Tilt/dof question

[h2oman]

I just received the most recent issue of Outdoor Photographer, which contains an interesting image (in a technical sense, at least) by Jack Dykinga on page 85. The foreground is a pile of rocks on the edge of a cliff (in the Grand Canyon), and the background is the canyon and river below. It seems that if the camera was level a huge amount of tilt would be needed to get the plane of focus oriented through the rocks and the canyon below. It also seems a lot of rise/fall would be needed as well to get the view downward. I'm guessing the camera was pointed down quite a bit, with moderate amounts of front and/or rear tilt.

Since I'm relatively new to this business, I was wondering if anyone else had any advice/ideas for focusing such a shot.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Without seeing the shot, it's hard to say, but camera pointing down and a little front forward tilt or rear backward tilt (for a more dramatic near/far effect) sounds about right.

Here's one of mine, so I know what I did.--



I'm standing on one rock, and I want to get the distant rocks center and left as well as the surface of the water all in focus. I'm using a 75mm lens on 4x5" for a strong near/far effect. The camera is pointed downward, and I used just one or two degrees of front forward tilt to bring the foreground rock and the distant rock in focus and stopped down to tighten it all up.

With a wide lens, you don't need much, and looking down into the Canyon, Dykinga may have just stopped down without using any tilt, since everything wouldn't lie so neatly in a single plane as it did in my composition.

[Tom Conway]

David: Thanks for a succinct description and recommendation. You said a lot in two short paragraphs and one photo! Tom Conway.

[h2oman]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, David. Your input is greatly appreciated.

[Leonard Evens]

I just received the most recent issue of Outdoor Photographer, which contains an interesting image (in a technical sense, at least) by Jack Dykinga on page 85. The foreground is a pile of rocks on the edge of a cliff (in the Grand Canyon), and the background is the canyon and river below. It seems that if the camera was level a huge amount of tilt would be needed to get the plane of focus oriented through the rocks and the canyon below. It also seems a lot of rise/fall would be needed as well to get the view downward. I'm guessing the camera was pointed down quite a bit, with moderate amounts of front and/or rear tilt.

Since I'm relatively new to this business, I was wondering if anyone else had any advice/ideas for focusing such a shot.

Tilting the back down, or equivalently turning the camera downward is certainly one possibility.

But it is also possible to have the exact subject plane tilted downward with the camera level. How steeply it can tilt downward is limited only by how close you can get the standards. With a bag bellows you might be able to go pretty far down. Of course, as you point out, to include the near foreground in the frame, in that case, might require a very large rise of the back.

Dykinga uses a camera which would probably enable him to do both. But he also is quite willing to tilt the back where necessary.