Advantages of Back Shift

[evan clarke]

Back shift, rise and fall are the best way to fine tune your composition...Evan Clarke

[Brian Ellis]

Don7x17, How does back tilt and swing modify image perspective? Doesn't it just alter image geometry? What am I missing here?

You're not missing anything. People are misusing the word "perspective." I've mentioned this a couple times here and was chastised as a nit-picker so I wasn't going to mention it again but your question perfectly illustrates why it's good to use language correctly. Tilts and swings don't change perspective. The only thing that changes perspective is moving the camera position.

[Don7x17]

Lets not ignore the fact that a combination of front swing/tilt and back swing/tilt creates indirect displacement, which is a means for gaining greater shift than available with just front swing/tilt, etc. So swing/tilt is still relevant in discussions of back shift/rise.

[Andrew O'Neill]

If a camera has front shift then rear shift has no measurable benefit other than allowing greater lateral displacement.

There is measurable difference. Once when I was shooting close to some barbed wire of an old building, I noticed when I shifted the lens, the barbed wire changed its location slightly with the building. Moving the back had no effect. Moving the lens changes the perspective, not the back.

[Don7x17]

There is measurable difference. Once when I was shooting close to some barbed wire of an old building, I noticed when I shifted the lens, the barbed wire changed its location slightly with the building. Moving the back had no effect. Moving the lens changes the perspective, not the back.

Andrew
You've merely repositioned the lens relative to a close subject(barbed wire). You'd see the same effect if you repositioned the tripod with the no movements and the physical location of the lens moved (with the camera and tripod) to match the position you used.

This is not the same as changing the perspective by moving the back (tilt/shift)while the lens stays in the same location. give it a try.

There were several copies of Simmon's Using the View camera for sale recently -- try to find a copy and take a look at the effects.

[Doug Dolde]

You can shoot two sheets to stitch a panorama, almost 4x10 depending on how much shift is avaiable. Just shift full left for one shot then full right for the second.

[drew.saunders]

You'd see the same effect if you repositioned the tripod with the no movements and the physical location of the lens moved (with the camera and tripod) to match the position you used.

That's the main advantage of rear shift for me: sometimes it's difficult to move the tripod just a wee to the left or the right, especially in the field where you may have to fiddle to find a stable position for the tripod, and moving the rear standard is a lot easier.

For this shot: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3660/...f4577d6f_o.jpg I had to find a spot near the fence where the tripod legs were stable (it may be hard to tell, but this cemetery is on a hillside), but it wasn't exactly where I wanted the camera, so I needed a fair bit of rear shift and rise to get the back in the desired position.

Drew

[David Karp]

There is measurable difference. Once when I was shooting close to some barbed wire of an old building, I noticed when I shifted the lens, the barbed wire changed its location slightly with the building. Moving the back had no effect. Moving the lens changes the perspective, not the back.

This is why back shift is useful, even if you have front shift. Front shift is like subtly moving the camera to one side or the other. Back shift is just moving from side to side in the image circle without moving the camera. The former can alter the relationship between the subjects. The latter does not.

This is the reason that unless I need to alter the plane of focus, I prefer to use back movements as much as possible, and why a lightweight monorail is nice, even though harder to pack than a field camera.

[Nicholas F. Jones]

With sufficient image circle, you can shoot a triptych, one zeroed, one full left, one full right. There's some overlap, which could be cropped out, but with an appropriate subject I like to leave it. With less image circle, there'll be vignetting, which I also like to leave if the particular lens's image remains sharp right up to the edge of the IC.

[Andrew O'Neill]

You'd see the same effect if you repositioned the tripod with the no movements and the physical location of the lens moved (with the camera and tripod) to match the position you used.

Yes, but I didn't want to move the tripod. I already had the main comp down but it needed a wee bit of tweaking. Only the back shift could accommodate this without changing the perspective.

Thanks but, I have several books on view cameras (not the Simmons book), and quite a bit of experience using mono-rails and field cameras.