[Erik Kaffehr Silver Member Posts: 5]

Landscape & Nature Technique

on: May 7, 2020 at 1:13 pm

Hi,

I was shooting some flowers today. Usually I focus on just one flower or a group of a few flowers. But this time I wanted to show a lot of flowers and have all of them in reasonable focus.

This was shot on my mirrorless full frame camera with a Contax 35-135/3.4-4.5 Sonnar zoom. The lens was connected to the camera with a HCam Master TS II adapter that allows both tilt and shift.

In this case, tilt was used. Tilting the lens allows for tilting the focal plane, a technique known as ‘The Scheimpflug Principle’. The Scheimpflug Principle is not a panacea for extending the focal plane, as everything above and below that focal plane will be out of focus.

Tilt and shift lenses have been with us for a long time. But mirrorless cameras allow for designs with very short mount to sensor distance, allowing to use T&S techniques with a lot of old lenses.

I can use my Canon EF-mount lenses on the HCam Master TS, but the Canon lenses don’t have manual aperture control. That is the reason I have a couple of Contax RTS era Zeiss zooms for Scheimpflug. The lenses won’t allow for any significant shift, but will work fine for tilts.

Best regards
Erik

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1217]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #1 on: May 7, 2020 at 6:35 pm

Well executed image.  Working with T/s is always a challenge and this is a great example of what can be accomplished.

[Mike Nelson Pedde Participant Posts: 641]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #2 on: May 8, 2020 at 4:34 pm

What Kevin said, me too.

_____
Mike Nelson Pedde
Victoria, BC
https://www.wolfnowl.com/

[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 51]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #3 on: May 9, 2020 at 2:03 pm

Really nice image. I use a Nikon 85mm F/2.8 PC-E tilt shift on my Sony A7RIV with a Commlite adapter, mostly for close-up work but also in the landscape when I want to do it with a single exposure rather than stacking. Using a tilt-shift lens brings me back to my view camera days. I remember how cool it was to just do a small tilt and get so much focus in the landscape.

[Daniel Smith Participant Posts: 98]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #4 on: July 11, 2020 at 7:51 pm

All that gear and extra screens and such a small viewing area when shooting. I still prefer a 5×7/8×10 for the full control it gives. A ground glass big enough to see. No electronics to worry about and Chromes or negatives big enough for easy viewing or printing. I know – not digital. But the View Cameras are built for the technical perfection they allow.

"A good still photograph, studied by an inquiring mind, frequently yields more information than a mile of moving images". Walter Cronkite, New York, June 1989

[Erik Kaffehr Silver Member Posts: 5]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #5 on: October 11, 2020 at 2:47 am

This was shot in my P45+ days on the Hasselblad Flexbody.

[Erik Kaffehr Silver Member Posts: 5]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #6 on: October 11, 2020 at 2:51 am

There is a small story behind this one. I tried to shoot this fern with focus blending before and failed. A month later I was back with my T&S gear and it was still there…

[Erik Kaffehr Silver Member Posts: 5]

Re: Close up and tilt

Reply #7 on: October 11, 2020 at 4:03 am

At Sella Pass, Dolomites.

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