learning to shoot 4x5

[Rick Heitman]

I am just getting into 4x5. I have been shooting since 87 and went to 4x5 3 months ago. This is the funnest camera I have ever had. I am needing to know if anyone knows of a good book to buy to help me explain what the tilts and swings help to do. I know the basics of tilt and swing, but my camera says yaw free on the base and when I tilt the lens on axis or base tilt I am not smart enough to see what the difference it is doing. Thanks and I really appreciate anyones help. also I am in denver so if anyone else is please email , I would love to go with someone just to learn more. thanks

[Kirk Gittings]

My kids live in Denver and Colorado Springs so I get up there a few times a year. I'll look you up on one of my trips.

[Capocheny]

Hi Rick,

I found the following books to be very useful in my "enlightening" process:

1. Larry Stone - Using the View Camera 2. Jack Dykinga - Large Format Photography (I think this is the name... )

The first book helped me grasp the concept of planes and how they interact with the principle of Scheimpflug, which is necessary for getting things into sharp focus.

The second book was great in that it had pictures and the techniques used to "get" the picture.

You should also read the following thread:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/499284.html

Good luck on the journey to the joys/pains of large format photography.

Cheers

[Bruce Watson]

There is always:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info

which might save you the trouble of buying books. That said, the Strobel book is highly regarded. I found the Kodak publication No. O-18 Photography with Large-Format Cameras helpful, especially the illustrations explaining tilts and swings.

Good luck, and patience. There's some work involved in learning to use a view camera, but I think we'd all agree it's well worth climbing the learning curve.

[Ralph Barker]

I also have Stroebel's "View Camera Technique" and the Kodak booklet - both are helpful. Additionally, if you want to delve into the underlying science and math, you might find Harold Merklinger's "Focusing the View Camera" interesting.

As mentioned, there are several articles on the basics of view camera use found on the home page of this site that provide most of the information needed to get started.

[David A. Goldfarb]

And there's also Ansel Adams's _The Camera_, and Steve Simmons's _Using the View Camera_, which covers most of the basics.

[Ernest Purdum]

The Stroebel book is titled "View Camera Technique". It is the most comprehensive, but is expensive, and some complain that it is less readable than the others. There is also Shaman, "The View Camera".



Save worrying about "yaw free" for later. The basic difference between base and axia tilts is that a little more focus correction will be needed when using base tilt.

[Leonard Evens]

The references others gave you should help. Using the View Camera by Steve Simmons is the best simple introduction. Jim Stone's book has a lot on tilts and swings, and Stroebel's book is the most comprehensive.

Let me try to summarize briefly what happens with tilts and swings because it is hard to find all the pertinent facts in one place.

Let me explain assuming you focus by moving the rear standard. If you move the front standard instead, it works essentially the same way, with minor differences. I'll also concentrate on tilts.

When the lens plane (board) and image (film) plane are parallel, there is one plane out in the scene which is in exact focus, and it too is parallel to both lens and film planes. When you tilt the lens the exact subject plane shifts. But something called the Scheimpflug Rule says that the image plane, the lens plane and the exact subject plane intersect in a single (horozontal) line. (Remember that ordinarily, three planes intersect just in a common point if they have a common intersection at all. So this is a very special configuration.) This should be adequately explained in any of the above references. You should spend some time with your camera trying to visualize all this.

There is one important other fact which is explained by Merklinger, but unfortunately not very clearly. There is another (horizontal) line some distance (usually) below the lens called the hinge line. As you move the rear standard back and forth, the subject plane rotates about the hinge line. At the same time, if the lens tilt is fixed, the Scheimplug line moves up and down in the image plane as the rear standard is moved forward or back.

On the other hand, if you keep the rear standard fixed and change the tilt, then both the Scheimplug line and hinge line will move, up if you increase the tilt, and down if you decrease the tilt.

Swings work the same way except these lines are vertical instead of being horizontal. If you combine tilts and swings, the relevant lines will be at some different angle to the vertical or horizontal.

Try visualizing those lines and planes as you tilt the lens and move the standard(s). In discussions of this, most of the emphasis is placed on what happens when you tilt, and moving the standard(s), i.e. focusing, is mentioned just in passing. But both play equal roles in determining just where the exact subject plane will be.

As someone else mentioned, yawing is a secondary issue, which you can ignore for the present.

After you've mastered that, there is the issue of determining just what will be in adequate focus at a given f-stop, i.e., depth of field. That is also not too difficult, but I will save it for another day.

[Rich Long]

Rick -

If you shoot landscapes and nature at all, check out the forum at www.colorado.naturephotographers.net. There are at least 6 or 8 of us there who shoot 4x5, and some portion of the group (including 35mm and MF shooters) gets together frequently. I'm pretty sure there are some Denver 4x5 shooters who will be chiming in here, also.

I think the Dykinga book referenced above is actually "Large Format Nature Photography".

[Rich Long]

Oops. No need for the 'www' on the address above. It's just http://colorado.naturephotographers.net