Please post photos showing practical use of extreme movements with a View Camera

Please explain the effect desired and how it was achieved.

If someone has a clinical example using the maximum number of possible movements that I can try I will shoot it and then post the results.

Not sure what you mean by extreme, but here is one where I used all normal movements in one image, though none were particularly extreme, just enough to obtain the desired effect:



Movements are:

1) Front fall (= rear rise) to make my camera position seem lower than it really was.

2) Front shift left (= rear shift right) to make it appear as though I'm standing in the water -- I'm not, I'm standing up on the bank to the right.

3) Front forward tilt (not the same as rear back tilt) to alter PoF from immediate foreground upstream to trees at the creek's edge at the center rear of the image.

4) Rear swing counter-clockwise (not the same as front swing CW) to alter PoF from trunk of tree at lower right corner across the line of rocks in the stream to the evergreen's trunk on the other side of the creek.

Note that rear movements alter the geometry of 3-dimensional shapes and can exaggerate perspctive and spatial relationships. In this case I used rear swing instead of front swing to make the trunk and rocks at lower right appear larger. By contrast, I did not use rear tilt because I did not want to impart any lean which would be noticeable in the trunks of the trees. This image was shot with a 90mm lens (Nikkor f4.5), 2 seconds at f22 on Fuji Velvia 50 (rated at 40). I obtained that reading with my spot meter by placing the yellow leaves on the background Aspen in Zone VI. I did not record the actual amounts of the movements, but they were probably about 20mm of fall, 20mm of shift (combo well within the lens' usable Image Circle), 4 or 5 degrees forward tilt, 2 to 3 degrees swing.

Cheers,

Hi, Jack,

Nice example and description and a lovely result.

Thank you Jack. An exquisite pice of photographic art.

This is exactly what I was looking for.

I hope to have some of my own to post soon. Not that they will have even a ghost of a chance of being the quality of your photo.

The fun thing with a view camera is that along with the inverted image is that all the movements respond the opposite way the lay person might think they would.

Here are a few cases where I've used a fair bit of movement:


I used a 90mm wide angle lens and almost maximum swing to get the focus on the distant buildings while moving the foreground bridge out of focus. I used a bit of side shift and rise to get the perspective and composition I wanted. This was one of my first ever large format shots so I was keen to use a lot of movement. Not sure if it was totally effective here, but I really like this shot. This is a van dyke brown; I also like a more traditional black & white print of this.


I used swing movements to set focus on the one house. This shot is meant to be critical of the ugliness of suburban development, and the ridiculous nature of so-called estate neighborhood developments (and the sense of individual accomplishment they are supposed to stir up in the buyer), which may be a bit of a cliché, but damn it's ugly.



This is just a straightforward use of extreme rise to keep verticals from converging. The camera was level and facing straight ahead, which would have put the horizon dead center had I not used rise. Pointing up would cause the cranes to tilt, which would have ruined the effectiveness of this shot I think.




This is a slightly greater than 1:1 macro of some prairie crocuses. I had to use a lot of tilt and swing to get the lower bud in focus. It's not obvious from this photo (because of the good use of focus plane movement), but the bud is probably a good 4" or more lower than the top crocus, and would have been out of focus even stopped down to the maximum. There was a bit of wind, so I don't think I was all the way to f/45 - probably more like f/22 for this shot. At this magnification I'd have never had sharpness on both flower heads without the heavy use of tilts.

And a couple more:


I don't have a scan of this, so this is a digitphotograph of an unmounted (curly) fiber print. I used a lot of side shift to get the composition I wanted. I was standing almost directly in front of the column on the right, and had I not used shift it would have been centered. I wanted this skewed perspective with the left-handed columns visible and receeding like this, with the right hand columns basically overlapping. Without shift, I'd have captured half of the tunnel and the right half of the frame would have been brick wall. Without this position, I'd have been centered in the tunnel with the shot approximately symmetrical. Too bad the lighting was shitty. I'll revisit this next time I'm in Victoria BC.



I don't much like this photo, but it was one of my first sort of attempts at interesting architecture. To get the point of view I wanted I had to stand in just the right spot, but I found the buildings (which are viewed from a fairly acute angle) were a little too, uhh, perspective/angly. I ended up turning my camera so that it was pointed pretty much straight at the wind-blown tree on the right, and then using sideways shift to return the distant buildings into the frame. This reduced horizontal perspective convergence on the buildings and gave it sort of an uncomfortable look. In any case this composition and perspective required a lot of movement, so it's an example of how you might use shifts.



Here's a simple example of using fall to keep convergence in check. I was at an elevated position on the wall above the harbour (about the same height as the red streaks from car taillights in front of the legislature building), and used a lot of front drop to get this composition.

Jack_Flesher said:

Movements are:

1) Front fall (= rear rise) to make my camera position seem lower than it really was.

2) Front shift left (= rear shift right) to make it appear as though I'm standing in the water -- I'm not, I'm standing up on the bank to the right.

3) Front forward tilt (not the same as rear back tilt) to alter PoF from immediate foreground upstream to trees at the creek's edge at the center rear of the image.

4) Rear swing counter-clockwise (not the same as front swing CW) to alter PoF from trunk of tree at lower right corner across the line of rocks in the stream to the evergreen's trunk on the other side of the creek.

Note that rear movements alter the geometry of 3-dimensional shapes and can exaggerate perspctive and spatial relationships. In this case I used rear swing instead of front swing to make the trunk and rocks at lower right appear larger. By contrast, I did not use rear tilt because I did not want to impart any lean which would be noticeable in the trunks of the trees. This image was shot with a 90mm lens (Nikkor f4.5), 2 seconds at f22 on Fuji Velvia 50 (rated at 40). I obtained that reading with my spot meter by placing the yellow leaves on the background Aspen in Zone VI. I did not record the actual amounts of the movements, but they were probably about 20mm of fall, 20mm of shift (combo well within the lens' usable Image Circle), 4 or 5 degrees forward tilt, 2 to 3 degrees swing.

Cheers,

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the elaborate deconstruction of this image in terms of camera movements. I found it fascinating.

Walter, the prairie crocuses look really wonderful. I wondewr whether it would be as good with a Canon 24mm T/S?

Jack, your explantions are, as always do helpful! I think lateral shift is better than getting upto one's waist in water!

A treat to be able to see this LF work! Relating to the movements and the intent of the photographer is an extra bonus. Let's have other examples!

Just for education, mention format size, film and shutter settings. This way we get to absorb the secrets in our psyche!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Just for education, mention format size, film and shutter settings. This way we get to absorb the secrets in our psyche!

Asher

Click to expand...

Mine are all 4x5", FP4+ for black and white (except the bridge, which was delta 100) and Ektachrome E100VS slide film for colour. Shutter settings? Who knows. Usually I'm stopping down a lot with LF and shooting in the 1/20th to 1 second range. The bridge wasn't really counted, just exposed for a long time - reciprocity kicks in and at night you can pretty much just leave the shutter open as long as you want. I think it was 5 mins.

Reciprocity is really a soft buffer to over exposure!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Reciprocity is really a soft buffer to over exposure!

Asher

Click to expand...

Except with negative film, you usually need more exposure to insure detailed shadows

cheers,

Jack,

My library will shortly have Ansel Adams 3 books of the view camera, print and the negative. So I'm getting hooked. As you know that's realy should be "am hooked"!

Do you have examples of using rear tilt to change the importance of parts of the landscape?

Asher