Shooting in between candid and posed portraits with 4x5

[pjm1289]

Hi there,

I have been shooting with electronic strobe for about 2 years. I recently purchased a Toyo-View 45CF back in Deccember and after shooting more than my share of static ("hold really still!") photos for a while, I am itching to make some semi-candid images like I would make with my RZ67.

I read that I can shoot at f22 and above with the 4x5 where the subject can move a relative amount (therefore not employing the "hold really still!" method of shooting). I am too cheap to purchase a "bright screen" ground glass. So basically, can I focus at f5.6 then move the aperture to f22, load the ready-load, then wait for the moment that I want to shoot?

Thanks!
Paolo

[Walter Calahan]

May be. All depends on the variables.

How much is your subject moving in the scene?

Camera to subject distance?

Lens focal length?

To name a few.

[David A. Goldfarb]

At f:22 with a 210mm lens on 4x5" and the subject at about two meters, the DOF zone is about 30 cm, so the subject can't, say, dance wildly around the set, but they can sit comfortably.

[Alan Davenport]

You can stop down to whatever your flash is bright enough to light...

[Ed Lajoie]

One of the benefits of shooting with a flash is that the flash is actually making the exposure and the duration of the flash is very short. Increase the intensity of the flash so you can use a small aperture. Keep the ambient light in the room very low. This should produce some sharp images even of slightly moving subjects.

When shooting children under six years of age, place them in a chest freezer for about an hour and a half before the sitting. This slows them down and makes them malleable. Good luck. BTW, don't use your longest lens. A 150mm will give you plenty of focus fudge room.

[David A. Goldfarb]

When shooting children under six years of age, place them in a chest freezer for about an hour and a half before the sitting. This slows them down and makes them malleable.

Or use a Graflex. Melchi's 15 months old in this available light shot made with a 5x7" Press Graflex and 210/3.5 Xenar. Strobes would be awkward with this camera (open flash or rigging something up), but it's very quick to focus and shoot.

[Murray]

Re: focus @ 5.6 then stop down to 22

I hope this add-on question helps the OP as well as me...



On older lenses prone to focus shift when changing apertures, is it a problem going from open to stopped down or vice versa (or both)?

Also, is there a general rule for lenses that can't be 'trusted' in this regard? (I assume if it's not achromatic or APO it may have this quirk).

Thanks

[David A. Goldfarb]

"Focus shift" is usually an illusion related to spherical aberration, so I don't think being an apochromatic lens makes a difference. Chromatic aberration isn't changed by stopping down the lens. What's happening is that the image formed by the rays entering at the edges of the front element of the lens focuses at a different plane than the rays entering the center of the element, and when you stop down, you only get the rays at the center, so focus may seem to shift between the two planes as you stop down.

How strong this effect is depends on the lens and on the way you read the groundglass image, and you've just got to test to see how your lens works in this regard, and what you personally see when focusing and stopping down.

Dagors supposedly suffer from focus shift, but I don't particularly notice it that much, if at all, and I check with a loupe at the shooting aperture. Maybe I'm just not distracted by the out of focus secondary image for whatever reason.

Soft focus lenses are kind of about focus shift, so you always need to evaluate the image at the shooting aperture.

I notice quite a bit of focus shift with some converted lenses, where there is one cell behind the iris and no front cell.