Movements!

[NoBob]

Oops, yes, sorry, meant longer lens. I thought perhaps the greater range of movements would help compensate for the increased focal length...

I understand putting more distance between you and the building will help, but it's not always practical in a street with other buildings, trees and street furniture getting in the way.

[steve simmons]

Much of the advice you received here was about rocks not buildings. Perhaps people did not read your original question.

Architecture is a different and unique subject. It can not be photographed like landscape.

Here are my suggestions.

Level the camera front to rear and left to right.

Zero your swings and tilts.

Use rise and fall and shift, front or rear it rarely makes a difference with architecture, to decide what part of the image circle you want to record on film.

Unless you want your vertical lines skewed, keep the back of the camera vertical.

Use back swing to minimize or exaggerate horizontal convergence. This type of convergence is more visually and psychologically acceptable than vertical convergence. If you like things the way they are then leave the back swing in a neutral position.

Use front swing to finalize your side to side focus as best you can before stopping down. Unless you have forced the near to far perspective with foreground and background front tilt is rarely used to photograph architecture.

Base tilt vs axix tilt is one of those Ford vs Chevy arguments. Axix tilt usually does not require as much fussing with the focus as does base tilt. Take your pick.

Here is some reading that might be helpful

Using the View Camera that I wrote

Jim Stone's User's Guide to the View Camera

check your local library or Amazon.

steve simmons
www.viewcamera.com

[NoBob]

Thanks Steve. That's useful, thanks.

[CG]

It can help to look into the front of the camera.

Once you have everything focussed and ready to go ... stop. Take the darkcloth off the camera. Close down to the lens opening you will be using. Set up the lens hood / compendium the way you want.

Go around to the front of the camera. Look through the lens. If you can see the entire ground glass throught the lens at your working aperture, you shouldn't get image cutoff from either excessive movements or compendium obstruction.

If you cannot see the entire groundglass, it should be pretty clear where you need to adjust.

C

[Vlad Soare]

I tried to use this method instead of looking through the corners of the ground glass (because my Ebony 23S has no cut off corners), but I just can't seem to get it right. I guess I'm missing something.
How far from the camera do I have to be? If I put my eye next to the lens I can always see all corners of the ground glass, no matter how much the lens has been shifted. Besides, how does this depend on a lens hood or compendium shade? I always see the same thing regardless of any lens hood I might have installed. Also, what I see doesn't seem to depend on the aperture. It actually becomes a little harder to see the corners when I stop down, and not the other way around as I would expect. I should see the vignette disappear when stopping down, shouldn't I?
What am I missing?