Show me what you can do with LF! (That you can't with smaller formats.)

[monkeymon]

this is a image that could not be done on smaller formats, why? because it's cropped! It's about 24x36 from 9x12 negative. Full frame was the whole person standing... this is the only thing you can't do on any other format... tilts & sift can be done really easily on any format.

i think the really only advance is the look, tonality & detail if printed small, or the capability to print very large or to crop a small part of the image and still be able to print a quality image.

so the real advance is the bigger piece of film and longer focal lengths... doh

and yeah, strange cameras do help also... while taking this photo, people (there were 2 person in the whole frame) were no no no, but when i pulled out my modified patent etui, they got interested

[Steve Sherman]

Impossible to make this photograph without the benefit of moveable lens and film planes.

http://www.steve-sherman.com/vinci04.htm

Very simply put, if the composition is shaped like a cube than the only remedy for depth of focus is F stops. When the shape of the composition takes on a rectangular shape than the plane of focus can be altered via the view camera and it's swings and tilts.

Cheers

[Thom Bennett]

o.k., o.k. so you may be able to do this with a 35mm T/S lens but why would you want to squint through that teeny tiny viewfinder when you can enjoy the luxurious ground glass (or, if using Live View, a large computer monitor) of a view camera?

Did this as a simple example of tilt; one straight on as if using a fixed-back camera and the other with a small amount of tilt to bring the back rows into focus. Same f-stop.

Full disclosure: these were done on a view camera with a LEAF MFD back and Live View but, the point is that the movements were done without squinting through a peephole.

[jp]

Soft focus options...



Each good MF system has at least one soft focus lens option. LF has dozens, and they are all a little different. So soft focus options rather than just one soft focus lens.

[E. von Hoegh]

I’ve been in a few situations when front shift (or back shift) allowed me to compose my scene w/o moving the tripod from its only possible position – like when rocks, trees and cliffs block any other placement. What’s occasionally convenient to me about front shift is the change you can make to viewpoint perspective w/ a stationary tripod (as with front rise & front fall).

But I can do that with my 35mm.

[Brian Ellis]

o.k., o.k. so you may be able to do this with a 35mm T/S lens but why would you want to squint through that teeny tiny viewfinder when you can enjoy the luxurious ground glass (or, if using Live View, a large computer monitor) of a view camera?

Did this as a simple example of tilt; one straight on as if using a fixed-back camera and the other with a small amount of tilt to bring the back rows into focus. Same f-stop.

Full disclosure: these were done on a view camera with a LEAF MFD back and Live View but, the point is that the movements were done without squinting through a peephole.

Live View on a DSLR isn't related to a computer monitor. It's a feature of the camera, i.e. a method of viewing the image (or a 5x or 10x enlargement of the image) on the camera's viewing screen rather through the viewfinder. On many DSLRs today the viewing screen is 2" x 3". Not as large as 4x5 but not all that far off either and much better than squinting through a peephole.

[cyrus]

Frankly i dont consider some of the perspective control functions very nice. Totally straight buildings with no converging lines look so fake and contrived. In any case if you think a 35mm TS lens does that well enuf to substitute for a LF camera why not just do it in PS and skip the TS lens too?

[Mark Sawyer]

You can put any lens you want on a large format camera. Doesn't even have to be a camera lens:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=35097
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=35482

You can also make daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, and glass plate negatives, each having a look of its own.

And the list goes on and on and on...

[Vaughn]

And a view camera makes a great variable 'focal length' pinhole camera!

[tgtaylor]

Well I'm not familiar with T&S lens as I have never owned one. Pentax does make a 75mm TS lens for its 6x7 camera which is well regarded but super expensive (for Pentax lens) and so I never bought one.

With that cavet out of the way I don't believe that a T&S lens would enable you to make the in camera corrections that front and back swings on the view camera do. For example introducing or controlling horizontal convergence by swinging the back, or bringing into focus both faces of an L- shaped object with front swing.

In other words I don't believe T&S lens swing! and as in the song: "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."

Thomas