Strange focus question

[photonsoup]

Being new to LF, I'm still learning, I can't however figure out why the weeds in the foreground are sharply in focus, the truck is in focus, but the stick and weeds between them are out of focus. Any Ideas?



I thought it might be the lens, but its not in any other pictures. This was 135mm xenar at f11 if I recall correctly. (I should take notes, but I would have to remember one more thing. Since I forgot my darkcloth and had to freeze while I used my coat, minor details like notes are gonna have to wait!)

And since I'm asking questions:

It is the most inexpensive film you can buy, could it be a low quality film issue?

How would I make the sky look better? The late afternoon sun was directly behind me.

How could this be composed better?

How do you upload pictures so that they are full size in the post instead of thumbnails?

any and all critiques are happily welcomed

[jp]

The focus issues like that can happen if your lens is tilted. (or things aren't generally vertical on the camera). Some people do this on purpose, and some of them to the point of it being cliche. If the front and back of the camera are plumb, you won't have this problem.

Composition isn't a large format question, but you'll learn to think about that more as you spend lots of time processing film and lugging heavy tripods/cameras and demanding commensurate results.

For the sky, filters can help some, but you often just need to plan ahead or be flexible to be around when the sky is what you had in mind.

If you use flickr or a webhost for your photos, you can paste the URL into the 2nd tab of the photo inserter and it will show up as it does on flickr or the webhosting site.

[C. D. Keth]

You have some tilt applied. Take stock of what is sharp and imagine the plane that cuts through all those parts:

-the weeds in the foreground are sharp
-the lower half of the near face of the cab is sharp
-the far a-pillar is sharp
-the top of the trees is sharp but not the bottom

[Peter Gomena]

This kind of problem gets better with practice. You have chosen a fairly difficult subject. In fact, if you want both the foreground and the top of the truck sharp, it's really difficult. You may not be able to get the grass and all of the truck sharp.

It appears you have applied a bit too much tilt, and as close as you are to the truck, f/16 probably isn't stopped-down enough to pull focus on the whole object. You're not parallel to the truck, either, and if it's a press Xenar, your lens barely covers 4x5, so there's not a lot of extra image circle to play with.

I'd suggest working with the lens wide open and experimenting with front swings and tilts. Try to get as much in focus as you can without stopping down, and then stop down, way down, say to f/32.

It takes a lot of practice. You'll get there.

[ic-racer]

Being new to LF, I'm still learning, I can't however figure out why the weeds in the foreground are sharply in focus, the truck is in focus, but the stick and weeds between them are out of focus. Any Ideas?

If you did not do that on purpose, then your center detent or marker on the front tilt is way off.

[ImSoNegative]

I remember when I was starting out in LF, i would play around with the different movements and watch how the image would change on the GG, I remember getting on the GG what you are talking about here, foreground sharp, background sharp, in between blurry, ha.. only with a view camera

[Jim Cole]

I remember when I was starting out in LF, i would play around with the different movements and watch how the image would change on the GG, I remember getting on the GG what you are talking about here, foreground sharp, background sharp, in between blurry, ha.. only with a view camera

Yeah, I have a few trannies of that exact problem from my first year with LF. I was usually using too much tilt and paying attention to the foreground and background without really looking at the middle. First time you see it you say, "what the ...?".

[photonsoup]

Thanks everybody. I broke out THE BOOK last night and reviewed the section on movements. I had read it carefully a couple of times before, but it's still weird to actually see it happen. It's such a paradigm shift it's hard to wrap my head around it! Like I said I was really cold and didn't notice the out of focus sections on the glass, just paying attention to the center of the truck.

I knew that there are different things I could do with focus on LF, but when it happened it was strange.

Lesson learned:
The advantage of large format is you can control the different areas of focus.
The disadvantage of large format is you have to control the different areas of focus.

[Kirk Fry]

Use a Loupe, look around the image on the ground glass and see what is in focus. Folks like various powers from 4 to 8X. Cheap ones work fine.