Questions on trying to get better at using tilt on a tilt-swing

[GrahamWelland]

Btw, I’m surprised that I haven’t seen the general simplistic recommendation here of if your tripod is at 5ft, dial in focal length / 30 as tilt and shoot a reference shot before phafing with more accurate tilts. For landscape images you’ll be surprised how little effort it takes vs perfection.

 

[Smoothjazz]

This has been a supremely useful thread. I'm going to be dipping my toes into this world whenever Cambo gets around to shipping my WRS-1600/X-shutter-mounted lenses. I went sideways a bit from the Tim Parkin link(s) earlier and (re)discovered On Landscape, a great subscription resource. Tim does an interesting (to me anyway) video on YouTube on tilt/shift where he walks through specific examples out in the field here:

This has been a supremely useful thread. I'm going to be dipping my toes into this world whenever Cambo gets around to shipping my WRS-1600/X-shutter-mounted lenses. I went sideways a bit from the Tim Parkin link(s) earlier and (re)discovered On Landscape, a great subscription resource. Tim does an interesting (to me anyway) video on YouTube on tilt/shift where he walks through specific examples out in the field here:

. Thank you to everyone here for being so generous with your knowledge and wisdom - truly!

This video was amazingly helpful- really brought the concepts home for me. I thought I knew this pretty well already.... but not completely.
One very valuable point was that too much tilt actually begins to narrow your depth of field, and is detrimental! I never appreciated this, but it is critically important to only use the minimum amount of tilt necessay, and not more.

 

[TimoK]

Btw, I’m surprised that I haven’t seen the general simplistic recommendation here of if your tripod is at 5ft, dial in focal length / 30 as tilt and shoot a reference shot before phafing with more accurate tilts. For landscape images you’ll be surprised how little effort it takes vs perfection.

You didn't see it. Jack did at the first page of this thread. In fact, he did not mention 5' but called it "the normal working height"

 

[Smoothjazz]

My pleasure Greg, but if you can get the plane of focus along the floor, then you're already there. Try this: you have a nice white wall at the end of that hallway. Put a sticky note with a mark you can focus on about 6" off the floor, on the wall. Now imagine that you're trying to get the plane of focus to go from the hinge point (at your feet) through to that sticky note. Use live view to check if the floor and anything else you want in focus (e.g., the hinge in the door) is acceptably sharp. You may need to decrease the aperture (to create more depth of field, i.e., a larger wedge), or you might have to move your note on the wall up or down a bit.

 

[Smoothjazz]

This thread has me thinking a lot about using tilt for landscape photos- I have the Cambo 1600 WRS with four Rodenstock lenses, only one of which (40mm) has the tilt/shift mount.
My question is, should I consider having my other three lenses (28, 70, 120mm) re-mounted for tilt-shift, or would I be better off getting a Cambo Actus system? The Actus would allow full movements, including the addition of back movements too. I am guessing the cost would probably be about the same price either way. I am leaning towards the Actus at the moment.