What ever happened to rear swings AND tilts on field view cameras?

[NormaN]

In the 1960s I had a buddy who was the U of Chicago official photographer, the late David Windsor. He had a Kodak 8x10 view camera with rear tilts, but nothing in the front. He told me it took so long to adjust the camera with only rear tilts, that the spectators would get tired and go away. He hired me to add front tilts (using a machine shop), and this addition worked very well for him.

Best wishes --- Allen Anway

Hello Allen

I am curious: was it the all Metal (Magnesium) Camera?

NormaN

[Doremus Scudder]

Alan,

I don't know where you got the notions you espouse here. Some things you say are simply backward. Go back to the experts with an open mind and find out where you went wrong. Strobl's book on view camera movements is the bible, as far as I'm concerned.

Moving the back in relation to the subject planes must, by nature, change the relative sizes of parts of the image. If it did not, how do you explain how tilting the back parallel to the façade of a building can correct convergence of verticals? Call it distortion or perspective or whatever, back movements change the image proportions relative to each other. They do this because they change the lens-to-film and film-to-subject distances relative to different parts of the film plane. The part of the film plane that is moved farther from the lens will have a proportionally larger image and vice versa. This is true whether or not that image is in focus (focus is a different issue). This is not misinformation, it's physics (the physics of projection, to be more precise - related to map projections and the distortions they introduce).

As far as cameras with lack of movements goes: If you need a field camera with full movements, there are plenty out there. All of mine (Wista DX, Wista SW, Zone VI late model and even the lowly Horseman Woodman) have back tilts and swings as well as front tilts and swings, as well as shift on at least one standard. Tachihara and Chamonix also offer field cameras with a full range of movements.

Yes, tilts are often base tilts on field cameras. Bite the bullet and learn how to use them efficiently and quickly. It's the price you pay for light weight and portability. I'm as fast with base tilts as with axis tilts.

FWIW, front movements require MORE coverage than rear; you're displacing the image circle when using front tilts/swings, which means you run out of coverage more quickly than using rear tilts/swings, which stay inside the projected image circle.

If you use rear tilts and swings, however, you are changing the image proportions relative to one another. If this is undesirable, then front movements are the thing to use. If you run out of image circle then a combination of the two is often a good compromise.

Best,

Doremus

[Ulophot]

Doremus, as usual, has explained well.*

Just a note regarding shift, only alluded to in comments above, my own included. In a camera with swing in both front and back standards, shift can be achieved without tilting the camera 90-degrees, by panning the camera and then returning both front and rear standard to their former orientation with respect to the subject. Degrees of travel of swing movement dictate the limits.

For example, if the camera front and back were parallel with a building façade, panning the camera slightly in either direction and then returning the two standards to their position parallel to the façade would effect the same change as a shift.


* (He may have the referenced book, View Camera Technique, in German, accounting for his otherwise inexplicable omission of the two e's in Leslie Stroebel's surname as published stateside. Ist es war, D? Many here can assure you that he spells his landscapes with aplomb.)

[rfesk]

[QUOTE=

Just a note regarding shift, only alluded to in comments above, my own included. In a camera with swing in both front and back standards, shift can be achieved without tilting the camera 90-degrees, by panning the camera and then returning both front and rear standard to their former orientation with respect to the subject. Degrees of travel of swing movement dictate the limits.

For example, if the camera front and back were parallel with a building façade, panning the camera slightly in either direction and then returning the two standards to their position parallel to the façade would effect the same change as a shift."

True - but not available with a field camera with back tilt only if you also need rise. Oh, well you can't have everything unless you choose your camera wisely.

[AA+]

Hello Allen

I am curious: was it the all Metal (Magnesium) Camera?

NormaN

To NormanN: David Windsor's 8x10 Kodak was a wooden bed camera.

Best wishes --- Allen Anway

[Alan Townsend]

Doremus, thanks for the rather lengthy response.

"I don't know where you got the notions you espouse here."

Mostly from the roughly 56 years I've been using view cameras, admittedly sporadically.

"Go back to the experts with an open mind and find out where you went wrong."

I ignore experts, who always have vested interests, whenever productive. I question everything and make my determinations based on experimentation. The "experts" are the ones with closed minds.

"Strobl's book on view camera movements is the bible, as far as I'm concerned"

Yes, and what literature is fuller of fables and fiction than that? All kidding aside, I think it's good for many to have faith, but others seek facts. I suggest referencing a science text.

I don't disagree with very much of your writing. We have different perspectives on view cameras, because you seem to be doing what I do not do, which is photographing buildings or products that have straight lines or right angles at their corners. I photograph in nature, mostly away from humanity. I stated this very clearly several times. If I do photograph things with lines or angles, I really don't care to hide the perspective of my lens. I want my lens to have a perspective. I am not ashamed of it. I have freedom.

I don't think you read or understood my post. So enough of the point by point. I want a camera that is simpler and much better than any I can buy, so I will build it because I can. Better because it does not have a rickety and shaky front standard that is unstable due to all the joints and sliding surfaces that I have no need of.

My main point is that regardless of whether you tilt the front or the back or both, if the film plane is tilted with respect to the lens axis, you will have the same "distortion". We forget that both the object "plane" and the image "plane" are really three-dimensional volumes. The image volume is distorted in the depth direction by the way the lens focuses. This distortion is always present with a lens, but not with a pinhole. It's a non-linear distortion.

You are talking about geometrical distortion; I am talking about volume distortion. You're thinking two dimensionally, I am thinking three dimensionally. Maybe someone will chime in on the fourth dimension.

I am introducing myself to this group through this writing, trying to stimulate conversion. It seems like your job is to correct me and send me back to your school to learn all that you have. I'm glad you know so much about view cameras.

In the future, please read what I write before you start criticizing me.

Thanks again for the input.

[Maris Rusis]

There is a distortion in rectilinear camera images that is not related to camera movements. It arises because the edge of a plane image is further from the exit pupil of the lens than the centre of that image. A classic example is the ugly lateral stretching of a portrait face imaged at the edge of a film format by a very wide angle lens.

[Axelwik]

I ignore experts, who always have vested interests, whenever productive. I question everything and make my determinations based on experimentation. The "experts" are the ones with closed minds.

Do so at your peril. What you say is a myth usually spread by special interests who want to sway the public into doing something that is harmful to the common good, but profitable to those special interests. Be careful making decisions with skin-deep knowledge.

[Alan Townsend]

Axlewik,

I hope your photographic knowledge exceeds your social understanding.

Thanks for the response, even though misguided.

[Alan Townsend]

I want to thank everyone who responded to my post.

The winner of the contest is "Corran" who correctly said, "Any and all movements on one standard can be duplicated at the other, with a commensurate tilt of the entire camera and rise/fall of the standard to compensate if necessary for positional changes of the ground glass. One may have a personal preference as to their operation of a camera or thoughts on the efficacy of certain
movements, of course."

There have been many good thoughtful posts with good information. My memories of my Ansco 5x7 view camera came back to me from some photos that were attached. That camera had only front rise/fall and shifts with no tilts while the rear had centered swings and tilts. I learned to correct for depth of field with rear movements only using that camera. Later, I had a camera with all movements, an old Calumet CC401 with all movements, and with it I learned there is no advantage to the front tilts or swings for my style and type of photography.

This post has deteriorated to where I am being personally attacked for talking about view cameras by someone throwing a bible at me. So I am gone. End of Thread.