New shooter questions

[Scott Page]

Hello - first post.

New to large format. I've been shooting a few times with a bulky Sinar Norma and just got a new Chamonix 4x5. I have a 210, 150 and 90mm lenses. I have a few questions regarding how you guys/gals work:

1) Do you recommend those collapsible rubber lens hoods for all lenses or is the "hat shade" technique just as good?

2) I know that most lenses are sharpest a stop or two open from smallest aperture. When shooting landscapes with interesting foreground and background do you tend to shoot f/64 anyway for max DOF?

3) When tilting the lens forward for increased DOF, how do you know what tilt is appropriate? Do you just kind of eyeball the tilt and imagine the effect on the foreground plane of focus?

4) Do you use hyperfocal focusing a lot? Tape measure or guess? Do you use those handy DOF calculators you can get for smart phones? When hyperfocal focusing, should I base it on f/64, but shoot at f/45 to compensate for errors?

Sorry for all the questions. I appreciate any help you can offer in advance.

[Robert Oliver]

1. i shade with objects... don't use collapsible shades

2. focus on a far object, tilt to focus on a near object.. readjust focus.

3. same as 2

4. i never use hyperfocal distance....

my 2 cents.

Hello - first post.

New to large format. I've been shooting a few times with a bulky Sinar Norma and just got a new Chamonix 4x5. I have a 210, 150 and 90mm lenses. I have a few questions regarding how you guys/gals work:

1) Do you recommend those collapsible rubber lens hoods for all lenses or is the "hat shade" technique just as good?

2) I know that most lenses are sharpest a stop or two open from smallest aperture. When shooting landscapes with interesting foreground and background do you tend to shoot f/64 anyway for max DOF?

3) When tilting the lens forward for increased DOF, how do you know what tilt is appropriate? Do you just kind of eyeball the tilt and imagine the effect on the foreground plane of focus?

4) Do you use hyperfocal focusing a lot? Tape measure or guess? Do you use those handy DOF calculators you can get for smart phones? When hyperfocal focusing, should I base it on f/64, but shoot at f/45 to compensate for errors?

Sorry for all the questions. I appreciate any help you can offer in advance.

[Jack Dahlgren]

Hello - first post.

1) Do you recommend those collapsible rubber lens hoods for all lenses or is the "hat shade" technique just as good?

2) I know that most lenses are sharpest a stop or two open from smallest aperture. When shooting landscapes with interesting foreground and background do you tend to shoot f/64 anyway for max DOF?

3) When tilting the lens forward for increased DOF, how do you know what tilt is appropriate? Do you just kind of eyeball the tilt and imagine the effect on the foreground plane of focus?

4) Do you use hyperfocal focusing a lot? Tape measure or guess? Do you use those handy DOF calculators you can get for smart phones? When hyperfocal focusing, should I base it on f/64, but shoot at f/45 to compensate for errors?

Sorry for all the questions. I appreciate any help you can offer in advance.

1) Compendium shade is best. It lets you tilt and swing. Rubber hoods may vignette with tilts and swings. I use a hat or the darkslide or my hand.

2) According to manufacturer's your shorter lenses optimal apertures are f/16-f/22 and your longer ones at f/22 - f/32. But in practice use what you need to get your subject in focus (or out of focus) the way you want.

3) Look at the ground glass.

4) There are a few ways to do this. None of which I would use a tape measure for. Selection of the plane of focus and what is acceptable to you as far as out of focus areas is a personal thing that you can figure out better than a calculator can. Again, when in doubt look at the ground glass.

[engl]

Hello - first post.

New to large format. I've been shooting a few times with a bulky Sinar Norma and just got a new Chamonix 4x5. I have a 210, 150 and 90mm lenses. I have a few questions regarding how you guys/gals work:

1) Do you recommend those collapsible rubber lens hoods for all lenses or is the "hat shade" technique just as good?

2) I know that most lenses are sharpest a stop or two open from smallest aperture. When shooting landscapes with interesting foreground and background do you tend to shoot f/64 anyway for max DOF?

3) When tilting the lens forward for increased DOF, how do you know what tilt is appropriate? Do you just kind of eyeball the tilt and imagine the effect on the foreground plane of focus?

4) Do you use hyperfocal focusing a lot? Tape measure or guess? Do you use those handy DOF calculators you can get for smart phones? When hyperfocal focusing, should I base it on f/64, but shoot at f/45 to compensate for errors?

Sorry for all the questions. I appreciate any help you can offer in advance.

Im also kind of new to LF (a couple of months), so my advice is not as good as that of the veterans of this board. The following is what Ive concluded from what I know, what I read and the photos I have taken so far:

1. Collapsible hoods can often cause vignetting. I got one for my 125mm lens, it works nicely as long as Im not using big movements. Compendium shade is probably the way to go.

2. If possible, get the image focused by using tilt/swing. If there is no way to get the image except shooting at F64 then go for it, but diffraction will basically eliminate the entire LF detail advantage (may as well shoot MF or even 35mm at lower F-stops).

3. Look on the ground glass, tilt, focus, repeat as needed. You might be surprised at the low amount of tilt needed with a wide lens. There might be those doing it but Ive never heard of anyone setting the tilt by feeling.

4. I do use hyperfocal distance often, if the scene permits it (big distances). I have a focusing scale on the bed of my camera that I have calibrated carefully. I used an online calculator that allows custom setting for the CoC, and use the diameter of the airy disc at a given aperture as the CoC (0.015mm at F11, 0.021mm at F16). The distances for my 125mm lens are about 50m for F16 and 100m for F11.

I prefer to shoot at F11 to F16. Ill reluctantly use F22 and beyond. It is not that the image does not look good at F45, its just that it no more detailed than what my DSLR gives me, and I got into LF mostly for making big prints. As I said before, if the scene needs F45 and I do not have another camera, I will use F45. In theory anyway, Ive never encountered a situation like that since I do not use LF for subjects that require big DOF at close distances.

[Scott Page]

Thanks to all for your answers. To followup, I just tried the tilt focus thing. When I focus on the mountains, I can then tilt the lens forward and see the foreground come into focus. However, the mountains then become way out of focus. If I then refocus the mountains, the foreground then goes out again. I'm finding it very difficult to get both in focus with the lens wide open.

Should I be trying to focus in dim light with the lens stopped down to the taking aperture or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks.

[Bill_1856]

Thanks to all for your answers. To followup, I just tried the tilt focus thing. When I focus on the mountains, I can then tilt the lens forward and see the foreground come into focus. However, the mountains then become way out of focus. If I then refocus the mountains, the foreground then goes out again. I'm finding it very difficult to get both in focus with the lens wide open.

Should I be trying to focus in dim light with the lens stopped down to the taking aperture or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks.

You're doing it right, but probably using too much tilt -- it only takes a smidgen. It'll get easier after you do it a while.
Always best to focus at the taking aperture, but often not pratical.

[Jack Dahlgren]

You're doing it right, but probably using too much tilt -- it only takes a smidgen. It'll get easier after you do it a while.
Always best to focus at the taking aperture, but often not pratical.

I tend to first try to get focus and composition with the lens wide open, then check with it stopped down. My lenses don't have any focal shift that I notice due to change in aperture so if the key points are in focus when wide open, they stay that way when I stop down.

[Bruce Watson]

1) Do you recommend those collapsible rubber lens hoods for all lenses or is the "hat shade" technique just as good?

When needed I usually use my darkslide to shade the lens since it's in my hand anyway when making an exposure. If you really want the control, use a compendium shade. But before you do that, learn to use the camera. The lens shade should be near the bottom of your list of things to learn.

2) I know that most lenses are sharpest a stop or two open from smallest aperture. When shooting landscapes with interesting foreground and background do you tend to shoot f/64 anyway for max DOF?

You need experience. With experience comes the answer to this question. Sharpness isn't everything in a photograph. You'll probably find that you'll gladly trade some overall sharpness for more DOF for many photographs. Or not, as it's a personal choice. But experience is going to be your guide. So go out and make photographs. Lots of 'em. The more you make, the better you'll get at making them.

3) When tilting the lens forward for increased DOF, how do you know what tilt is appropriate? Do you just kind of eyeball the tilt and imagine the effect on the foreground plane of focus?

Tilting a lens does not increase DOF. What it does is rotate the plane of exact focus. Sometimes the effects are similar. But these are two very different concepts; you might want to start thinking of them that way.

As to how to do it, see this site's how-to-focus tutorial on the front webpage.

4) Do you use hyperfocal focusing a lot? Tape measure or guess? Do you use those handy DOF calculators you can get for smart phones? When hyperfocal focusing, should I base it on f/64, but shoot at f/45 to compensate for errors?

I use hyperfocal focusing very rarely. I can only think of one time in the last seven years. Learn to trust your eyes -- the ground glass never lies.

[olwick]

Hi Scott,

I found this tutorial very helpful as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR4m70xr9mE

Mark

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks to all for your answers. To followup, I just tried the tilt focus thing. When I focus on the mountains, I can then tilt the lens forward and see the foreground come into focus. However, the mountains then become way out of focus. If I then refocus the mountains, the foreground then goes out again. I'm finding it very difficult to get both in focus with the lens wide open.

Should I be trying to focus in dim light with the lens stopped down to the taking aperture or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks.

I'd strongly suggest that you carefully study two articles from the forum home page - "How Focus The View Camera" and "How to Select the F Stop" both by Q.T. Luong. Take as much time as you need to fully understand both articles. Post any questions you have about them here.

If you understand how to apply the information in these two articles you'll know all you ever need to know about focusing, depth of field, and selecting the optimum aperture for the desired depth of field while obtaining maximum image quality. You'll avoid rules of thumb that are useless in many situations (such as "most lenses are sharpest one or two stops from wide open" which is nice to know but what if f11 or f16 don't produce the desired depth of field and what if that rule of thumb isn't accurate for your lenses) and you'll avoid doing things like automatically stopping down to f64 to obtain maximum depth of field (and thereby introducing other potential problems such as diffraction or ending up with a shutter speed that's too slow for your subject).