Portrait question

[mjmoore]

Brand new to LF - may be a dumb question - I have an 8x10 camera with 300mm 5.6 lens - I want to shoot a waist up portrait with the eyes of the subject completely in focus - hands and torso completely out of focus - I do not want to turn my subjects head into unnatural shape. Do I tilt the front standard forward/backwards or the rear std forward/backwards - or does it matter???

Thanks in advance.

Michael

[BrianShaw]

Why not lean your subject forward, like a figurehead on an old sailing ship? That would do it easier.

But I think you need to consider tilting one of the standards foward/backward rather than up/down.

Try it... you'll figure out the difference very quickly by looking at the GG.

[mjmoore]

Why not lean your subject forward, like a figurehead on an old sailing ship? That would do it easier.

But I think you need to consider tilting one of the standards foward/backward rather than up/down.

Try it... you'll figure out the difference very quickly by looking at the GG.



Thanks Brian - I meant forward/backward - i shot my first 8x10 yesterday - tilted the lens up - I just wanted to see if there
was a difference btw the front and rear std's - (not wanting to make my subjects head change shape)

[Joseph Dickerson]

Rear movements control focus plane and shape (perspective). Front movements control focus plane only. So using the front tilt/swings is this thing to do.

JD

[mjmoore]

Rear movements control focus plane and shape (perspective). Front movements control focus plane only. So using the front tilt/swings is this thing to do.

JD

Thank you very much Joseph - appreciate the info!

M

[Randy]

Keep in mind when tilting the lens, depending on how much coverage your lens provides, you may run out of coverage and get darkened corners in the print. If you tilt the camera back, you will avoid the loss of lens coverage. I prefer to tilt the camera back on my 8X10...mainly because my camera has no tilts on the front :)