movements visible

[Mark Andes]

Ok really dumb beginners question. Will I really be able to tell the effect/affects of various movements of my Tachihara on the ground glass, or will it really take having the film developed to see the movements?

[Ron Marshall]

Mark, you couldn't possibly miss the effect of any but a miniscule movement. Front or rear tilt will effect focus, rear tilt will effect perspective, shift/rise/fall will effect framing.

Get hold of a good book on large format, such as the one by Steve Simmons which will save you lots of film and frustration and get you some keepers much quicker.

Good Luck

[robc]

yes you will be able to see the movements on the ground glass as you make them. If you couldn't you wouldn't be able to check focus across entire screen. Difficult to see into the corners sometimes but with a fast lense and a good ground glass its quite possible. It gets increasingly difficult to see into corners with shorter focal length lenses but again its still possible.

[windpointphoto]

You'll be able to see everything on a wonderfully LARGE view screen. It will be clearly visible. You'll want to use a lupe for fine focusing but overall you'll see it all. This is the real reason it's called large format. You'll have a hard time looking throught the tiny, tiny little 35mm camera in the future. You'll get spoiled very quickly.

[Leonard Evens]

Rise, fall, or horizontal shifts will be immediately visible. These are probably the most useful movements because they determine how you frame the image. Tilting or swinging the back changes the shapes of objects as well as the exact plane of focus. Tilting or swinging the front only affects the exact plane of focus. If your camera has axial tilts, the effects of tilting should be immediately obvious, but with base tilt, they may not be. The reason is that you have to refocus to see the image again, so there is a gap between viewing the start and finish. Also, if you are already in a situation where there is a lot of depth of field, e.g., a short focal length lens focused on a relatively distance subject, you may not see an enormous change in what is in focus. But, generally, if you look closely, you should see the effects of tilt or swing.

[Capocheny]

Mark,

In addition to all the great comments above... buy the book by Jack Dykinga.

It shows the end results of the various movements effected through swings, tilts, rise, fall... in picture form. Plus, the images are pretty decent as well. :) Sells for next to nothing on e**y!

Cheers