How to focus a view camera

[Luke_R]

hi Luke

i hate to suggest this but sounds like a little experimentation is needed to find your own warm and fuzzy place.
paper negatives are cheap, and easy... if you go out on a gray / overcast day you won't get nutty contrast
( or put a printing filter over your lens or use expired paper [base fog can be your friend] )
make a few exposures rating your paper at IDK iso 12 or 6 ... and do a couple of methods ...
complicated formulae, calculators, swings/tilts to see what works best for you.
me? i usually wing it.. focus about 1/2 way inbetween and it seems to work OK,
i've never stopped down beyond f22 (always seeme a bit overkill )
and everything from my shoes to infinity have always been in focus.

john
ps.
what lens are you using ? a WA optic might be your friend ...

Hi John,

Sorry for the late reply.

I have been using a 90, 150 and 300mm.

You're right, DOF is much easier to control with the 90mm, but I find myself shooting more detailed shots recently. If there are multiple planes to contend with it still takes a while to compose but I am really enjoying the challenge.

F22 seems to be a great sweet spot for my lenses, but I do tend to be at F32 when I have to.

Cheers for your reply.

Luke

[Luke_R]

Hello Luke,

Adding to the good recommendations in the other posts, I would suggest you make a technical approach to it.

Here you have an App (free) for the smartphone I'm very happy with: DOF by Jonathan Sachs https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...athansachs.dof

Attachment 184211

It calculates the Circle of Confusion for any object distance, focus distance and aperture. You need also to be aware of the diffraction limitation in the resolving power for each aperture: https://kenrockwell.com/tech/diffraction.htm

Many times you won't need any calculation, any table or any App to obtain a perfectly sharp shot, but what I suggest to you is that with the tools I've pointed you try to make some technically optimal shots, knowing how much resolving power you have in any spot of the scene you are interested in. This would be in the size or the CoC or in line pairs per mm.

After you make that excercise (making some technically optimal shots) you will have the skills to nail a perfect sharpness in any situation.

The complicated thing about LF focus is not acquiring the skills I'm pointing, but managing tilt-swing to creatively focus or defocus what you want for aesthetics, this is where true masterly relies !!!!

But first is learning to make technically optimal shots, IMHO if you take this learning way you'll gain that knowledge in two weeks and for ever.

Led me add a cheap way to practice all that:

> Locate a suitable scene to practice

> With DOF calculator and diffraction table establish a focus management solution

> Take a DSLR with a zoom, set the same focal, focus point and aperture you would use with the view camera. The DSLR won't take all the scene, but that's irrelevant

> From the point of view (with those settings) take shots pointing to different objects in the scene, you'll have partial crops of the scenes

> Analyze the result in the PC and repeat if you are not satisfied.

The DOF from the DSLR lens will be similar to the LF lens at same aperture/focal, but the DSLR has a lot of resolving power for the crop so you will see what you have done.


This is the learning way I used to understand the intrinsics of that, as I was recommended, and I think I can recommend it again.

Regards,
Pere

Hi Pere,

Thank you very much for your detailed reply.

I am going to take your advise and try out setting up with a DOF calculator/diffraction table and see how I get on. I feel I have been getting to grips with my focussing but this was may gel with me more.

Much appreciated.

Luke

[Luke_R]

I like this guys books. Lot's of examples, pictures and some math. Just takes a bit to wrap your head around it as it is a different way of thinking about focus and how to achieve what you want.

www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/FVC161.pdf

Hi Steven.

Thank you for the reply, I will take a look at the book you recommend.

Luke

[Luke_R]

I would only add that if you have access to a larger camera, say an 8x10, even temporarily, you will be able to see more clearly what you're doing and how movements work visually, which knowledge you can then transfer to the smaller camera. In my brief stint using 4x5 I had a hard time seeing well what I was doing, but the moment I switched to 810 it all became much easier and intuitive. I would try to keep it visually clear as much as possible.

Hi,

I have never used an 8x10 but would love to view the GG under the dark cloth, sometimes the 4x5 seems a bit cramped - don't know how the digital guys do it!

Cheers

Luke

[Luke_R]

Here is all you wanted to know in easy words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR4m70xr9mE

That was very interesting, thanks you.

[Luke_R]

I do realize that good things take time.....but Luke has not said a *bleep* in over 6 months.

Les

I apologise for my late replies Les, first time I checked this and I saw your reply.

Luke

[arca andy]

Hi everyone,

First of all, I would like to say that I have tried to find the answer to my question on multiple sites previously.

I mainly shoot landscape images and am trying to make sure my technique is correct for optimising placement of sharp focus and aperture selection.

I have been reading the wealth of information provided by this site but have a question I require confirmed.

In the example given I have a 1m rock in the foreground and a 1000m mountain in the background. My technique so far has been to focus on positions 1/3 way up rock and 1/3 way up mountain and then stop down until everything I require is in sufficient focus. This procedure makes sense to me because the depth of field behind the plane of sharp focus remains double the distance of depth of field in front.

The procedure I have been reading states that after working out the optimum tilt, I would adjust focussing point - measuring with a metric scale point A (top of the foreground rock), point B (base of background mountain) - then focussing at a median of A/B. In my head this would place my line of sharp focus half way up the rock in the foreground and the mountain in the background which goes away from what I know about focus spread.

Could someone please clarify if the procedure stated out above would place the line of sharp focus half way up the rock and mountain and is so, why would you require that over 1/3.

Many thanks

Luke

I used to spend hours under a dark cloth with a lope, re-checking focus, not any more!
Think of your focus as a slice through space, you can vary that slice with the position of the camera and/or the position of the camera's lens and film planes. You can then vary the thickness of that slice through space with aperture.
Before even setting up your camera visualize your final photo, imagine where your slice through space (focus) is going to be within that image and then decide how thick that slice is going to be. You then try and achieve it with your camera using movements and aperture. This works for me, also a cheap pair of reading glasses from your local supermarket helps when under your dark cloth.
Have fun
Andy

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I used to spend hours under a dark cloth with a lope, re-checking focus, not any more!
Think of your focus as a slice through space, you can vary that slice with the position of the camera and/or the position of the camera's lens and film planes. You can then vary the thickness of that slice through space with aperture.
Before even setting up your camera visualize your final photo, imagine where your slice through space (focus) is going to be within that image and then decide how thick that slice is going to be. You then try and achieve it with your camera using movements and aperture. This works for me, also a cheap pair of reading glasses from your local supermarket helps when under your dark cloth.
Have fun
Andy

This is what I do essentially. I use a loupe and still check everything. It is just me. Nothing I hate more than thinking I nailed it to get back, develop and go crap, I missed. On the other hand if you know your lens/camera well enough, and you pic the two points you want for sure in focus (defines angle of plane of focus) and know how your depth of field varies along that plane, you can pick an f-stop that will give you what you want. Remember as well, the plane of focus pivots on a point directly beneath the lens at a point in-between the front and rear cell. Hopefully if the pivot point is centered at the optical axis, this point is there two.

Your depth of field varies from this point out into the scene as a wedge, growing ever wider the farther from the lens you get. Also, I set initial focus with front standard and fine tune with back so I don't alter the composition.

[Kerosene Hat]

I recommend reading Using the View Camera by Steve Simmons, as well as taking a LF workshop. Steve also hosts workshops that are very reasonably priced and advertised on Facebook. There are other workshops, of course, but they are increasingly tough to find these days. Don't be hard on yourself; as others have said here are hundreds of things that can go wrong, and anyone who ever says they didn't make that mistake is lying.

[Michael Kadillak]

Easiest solution is to hook up with someone that has a wealth of experience in large format who is willing to assist you in the field. Take plenty of notes and immediately process the film and print the results and you will be amazed at how quickly you pick up the critical variables that are challenging to garner third party from a book. Books are great reference materials but the physical exercise of making a photograph in the field stays with you for a very long time. The other component to the mentor recommendation is to hone in on good habits from the get go.