Your most used lens with tilt on Tech Cam

[0beone]

I have been really thinking lately that I could do with a little tilt in some of my compositions. Question I have is for landscape and/or architecture how much would I really use it?
I know that many of you here on this forum are more than capable to offer your experiences.
I use Cambo WRS with Rodie's 70 and 40 currently - are they worth re-mounting or in general experience are others worth considering. I currently use IQ-260 but my favorite supplier will soon be getting me the 3-100.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Regards
Frank

 

[PSon]

Hi Frank,
The tilt function of your lens is useful for certain type of landscape as you found out from your own experiences. This tilt function is not important for architecture at least from my own works. The 2 lens you own are great lens. My Rodenstock 70mm HR-W and Schneider Apo-Digitar 60mm XL lens are mounted in Cambo WRS TS mount. I don't own the 40mm but my Rodenstock 32mm and 90mm HR-W are in Cambo Actus mount so I have all kind of view camera movements. Though I have option to tilt with my 60-90mm lens, I found that the wide angle lens in general is more useful with tilt function for landscape and the longer focal length are more useful for product shot creativity. Therefore based on your scenario, I would change the 40mm to TS mount and leave the 70mm alone if funding is limited. However, there are some landscape photographers here (Dave Chew) prefer to capture landscape with longer focal length lens. If you are in that category then the 70mm HR-W might be useful in TS mount.

 

[beano_z]

I second PSon here above me. Just for reference, I'm shooting landscape with the 23, 32, 90 and 180 lenses and so far in real shooting situations the only tilt I've ever used is on the 23mm and 32mm lenses, and never more than 2 ~ 3 degrees so far. Of course, as you'd expect, main purpose is to get the foreground content sharp.

I've had bad experience tilting longer lenses back in the day I was shooting 135 DSLR's, if you're not careful you'll get that miniature look very quickly, so I'm pretty hesitant to use tilt on the 90mm and 180mm lenses. Also, most of the time using these lenses, the subjects tend to be further removed (even if there's foreground interest) so focusing to infinity works better for me in most of the cases. Looking back, so far I haven't had any shot yet on these longer lenses which could be improved by using tilt.

 

[Jamgolf]

I feel one of the main benefits of a technical cameras is their ability to tilt & swing and that all focal lengths benefit from Scheimpflug principle.

In fact, since wider lenses have more depth of field to begin with, so if you think about it, longer lenses benefit from tilt/swing even more so, because of their inherently shallow depth of field. Its just that wider lenses require small amounts of tilt and are relatively easier to get the subject matter within the wedge of focus. With longer lenses, a larger degree of tilt is usually needed, which means the wedge of focus can be quite narrow and placement of subjects within the wedge is harder. However, for certain compositions, having tilt on 120mm or 90mm can provide results that would be impossible to achieve (without focus stacking). I experimented with SK120 T/S and was getting some cracking results using camera tilt + lens tilt.

Personally, if a lens is offered in T/S panel, I would get it in T/S panel (keeping in mind there is a learning curve involved to get used to how each lens behaves with tilt/swing).
Thats my 2cents.
Cheers!

 

[dchew]

PSon is correct in that I use longer lenses more than the average bear. But I do agree that if your options are limited the wider angles are more beneficial, at least to a point. IMO, the 40-70 range is important, and personally I go to ~100 with tilt. I find that for really wide (<24mm eq in 135), you can often let the background go a bit soft because it is thrown so far out and rendered quite small. It just isn't that critical to the subject, at least in my images. YMMV...

I can't upload an image right now but here is a link to one from the 90hrsw where tilt enabled me to render this sharp from the front sand, the bush to the top of the totem:
Bluff 2017 - Dave Chew Photography

Obviously these situations are more rare. With a longer lens you need a scene where the foreground is not too close, and the subject is tall. Otherwise, as you dial in more tilt to get a close foreground sharp, the depth of field wedge gets very thin, to the point where the normal DoF advantage that tilt gives you evaporates off that skinny wedge.

But to answer the original question, I use tilt the most on my 60xl.

Dave

 

[0beone]

Thank you gentlemen,
Pretty much what I was thinking regarding the wider end of the range. I have been thinking of the Rodie 32 as I notice that is is a very highly regarded lens and I think that I may go down that route and get one with T/S mount and moving the 40 on would help with the rather large price-tag...

Dave, very nice images btw. I was there myself a few years ago and the whole surrounding district is rather special. Cheers and thanks.

Many thanks to all for your valued input.

Frank

 

[PSon]

Frank,
The point I tried to make is that nothing is an absolute when it comes to art and creativity; there is simply no limit to what focal length when it comes to tilt, swing shift and the traditional view camera gives you all of these functions at any focal length as long as the image circle (IC) of the lens is large enough. However, since your current camera set up is a Cambo WRS-X, each lens must be mounted in TS mount in order for the tilt and swing functions to be available. The TS mount is more expensive to acquire than the normal mount and especially changing it to the TS mount would cost you more. Therefore, you as an individual would know what focal length of lens you would use what function the most and therefore minimize the cost of each lens conversion whether your budget is limited to you or not; it is simply a principle of not wasting your valuable resource. I recently went back to a more traditional view camera with the Cambo Actus DB2 in order to liberate all the tilt, swing and shift functions for all of my lens regardless of focal length and without having to pay extra for each WRS with focus module and an additional TS lens mount. In addition, the technical pancake cameras , such as your WRS-X and ALPA 12, are also limited to what lens can be mounted with the tilt functions; the ultra wide (23mm) is not available for the Cambo WRS mount and Alpa mount starts at 32mm only for the Rodenstock HR-W lens. So before you make your next expensive change in your lens and even perhaps the whole system, if possible try the 32mm in WRS TS mount first before you buy it. Finally, I feel that in your case, changing only the 40mm HR-W to TS mount would be a great start to see if the tilt function is for you and is it enough or do you need to also change the 70mm HR-W to TS mount or replace the 70mm HR-W to a 90mm HR-W especially with your to come IQ3-100. Here is a recent related thread for you to consider for making a change from 40mm to 32mm: https://www.getdpi.com/forum/medium...61834-rodenstock-32mm-phase-100-mpx-back.html

 

[0beone]

Thanks so much everyone for your input. Helps to clarify reality!
PSon, I was thinking as you and will likely change the Rodie 40 to TS before much further modification to systems.
The IQ3100 will most likely be my last upgrade to DB and well who would blame me... I shall leave the 120, 150 etc to those others for whom Dante's inferno does not present a problem...! (lucky bastards)
All the best and thank you all..

Frank

 

[voidshatter]

For architecture the 32HR is the king, but for landscape with filters the 32HR would limit your filter options to 150 systems, which is a compromise.

 

[algrove]

Not to put a fly in the ointment, but during recent discussions while at Alpa about this subject they seemed to think longer lenses benefit a great deal from tilt/shift adapters with my STC.

Perhaps wrongly, I decided to get a 34 adapter for use with my S-K 150. Because that entire setup gets a bit long on the front end, Alpa suggested trying to put the adapter on the rear and in front of the DB.

Any comment from 40, 70 and 150 users?

 

[dchew]

Lou,
That is what I attempted to describe in a PM several weeks ago. I have two 17mm adapters: One tilt and one standard. I keep the tilt mounted on the front for the 40, 60, 90 and 150. When I use the 90 or 150 I add the second 17mm adapter on the back of the camera. That is enough to avoid vignetting from the Alpa body. But yes, I would put the 34 on the back when using the 150. If you shift 18mm with the 150 and 34mm on the front, the body will vignette. It does not with the adapter on the back.

Dave

 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I am out of medium format now, so I should possibly not comment, but I feel that tilt is very much usable with longer lenses. With MFD I used a Hasselblad Flexbody which is a very nice piece of equipment but I have not found it workable in the field, so all my T&S work is with a HCam Master TSII paired with a Sony A7rII now.

Obviously, one of the uses of tilt is to get a plane of focus reaching the horizon. If you have foreground detail that you want in focus the focal length will determine the size of the far background while distance to foreground determines the size of the foreground object. Below is an example, shot a few days ago:

I don't pretend it to be a great image, but it illustrates the point. It was taken with a Contax/Zeiss 28-85/3.3-4.0 zoom at around 60 mm setting, which would correspond to something like 90-100 mm on MFD. Keeping the mountain in the background large takes a relatively long lens.

Here is another sample:

This was shot at 135 mm on the Contax/Zeiss 135/3.3-4.5 zoom (corresponding to 180 mm on my P45+):

The Contax zoom was bought essentially for tilt work.

As I stated earlier, this is not MF stuff, but for any practical reason you can divide focal length and apertures with the crop factor. So with MFD you would use a longer lens and stop down more.

Here is a thread on tilt&shift with the HCam: https://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/58710-some-examples-tilt-shift-sony-a7rii-hcam-master-tsii.html

Best regards
Erik

 

[JohnBrew]

I hadn't answered before because I'd not used the tilt feature on my RM3di, but this past week doing some architectural shooting I found the need for tilt with my Rodenstock 40 HR. Only about a degree and a half, but it made all the difference.

 

[JohnBrew]

Not to put a fly in the ointment, but during recent discussions while at Alpa about this subject they seemed to think longer lenses benefit a great deal from tilt/shift adapters with my STC.

Perhaps wrongly, I decided to get a 34 adapter for use with my S-K 150. Because that entire setup gets a bit long on the front end, Alpa suggested trying to put the adapter on the rear and in front of the DB.

Any comment from 40, 70 and 150 users?

You don't have a choice with Arca, the long spacer required for long lenses goes on the rear of the camera body and the DB is attached to the spacer. It really is a pita because I have to carry a separate bag just for the 180 and spacer, or not take any of my other lenses. I'm looking to get a shorter long lens!
OTOH, I really don't find I need tilt with the 180, perhaps your 150 is different.

 

[stngoldberg]

Last year I had a lengthy conversation with Rod Klukus regarding long lenses and tilt. Synopsis is to benefit at all tilting long lenses, the camera should be level.
If the camera is pointed down, tilt has almost a negative effect on DOF.
Rod explained why, but I don't remember the details
Stanley

 

[Jacob CHP]

Lou,
That is what I attempted to describe in a PM several weeks ago. I have two 17mm adapters: One tilt and one standard. I keep the tilt mounted on the front for the 40, 60, 90 and 150. When I use the 90 or 150 I add the second 17mm adapter on the back of the camera. That is enough to avoid vignetting from the Alpa body. But yes, I would put the 34 on the back when using the 150. If you shift 18mm with the 150 and 34mm on the front, the body will vignette. It does not with the adapter on the back.

Dave

With two tilt adapters one can even obtain a little shift. A small token of Dantes appreciation I guess.