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Thread: How accurately can you level your camera?

  1. #11

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    With many cameras you can adjust the standards to be parallel either by design or force. If it pains you to have them off why not fix them?

    I think what throws a lot of them off is too much bellows compressed and pushing the standards apart.

  2. #12

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    I was at the car dealership getting an oil change and found a bubble level on a key chain in their accessories department for five bucks. It lets me check level on all dimensions quite easily.
    Michael W. Graves
    Michael's Pub

    If it ain't broke....don't fix it!

  3. #13
    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    Seem like you ask 2 different questions. Leveling the camera and making the standards parallel.

    Making the standards parallel will be near impossible without detents. The detents need to be set in a manner similar to collimating a lens (as the lens is the important thing here, not the front standard). Yes, it will make a difference if it is off, especially with short lenses!

    You may need a camera tech to do it for you, but I get good results bouncing an enlarger alignment laser off the front lens element and lining up the reflected diffraction pattern with the center of the laser. Then I take the lens off and bounce the laser off a optical glass plate at the film plane. When the detents are correctly set, the laser will bounce right back on itself.

    Then check with your other mounted lenses and see that they are also correct. Since you don't want to re-set the detents when you change lenses and lensboards, I sometimes shim a corner of the lensboard or just set it up for the widest lens and let the longer lenses be a little off.

  4. #14
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    What about using the bubble levels that are on each standard? My Toyo-Views have horizontal and vertical bubble levels on each standard that seem to be pretty accurate.

  5. #15
    Resident Heretic Bruce Watson's Avatar
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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    I designed a set of bubble levels for the rear standard of my Toho so that I could level and plumb the film plane. SKGrimes did the work to make and install the levels. They seem to be quite accurate -- if the bubble is centered the horizon is exactly parallel to the lines on my ground glass.

    I could have done the same thing to the front standard, but couldn't justify it. The rail of the Toho is pretty stiff so if the rear standard is level then so is the front. And I use some amount of front tilt in just about every photograph I make, so having it plumb or even just parallel to the rear standard is of dubious value to me. What is of value is seeing the ground glass and insuring that what I want in focus is in fact in focus (as we all know, easier said then done ;-)

    The reason I want the ability to easily level and plumb the film plane is that I like my trees to be straight (or at least not distorted by the camera). Not strictly necessary, and can often be done by eye within an acceptable tolerance. But I wanted to be able to do it quickly and to take most of the judgment out of the setup. For that it has succeeded admirably.

    Bruce Watson

  6. #16

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    Getting things perfectly level is a concern for me only with architecture (especially windows and doors) and very occasionally in landscape photography (horizon lines, e.g.). I use a Bogen 410 geared head. I place a small level on the top and on one side of the camera. That allows me to level the camera from side to side and front to back. I get the camera square to the subject by trial and error, looking at the ground glass. When I open the image in Photoshop I view it with Rulers. If there are any mistakes they're usually no more than a degree or two and I fix those in Photoshop.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  7. #17

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    yeah your film probably shifts in the holder enough to be off a little too...

  8. #18

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    Wow. I think such attention to tiny details would take all the fun out of it for me. For me, close enough is perfect. If it looks good on the GG - it is good enough. But, I am fortunate in that I do not depend on any revenue from Photography.

  9. #19

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    When doing general photography with a Technikardan 4X5 I don't worry about front and backplane parallelism at all - can't be bothered and don't really need to. But in my days of industrial photography of planar parts (IC wafers, hybrid substrates, etc.) where high resolution was required I used an extra long vernier calipers to adjust the standards to parallelism. Tricky business due to backlash motion in the 4X5 and 8X10 clamps. But with care and sweat I could get parallelism within about 0.001 inch (25 micrometers). Orthogonality of the lens axis to the film plane was generally not a problem with a high quality process lens. Accuracy in the location of the film plane relative to the focus on the GG always was a bigger variable so I eventually used a specially designed aluminum film holder with the film plate surface ground. Shooting was done with lens close to wide open and electronic flash in various lighting configurations.

    Nate Potter, Austin TX.

  10. #20

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    Re: How accurately can you level your camera?

    Interesting responses. I level the tripd (built-in bubble) and camera on the ballhead (two-way bubble in hotshoe). I have a prism effect with my eyes and all too often when shooting with the digital camera find handheld shots slightly off perpendicular or level (even constantly reminding myself to line up the vertical or horizontal). With the Horseman I know it's starting from level.
    --Scott--

    Scott M. Knowles, MS-Geography
    scott@wsrphoto.com

    "All things merge into one, and a river flows through it."
    - Norman MacLean

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