I’m not that surprised you found it difficult to use swing and tilt simultaneously. It is not that straight forward. Tilt and swing each reduce depth of field but they are not independent either. They combine to give you a new shape of the depth of field. Suppose you have a receding subject like a flat road, and a wall along one side of the road. One might assume you can just figure out a tilt for the road and then swing for the wall. Doesn’t work that way.

One thing that can be worth doing to practice with movements when you aren’t out photographing, is to set up little scenarios on a table. You can use things like newspaper, pencils, anything. Light it so it is easy to see what is in/out of focus on the ground glass, and just try things. Near/far planes, vertical objects in foreground, background etc.

Quote Originally Posted by AdamD View Post
Michael R, no $hit lost here. I always like your feedback. Thank you.

Another excellent catch!! I love that you point this out because this was NOT intended in any way. I agree it was caused by too much tilt which easily through out the vertical in the fence. Yeah maybe I can get away with that here....but that's not why I'm posting these pictures. I want to detect these problems before I make them OR know what I'm getting into before I click. So, great feedback.

I did try swing only on this shot and I just could not seem to get the entire bush in sharp focus. So maybe a better approach would have been to use as MUCH tilt as possible WITHOUT blowing up the verticals on the fence and then stopping down more, say f/30 or maybe f/36 or whatever???

You guys are great!!