Toyo view focusing

[james silverman]

I have had problems trying to focus with my Toyo view.

I am new to 5x4 and am trying to work out a logical way to focus and there isnt one it seems.

I have tried reading several sights on the internet and in the books I bought it just doesnt seem to be explained.

This is the most important thing i need to work out as I have just about figured out the camera ,loading and processing film and viewing upside down.

I dont have anything on my rail to indicate anything like i have heard about something on sinars...

please could people offer advice that is easy to digest.

I thought after i read something about focus on near and far points and then focus inbetween and stop the lens down...

I thought that i could focus in the center of the scene and shoot at say f32 and everything would be sharp . Is there no rule that i can use so i know every thing is sharp and in focus.

All advice welcome..

thanks in advance

[Gem Singer]

Hi James,

QT's article, "How To Focus The View Camera", right here on this website, is is about as good as it gets.

Steve Simmons' description of focusing a view camera in his book "Using The View Camera", is also excellent. He has also expounded on his focusing technique several times in View Camera magazine.

There are no rules or secrets. As Steve says: " It isn't rocket science". What you see on the ground glass, is what you get on film". It just takes practice, and more practice.

By the way, focusing on the near, then focusing on the far and setting the focus point on the rail 1/2 way between, is not the same as focusing in the center of the scene.

[Leonard Evens]

As Eugene has pointed out, QT's article at this website is quite thorough. However, to use it you should have a scale on the rail. Since your camera doesn't have a scale, you should tape one to it. You can just get yourself a long (15 to 18 inch) plastic ruler with a mm scale on it, cut it down to appropriate side and attach it to the rail with double stick tape.

Then the midpoint rule as explained in the referenced article works. You focus on the furthest point you want in focus, then on the nearest point you want in focus, note the positions on the rail in both cases, and set the standard halfway between them. Since there is bound to be some focusing error in each case, you should probably do this more than once and then take a visual average of the different tries. Use of a 4 X or similar loupe can help.

Just stopping down to f/32 every time doesn't make sense because sometimes that won't be enough and in other cases it will be overkill and result in needlessly long exposures. Subject movement may then lead to lack of sharpness in your image. QT suggests two methods. The method due to Paul Hansma requires the use of a table which you can carry with you and refer to. A simpler method which often works is to calculate the focus spread, i.e., the distance in mm on rail between the near and far points, multiply that by 10 and then divide the result by 2. That is the desired f-number except that it is probably wise to stop down an additional stop or two if subject movement allows.

One problem with this procedure is that in some cases the two points are so close together that you can't accurately measure the focus spread. In that case, the spread is less than 2 mm, which means that you would use f/11 or wider aperture. So by stopping down to f/16 or f/22, you should certainly be okay. But whatever method you use, stopping down to check what is in focus makes sense and often you may want to readjust the focus.

Some people prefer the more visual technique proposed by Steve Simmons. Focus somewhere in the scene and look at the nearest and furthest points you want in focus. Adjust the focus until they look equally out of focus. Then stop down until the nearest and furthest points come into focus. This last part is difficult unless you have a very bright screen and most people won't be able to see anything at f/32 or smaller in any case.

As Eugene points out, you don't want to confuse distance in the scene and distances on the rail. You can use distances in the scene together with depth of field tables to help confirm the methods described above.

Concentrate on these methods until you think you have the knack. Try to avoid using other rules you come upon because although they may be useful for certain purposes they won't usually be generally applicable. For example, one rule of thumb that there should be twice as much rear depth of field ad near depth of field doesn't make sense at all in the common circumstance where there is infinite rear depth of field. It is useful in only very limited circumstances.

P.S. Sinars have an additional scale on the focusing knob. You can improvise one of your own as described in another article at the large format website. Or you can look at what I did as described in my essay
www.math.northwestern.edu/~len/photos/pages/dof_essay.pdf
But that can wait for another day.

[Ralph Barker]

From your comment about your rail, James, I'm assuming you have one of the Toyo monorail models, rather than one of the field cameras. If you look at the square "key" on the top of the rail, you should see a set of unlabeled tick marks that are 1cm (10mm) apart. On mine, there are light marks every centimeter and heavier marks every 5cm. You can use those marks to estimate the distance between front and rear standards when you're setting up. It's helpful to start with the standards separated by a distance approximately equal to the focal length of the lens that is mounted. That will get you close to being in focus at infinity. For example, if you have a 150mm lens mounted, eyeballing a distance between standards of about 150mm (15cm) will put you in the ballpark for infinity. Then, you can refine the focus via the ground glass.

From there, getting what you want in focus to actually be in focus is a matter of which technique you want to use, and whether you're also using any tilts or swings to change the placement or orientation of the plane of sharp focus. Sometimes it works better to leave the focus plane in the normal vertical position (at right angles to the axis of the lens), and use the aperture to control the amount of DOF. In other cases, using tilts and/or swings may work better. That just depends on what is in the scene.

It's also handy to have small DOF tables printed for each of your lenses, or carry a pocket DOF calculator like that made by Rodenstock. That will help you estimate how much DOF a particular aperture will give you at various distances from the lens - assuming you're good at estimating distances of scene elements from the camera (or, carry a laser ranging device).

Most of the time, I use the "visual" method to focus first on the far object, then on the near object, and then split the difference on the rail. After a while, you'll get better at doing that my remembering wrist positions as you focus. With the standard positioned at the mid-point, I then watch the GG while I'm stopping down. Once I've got both extremes sharp on the GG, I'll usually go one stop smaller as a cushion.

For focusing with tilts, I use the "focus-far, tilt near" method. That is, focus first on the far object, then slowly tilt the lens standard until the near object is in focus. That causes the far point to go out of focus due to the increased lens-to-GG distance that results. Refocus on the far, and re-tilt for the near. With each iteration, the difference becomes smaller, so by about the third or fourth iteration you should be right on. When using tilts, however, the DOF essentially becomes a wedge - narrow near the camera and widening farther away, but centered on the plane of sharp focus. As such, you have to watch that the top or bottom of some important element doesn't protrude outside that wedge. If so, then you need to see if a smaller f-stop will handle the problem, or whether you need to rethink where you've placed the focus plane.

As others have said, getting it down just takes practice, combined with a little thought about what you want to achieve in the image.