Problems focusing my Tachihara

[coops]

Recently got a nice use Tachihara 4x5, my first ever film camera, and had a few shots drum scanned. The distant areas of the image were not as sharp as I thought they were, and am a little confused as to how to focus. I shoot landscapes.
A few tutorials I did read required the rear standard be tilted back a little, but I don't think this camera does that. I think I understand the concept of the Scheimpflug principle, but doing it is driving me nuts.
Of course I live in Florida and it must get to be 175 degress under the blackcloth and my glasses fog up, but I am willing to keep at it but would like to hear what steps you guys to get the best focus.

Cheers

[Glenn Thoreson]

I rarely use any camera movements for landscape photos. A depth of field chart for the lens you're using may be helpful. Barring that, find your principal object of interest, focus on that aand stop down to at least f/16. No principal object in the scene? No problem. Focus about a third of the way into the scene and stop down. You will find you need to stop down to smaller apertures with large format than with small formats in order to get the depth you want. Stops of f/22 and smaller are the norm for a lot of things. Tilting the back affects perpective. Tilting the front will affect the close object focus as much as anything. You still need to stop that lens down. Have fun!

[Bill_1856]

Forget Scheimpflug! Just get a good loupe to check the ground glass, and close the aperture down far enough to give the depth of field you want.

[coops]

Forget Scheimpflug!

Who?? Thanks guys, good advice. I am trying to make things more difficult than they should be.

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, the tachihara does have tilts on back. Loosen the two knobs that allow the back to tilt and push them out of the zero detents with your thumbs. Just practice a while and you'll get it. It really is kind of a fun thing when you realize you can get near and far in focus at the same time!

Jon

[Bill_1856]

http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/dofcalc.html

[Ken Lee]

Practice indoors, using near/far objects on a table top. Some times, you will want to combine tilt with other movements.

In this image, made with a Tachihara and a 150mm lens, it was necessary to use some tilt, swing and shift - in order to get everything in focus. If you look carefully, you see that the camera is actually looking off to the right, not straight ahead. The plane of focus goes from the lower left-hand corner, to the upper right-hand corner. I put the grass in focus at one extreme, and the building in focus at the other. Stopping down to f/22 was enough to bring the rest into focus.

The image was shot at f/22, to use the best aperture of the lens, rather than stopping down all the way. That's why we go to the trouble of carrying these cameras around: they give us view camera movements. And we some times pay good money to get good lenses, which generally perform best a few stops from wide open - not past their limit of diffraction. f/64 may be fine for contact printers, but not always ideal for the rest of us.

Once you get the "swing" of it, you will have a lot more fun. You want to practice enough so that when you're in the field, it's second nature. When shooting the image above, I had to perform all of the movements in quick time, since the light and the fog was changing rapidly. That was not the time to learn about the camera, but rather to be shooting.

Instead of a loupe, a pair of strong reading glasses on a string, can be very handy, and not as easy to lose, misplace, or drop. They just hang from your neck, there when you need them. You can get them at an affordable price, at your local pharmacy.

[Adam Kavalunas]

Who ever says to forget movements is ridiculous. There are 2 main advantages to shooting LF, a large film area, and movments. Throw one away, and you're wasting half the camera! I use a Tachi. Loosen the back knobs, hold the back of the camera with your thumbs, pull in the rear guides towards you, like you're trying to pinch the guide and the back together, and it will release and allow you to tilt the back standard forward and backward. I also recommend getting a good loupe atleast 4x and checking the GG before you take your shot to make sure that as much as possible is in focus (if that's your goal).

Adam

[svlindbe]

Instead of a loupe, a pair of strong reading glasses on a string, can be very handy, and not as easy to lose, misplace, or drop. They just hang from your neck, there when you need them.

Ken, I have a pair of reading glasses. My experience is, they are more useful on my nose than dangling from my neck... :-) It is possible I have missed something, but I find it easier to view the whole focusing screen (4x5") at once for evaluating sharpness than using a loupe. A pair of glasses for short distance focusing are very useful.

Svein

[Bill_1856]

Who ever says to forget movements is ridiculous.

That's strange -- I don't FEEL ridiculous.
Have a look at Coop's excellent wildlife portfolio, with its superb use of selective focus. I don't think that he needs to consider the formulistic Scheimpflug approach to depth of field, since he obviously has already developed a more than satisfactory visual approach.
Landscape photography, particularly here in Flat Florida, doesn't take a lot of "movements." If, in the unlikely event that stopping down isn't enough, then just a couple of degrees of front tilt with the lens, or back tilt with the film is all which is ever required (neither of which is easily available on my Crown Graphic).