Need Advice on View Camera Movements

[JWaldinger]

Hey everyone,

I am new to LF and new to this forum! I am still understanding when to use certain movements such as front/rear swing, tilt etc. I took this shot yesterday, It is literally my first 4x5 chrome shot on provia 100f at f/32. When I got the slide back I noticed that the pilars (highlighted in white) were not in total focus. After going online to find out the effects that certain movements had, I thought that this particular composition would call for a front swing movement to get the desired focus to be perfect. Is this a correct assumption? I would not want to alter the composition as it stands now, and if I were to do a front swing, would I focus on the pilars and stop down or focus on the power plant as I had done in this photo?

thanks in advance.

-j

[Robert Hughes]

Greetings, j, and welcome to the view camera world. As you say, I would give it a bit of tilt/swing to put the foreground into focus. Have you read through the articles on the LFPhoto home page? I found these to be excellent sources of information.

[Kirk Gittings]

J,
Glad you made it here. I hope you get some help. I don't have the time to comment much right now but just note that most T/S with a VC are really small adjustments.

[Kirk Gittings]

Greetings, j, and welcome to the view camera world. As you say, I would give it a bit of tilt/swing to put the foreground into focus. Have you read through the articles on the LFPhoto home page? I found these to be excellent sources of information.

Slight tilt forward of the front standard to put the foreground in focus (tilt the back and you will disturb the leveling) and very slight swing of the back counter clockwise?

[JWaldinger]

Slight tilt forward of the front standard to put the foreground in focus (tilt the back and you will disturb the leveling) and very slight swing of the back counter clockwise?

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for the reply! Just for my own knowledge, what would happen to the image if a front swing clockwise were used instead of a rear counterclockwise swing?

thanks!

[Robert Hughes]

J, you may want to track down a copy of "The Camera" by Ansel Adams - available in almost any library. He has whole chapters devoted to camera movements.

[JWaldinger]

J, you may want to track down a copy of "The Camera" by Ansel Adams - available in almost any library. He has whole chapters devoted to camera movements.

Haha thanks Robert, its actually in transit as we speak! In the meantime Ive been scouring the net to find info on movements and have been successful to an extent, but there's still some things that are a bit hairy to me....

[William McEwen]

A good rule is to start with everything at zero.

Camera and tripod are level, and no swings or tilts.

And as Kirk said, most of the time you need very little adjustment.

[jeroldharter]

You can swing either the front or the back. I have an asymmetrical rear swing on my camera which is really easy to use/focus so I lean toward rear movements (which are sometimes easier to reach on an 8x10 also). A little front tilt can help with depth of field. however, if you have objects between the foreground and the background like trees or other verticals, then tilts mess up the focus on what's in the middle and require a lot of stopping down.

One thing I never remember: should you swing before you tilt?

[dave_whatever]

I don't think swing would help in this shot - yes you'd get the fence in focus but i recon you'd lose the factory bigtime. I recon just tilt and a bit of stopping down would see you home and dry in this case.