Hi
I would be very grateful for any advice on how to obtain adequate depth of firld with my field camera. I am using a Tachihara 5 x 4 camera and on this occasion a Fuji 135mm f 5.6 wide-angle lens. I attach a photo taken with my phone of the subject. The camera to subject distance was about five feet. The camera was pointed down at an angle of about 40 degrees. The exposure was 1/15 at f32 and was taken on Ilford FP4+. The focus point was on one of the central logs.

When I processed the negative I was disappointed to see that the foreground was not adequately shorp and the background even more so. The centre section was pin sharp.

I have read the relevant section Ansel Adams' book 'The Camera' until I think I could recite it word for word ! Initially, I tried levelling the back plate until it was vertical, as suggested in the Master's book as the correct technique when the camera is pointed down. However, I was totally unable to acquire any kind of satisfactory focus when focusing on the ground glass. In the end I gave up trying to use movements at all and simply hoped that f32 would provide sufficient depth of field. I tried stopping down the lens when checking the focus, but obviously it's hard to see clearly at f32.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thanks

Andrew BennettClick image for larger version.  Name: logpile.jpg  Views: 97  Size: 235.5 KB  ID: 202518