"1) Camera movements. First thing I would do is place the plane of exact focus where I wanted it to be. The art in this is defining the concept "where I wanted it to be" for your own work..."
I agree that placing the plane of sharp focus optimally is essential to optimizing depth of field. Really, though, camera movements don't do a thing to increase depth of field. What they can do is better position the plane of sharp focus so that you don't need so much depth of field to get everything acceptably sharp in the print, which means you don't have to stop down as much.
Practice helps to get a sense of where the plane of sharp focus is best placed. I try to visualize where that plane goes in the scene so that it's closest to all the various elements that I want in sharp focus. I then choose three focus points that lie on my visualized plane and use these to apply the movements. Sometimes this is easy; just look at what's closest or farthest from the camera position. Often, especially if lots of tilt/swing have been applied, it's not so intuitive what is "in front of" and "behind" the plane of sharp focus. It the plane of sharp focus is closer to horizontal than vertical in the scene, then "in front of" becomes "above," and "behind" becomes "below" the plane of sharp focus.
In cases like this, it helps to find several candidates for the near-far focus points, focus on them, and note the distances on the scale on the camera bed to find which really use the most/least bellows draw to get into sharp focus.
This is also a good way to check if the movements you've applied are optimum. Check the focus spread with no movements applied. Then apply the movements and see if the focus spread is smaller. Remember, the smaller the focus spread, the larger the optimum aperture for the desired depth of field will by. Try several positions of the tilt/swing to see which one gives you the smallest focus spread and choose the one that gives you the best optimum aperture.
Best,
Doremus
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