How to focus a view camera

[Tin Can]

Easy to suggest and is a good idea.

But not always possible.


I learned most skills from books and have never found a mentor for anything especially photography.

Now where is my muse...

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.

[Doremus Scudder]

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.

Steven,

Three points define a plane. If you are using both swing and tilt, then you really need to carefully pick three focus points; two will get you by if you are only using one movement. However, choosing points for placing the plane of sharp focus is only part of the process. You also need near and far points, i.e., the optically nearest and farthest points you want to be in sharp focus. With movements applied, these can be in places that are somewhat counter-intuitive, e.g., under the plane of sharp focus if you use tilt, etc.

To elaborate on what I wrote earlier: I often like to choose an initial plane of sharp focus that contains two (or three) "near" points, say the nearest point on the ground in the scene and the nearest high point, such as a treetop or top of a near building or sign. Once the tilts/swings are applied for placing the near plane in focus, I use that position as "near." Then I simply find the furthest element in the scene from that plane and focus on it, using that position as the "far." I use the total distance between near and far to choose the optimum aperture and position the focus at the halfway point on the camera bed/rail.

You make a good point about knowing how the depth of field changes with distance, but if you use the near-far method, you can usually be assured that everything you want sharp will be (assuming, of course, that you are choosing the optimum aperture for the focus spread you have).

Best,

Doremus