountains can neither be in exact focus at the same time. And of course the same situation exists with swing from one side of a frame to another.

 

So the game is to be able to evaluate the frame from experience and skill with the camera movements to compromise best for whatever one is trying to capture. If the near foreground is nice but not particularly striking, set the near focus point further back. If the distant background lacks contrast and sharpness due to the usual long length of light travel through the atmosphere while the middle ground which is closer has some nice textures and detail, then tend to set the far point of sharpness lower in the frame maybe at the top of the middle ground. And then just stop way down to near max. There are infinite situations out in nature with set in stone rules. Using a view camera well is a challenge. Now if the scene geometry cooperates and everything cam be adjusted with some tilt to bring it all into fine focus, great! You won't need to stop down as much and get into the better aperatures of your lens.

I'll be brief. Some very interesting reading on this thread. Way too

complicated.

 

#1 Have a high quality lens.

#2 Make sure the front plane is parralel to the rear plane. NO TILTS!

#3 Test your focus using Polaroid type 55(positive negative).

#4 Understand that the critical focus, on most lenses that I have used,

moves forward toward infinity as the lens is stopped down. This is more

noticible the wider the lens. So your focus plane will shift forward about a 1/

20th of an inch on a 58mm lens Schneider XL lens. It will be less on some

and more on others. Without opening the camera, rack the focus forward a

20th of an inch and take another piece of film. You should see a remarkable

difference. Since I adopted this approach 10 years ago, all of my images

have always been tack sharp. Remember also that your f stop does need to

be in the 22 to 32 range, depending on the lens. Good Luck!

 

Doug Salin - www.dougsalin.com<div></div>