Focusing...front or rear or both?

[Bernard Negrin]

Hello again. I am also interested in knowing as to the purpose of front and rear focusing on a LF. Some entry level LFs offer rear only, others front and rear. Is this ver y important? I would think focusing on one standard would be enough (?). Thank s for your help! BRN

[Tony Brent]

From your other posting about doing table top subjects, you will find that a camera that focusses both front and rear standards will be a great help. Generally, you will use the lens standard to set the image size, and the back standard to set the focus. Much easier than moving the whole tripod and camera back and forth just that little bit that you need.

[Doug Paramore]

Tony is correct. Use the back to focus with closeups, front to size the image. At 1-to-1 closeup, not much focusing takes place with moving the front. Also, with long lenses, it becomes very difficult to reach the front focus knob with long bellows extension. This is especially true with 8x10, where you may be using lenses of 20 inchs or more focal length. Saves a lot of stretching. Except for technical cameras, the better ones have rear focus.

Good shooting, Doug.

[Frederick Leif]

Another thought on focus...when you are 'almost' in focus in a close up ... on a monorail type camera, moving the camera back and forth on its tripod mounting block serves as a convenient adjustment as well.