Front tilt?

[Sean Galbraith]

Why would a front tilt backwards not work for this?

(I'm thinking the opposite of a front tilt forwards, like is used in landscape photography for large depth of field)

[Don7x17]

Tilt on front and back isn't just an issue for tall vertical items in the near region (like trees and buildings and telephone poles, etc)

Two other cases of problems are often seen in images....

1) At a deep hole in the ground, like the Grand Canyon, users standing on the rim will tilt front(or back) to make the near edge of the canyon and the top of the distant edge in focus. They later notice that the bottom of the canyon is now out of focus in the negative/chrome.

2) With near distant mountains, like photographing the Tetons from the Jackson Lake, users will tilt to focus on mountain top and the near shore/water surface. Later they notice the the base of the mountains is out of focus in the negative/chrome.


Always stop down and check your image with a loupe to ensure you don't get nasty surprises much later in the resulting chrome/negative.

We've all done it at one time....

[Don7x17]

Why would a front tilt backwards not work for this?

(I'm thinking the opposite of a front tilt forwards, like is used in landscape photography for large depth of field)

If you were to tilt backwards, the plane of critical focus could be placed from the top of the building to the middle or lower part of the distant building, but then you'd drop out the focus on the bottom of the near building.....so you've just moved the problem.

Stopping down the lens a little further would solve all of these problems, at the expense of a little diffraction as you move beyond f22.

[mdd99]

I would at least try back tilting the front frame, slightly, so that the plane of focus is about 1/3 the way from the top of the near buildings and about 1/3 up from the bottom of the rear building.

See if that doesn't reduce the amount you have to stop down compared with a straight shot with no tilt.

[Sascha Welter]

People are too afraid of the "ghost of diffraction" that goes around and slaps unwary photographers on the hands if they stop down too much. I bet you won't be able to actually see any diffraction at f:32 or even at f:45. But you will see the out of focus areas when you try to tilt to get everything in focus with a wider open diaphragm.

The use of a proper DOF scale like this one on the site we're on can help to avoid the fear of diffraction.

[Thom Bennett]

I would venture to guess that you did in fact have a little tilt on the front standard and did not realize it. That would throw the top corners out of focus. As someone else mentioned, it is very easy to knock the front standard out of whack just enough to affect this.

[Rick Olson]

Sascha ...

Agreed!! I am often in the "ghost diffraction" area of f32-64 to get my complicated 5 x 7 images sharp. I use what it takes to get the shot. To me diffraction is a ghost - I don't see it. Of course, I don't have a scanning electron microscope to check my negatives, so maybe it is there.

Rick

People are too afraid of the "ghost of diffraction" that goes around and slaps unwary photographers on the hands if they stop down too much. I bet you won't be able to actually see any diffraction at f:32 or even at f:45. But you will see the out of focus areas when you try to tilt to get everything in focus with a wider open diaphragm.

The use of a proper DOF scale like this one on the site we're on can help to avoid the fear of diffraction.