Movements ?

[ben conover]

Hello, I am the proud owner of a B&J press camera. I have three lenses

for it. I have taken off the rangefinder, the viewfinder and all the

leather. I will replace the leather with new and use the camera with a

black cloak as a view camera. The B&j has good movements including bed

drop and 1:1 with ease.

 

My question is about movements, what is a good place to start learning

about movements? I am trawling the beginners forum but would love a

link to someplace with graphic photo instruction, since I am a beginner.

 

Thanks very much.

[vick_vickery]

Search Amazon, eBay, etc., for "view camera" under the "books" heading and you'll come up with quite a few basic view camera technique tomes. Adam's "Camera and Lens" is a good basic place to start and Kodak has put out some good small paperbacks on the subject through the years.

[steve_hamley]

Steve Simmon's book followed by Leslie Stroebel's book.

 

Steve

[ben conover]

Thanks for the responses, I was hoping to find something available for free online rather than buying books on the subject. However, I can see the need for books, pehaps I will get a few used copies.

 

Thanks.

[hakon_soreide]

Then it's basically the same method of finding information, though instead of searching on Amazon or eBay, you do a web search for large format camera movements - and you'll be sure to find something that might enlighten you further.

[jack_fisher1]

Check your local library for Simmons' book and others.

 

JF

[paul.droluk]

By all means read a good book or two, or three. Until you get to the bookstore though, try

this 5 minute tutorial... http://www.toyoview.com/LargeFrmtTech/lgformat.html

[ben conover]

Paul, thanks for that link, I see there is a heap of stuff to learn and it's all new to me. What are your most used movements and why?

 

Thanks again.

[leonard_evens]

The website, www.largeformatphotorgraphy.info, has quite a lot of information about movements.

[colin carron]

Leonard's suggestion for

 

www.largeformatphotography.info

 

is an excellent one even though it has an extra 'r' in it! It has a great deal of other practical assistance with getting started.

 

I find the movements I use most are :

 

1) front rise for buildings, trees any other tall things.

 

2) back (or front) tilt in landscape shots to place the plane of focus so as to get maximum depth of field.

 

have fun!

[brian_ellis16]

If you do an "advanced search" on Google using all of the words "view camera movements" you'll find some information on line. The first article listed, which is a tutorial at the Luminous Landscape site, is pretty good. I'd suggest not trying to learn every movement at once, pick one movement and learn it, then move on to another. Front tilt is probably the single most commonly used movement, at least by landscape photographers. The nice thing about learning view camera movements is that you don't need to actually make any photographs as you're learning them, you can see everything that's happening right on the ground glass.

[conrad_hoffman]

IMHO, you should ignore the camera and just learn the relationships between the subject, lens plane, and film plane, to get various results. Once you understand that, figuring out how to get the film and lens in those positions is pretty easy, and will vary depending on what kind of camera you've got, with what freedoms of movement. As an example, a press camera usually has no movements on the back. Regardless, you can still put the back at the angle you need using the tripod, then fool with the lens to get it in the right position. With a view camera, front rise is exactly the same thing as pointing the camera up, then tilting both front and rear. Thus, learn the principles first, not the hardware.

[grigoriolf]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ansel/sfeature/sf_camera.swf

Click on Camera Movements and then on Reference Lines. Mouse over the movements. Top and side views change as well as the image in the photo.

[tito sobrinho]

Paul's indicated site is excellent for landscape photography! Learn it. After that, you will need a book that esplains movements applied to table top photography... Stroebel, Simmons, Kellsey, so on and so forth.

[pvp]

Harold Merklinger has a page with a wealth of information. A little digging will get you to some Quicktime movies that demonstrate how the plane of focus varies with each type of movement. Absolutely invaluable stuff. <P>

 

<a href="http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/index.html">Link to Merklinger</a>

[doc_w]

Ben, this website has a lot of good information (and a forum similar to this one): http://www.largeformatphotography.info/

 

Steve Simmons' book is not expensive. Also try the View Camera Magazine website for some free articles.

 

One thing I did which was very useful was set up my camera on a nice day in a local park and, sitting on a chair, with a decent book/guide beside me, I went through all the movements, seeing what each one did and how to achieve it. It really helped.

 

However, and depending on what kind of photography you intend to do, you will find that you don't use tons of movements in most situations. The most common for landscape photographers is forward tilt. I use that, front rise, occasionally some back movements to control overall shape for effect, and front swing the odd time.

[ben conover]

Thanks for all the responses. I do tend to learn theory before hardware so a basic book seems the best way. Seems the Simmons book is highly recommended, I'll get a copy. Tempting to just get stuck in though, so I will have a good look at what the camera does when I have some time.

 

Cheers.