Use of rise and fall for landscape photography

[Roger Rouch]

I've learned much of what I know about front movements from the internet, books, or by trial and error. Sometimes I wonder if I might be missing something. To day I ran across a LF web site where the photographer identified the movements u sed for a few landscape photos. Most of these were not the typical near-far sho ts but more intermediate-far. There were no significant number of trees or other objects that might require perspective adjustment to avoid convergence? It woul d appear by my knowing that they would require a small amount of tilt. In nearl y every photo, the photographer indeed used tilt, but also used rise or fall. T his was a surprize to me and now I'm wondering if there is something I'm missing ? Help as always appreciated. (Have a safe New Years.)

[M.]

Roger, would you care to identify the web site you mentioned? Thanks.

[Altaf Shaikh]

Roger you can use rise and fall if you don't want to raise or lower your tripod a little. It simply allows for a quick adjustment which takes the least amount of time. If you get a LF camera these things will become quite natural to you in a few minutes, you won't think about what you need to do, you will just do it.

[Roger Rouch]

The web site is that of Scott Bacon, who is an occational contributor to the photo.net discussions. The photos I'm thinking of are his "recent images". These are the only few photos where this is mentioned. I also think that a number of his photos are 35mm. His address is http://www.naturalorderphoto.com/ I might also well mention that his photos are nice and I appreciate the chance to see them. And also, that I've been using a view camera for about three years now. Just haven't heard of this and it makes sense.

[Doug Paramore]

Roger: I use rise and fall a lot on landscapes as it allows me to quickly place the horizon where I want it. Rise and fall with a bit of front or rear tilt is no problem to accomplish. I often use rear tilt when shooting downward, expecially with wide angle lenses. The back tilt will restore any verticles and also bring the image into focus from near to far. Since you can see the effects on the ground glass, it is a simple process. By raising the front, you can keep the camera horizontal and cut out as much of the foreground as you like for shots with cloud formations, etc. It isn't difficult and it adds to the image.

Happy New Year,

[Erik Ryberg]

I must disagree with Altaf above. Rise and fall accomplishes a lot more than any normal tripod adjustment would. Just do the test: put your camera on a tripod and look at the scene. Raise the lens two inches and look again. Now move the lens back to normal and raise the tripod two inches. There is an enormous difference between two inches of lens rise and two inches of tripod rise. I use rise more than any other movement.

[Hans Berkhout]

When I use rise or fall, it is the last camera movement I do before checking for vignetting and taking the shot. E.g. tilts, swings etc come first.

[Altaf Shaikh]

Erik,

Reread what i wrote.

[Bob Finley]

Roger - I looked at the site you mentioned (nice site) and I too was troubled by the front tilt used in "The Ruby Range" image. It seems counter productive considering the tree on the right side and the lens used. I can understand the use of rise and fall for same reasons as previous posters mentioned. But, I am still on a steep learning curve with 4x5 movements and also wonder if I am missing something or is it just a typo on that particular description.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Roger, When you raise or lower the the lens in relation to the film (some cameras, will allow this to be done with the rear standard), you are essentially recropping the cone of light that the lens projects toward the film. One of the reasons architectural photographers like lenses with generous coverage is so they can do this easily without vignetting the image. When photographing a building, one typically levels the camera so that lens plane, film plane and vertical surface of the building are parallel. This condition will result in the building's sides not appearing to converge. Unfortunately, most times the camera is located at ground level and unless the structure is a single story, some of the building gets lopped off in the ground glass. This is when you have a choice. You can find another building from which you can position your camera at a higher elevation, you can move much further away from the building, you can hire a crane to move you into position midway between street level and the top of the building, OR you can raise the lens of the camera. Assuming the lens has sufficient coverage, this will usually do the trick. If your lens has plenty of coverage, but your camera hasn't enough rise, you can sometimes cheat by tilting the front standard forward and then doing the same with the rear standard, making sure they are still both parallel to each other. You then slowly tilt the camera up until those tilted standards are once again vertical. Now you can do the fine adjustment by raising or lowering the front standard. Helpful hint: When you shoot tall buildings, the mind's eye expects to see some convergence. When it doesn't, the building can actually appear wider at the top than at street level. The building sides being absolutely parallel works best at great distances and in shots where there are no street level objects visible as a reference to altitude. Have a Happy and Healthy New Year, Bob