Is that so?
Isn’t it that the LF can not be used for many other stuff. I don’t see why one can’t use a SLR for landscape or why it’s inferior to LF.
George
Now there I have to differ. With tilt and swing movements, DoF on an LF is totally unbeatable.
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I bought one of those, but don’t have it with me. I’ll definitely try to use it for tracking flying birds, which I thought was the main purpose for it. It will fit any camera with a standard “accessory shoe” up on top.
One nice feature of the Fuji camera is at the flick of a switch, I can change the viewfinder from “optical” to “electronic”. For LF cameras, my brain thinks I’ll be viewing an upside down and inverted image, perhaps with a magnifying glass to check focus. With all the corrections available, I’m sure Joanna is checking for much more than “focus”, such as keeping parallel lines parallel.
Can you explain that to me? A comparison with the same equipment. Normal a larger sensor size give a less dof with similar settings.
George
It’s all down to the Scheimpflug principle and being able to tilt or swing the front standard, so that the lens and plane of sharp focus are no longer parallel with the film plane.
FVCADNDM.pdf (167,1 Ko)
@JoPoV said that a FF camera has a larger dof then a LF camera. Your answer was that a LF cameras with a tilt/swing lens was unbeatable. I still have my doubts about that but you are comparing 2 cameras with different type of lenses.
George
I doubt the type of lens has much to do with it, but on a LF camera the lens can be moved up, or down, or tilted, or twisted, allowing a good photographer to do a lot more with “depth of field”. I used to understand that stuff a lifetime ago, but ever since my college days, my lenses have been fixed in place, and all I can do is move them front or back to focus the image.
A LF camera which probably has a longer focal length lens, which will change the DOF due to the focal length. A tiny camera like a mobile phone has lots more DOF. All of this depends on the film size, of course, and the larger the film size, the more the concerns about DOF. With a tiny pocket camera, capturing a very small image, DOF will be much greater - maybe even no need to focus at all.
Digital Camera Sensor Sizes: How it Influences Your Photography.
Does this mean :
- 1 - you get more deapth of field with tilt shift lens ?
- 2 - you get controled plane of focus (which, with control of deformation, is the purpose of tilt shift lens) but with less deapht of field on LF than on FF without tilt shift lens (when same angle of view) ?
- 3 - wouldn’t you have more dof with D850 and tilt shift lens for a fair comparison (still when same angle of view) ?
Size of sensor is a major factor. Small sensor, more dof.
For example, with a same angle of view, when your iphone is wide open (maybe not yours, but some I’ve seen tested for this) - which is about 2.8 or maybe less -, you get same dof as F11 on a FF sensor. No way to get nice dof subject isolation with mobile phone. Only post process can fake it.
And let landscape photography be a kind of photography where more dof is wanted. 
George
Let me recommend a raincoat to the camera. It was very useful for me sometimes.
Endre
Of course. you need a whole lot larger image circle to cover a 5" x 4" sheet of film than a 36mm x 24mm sensor.
Indeed. You need to multiply focal lengths by 3.6 to get the equivalent for LF. A 180mm lens on an LF camera is the equivalent of a 50mm lens on a FF digital camera.
Read the PDF file I posted and you will see that tilting the lens board makes the plane of sharp focus emanate from under the film plane and directs it forwards. Thus, everything along that plane, from the camera to infinity will be acceptably sharp.
Absolutely. you end up with what is, effectively, a wedge of acceptably sharp focus, which gets “thicker” the farther it gets from the camera.
But, even without tilt, the mathematics show that, for a 5" x 4" camera, the circle of confusion is 150µm, as opposed to 30µm on a FF sensor, which then affects the calculations for DoF.
For example, with a 180mm lens on a 5" x 4" LF camera, without tilt, focused at the hyperfocal distance of 7.27m, the nearest sharp object will be at 3.64m at f/32 (two stops larger than the f/64 minimum)
But, for a 50mm lens on a FF camera, focused at the hyperfocal distance of 8.57m, the nearest sharp object will be at 4.28m at f/11 (two stops larger then the f/22 minimum)
So, even, without tilt, the LF camera has slightly more DoF at normal working numbers.
What makes the difference is the magnification factor involved when viewing a 1à x 8" print at arm’s length, where there used to be many more pixels in the scanned LF negative than in a sensor.
However, nowadays, something like my D850 has 46Mpx and starts to approach the pixel density of a scanned 5" x 4" neg (5 x 2,400ppi = 12,000 | 4 x 2,400ppi = 9,000 | 115Mpx).
But you can easily double the D850 file through Topaz to comfortably give 184Mpx.
So, the question is - do you use an LF camera, with all the concomitant chemical processing and scanning, or do you use a digital camera, with which you can use a tilt/shift lens to give you the same results?
One thing for sure, with the DxO toolchain, especially with the noise reduction and fine contrast tools, I am finding less and less reason to move back to LF film.
To be fair, one ought to compare the cost of these two choices. You pointed this out several times. Digital photograph feels like it is “free”. Using LF, along with all the film and chemicals, certainly is not “free”. Long ago, we used “instant” film packs (Polaroid?) to test the end result, before shooting with real film. If someone didn’t like the result, it could be easily adjusted. Setting up the lights, and tripod, and all the other details took a long time, so the photographer wanted to know that everything was correct, before shooting the scene for real.
Does this take diffraction into account ?
D850 at f/11 begins to show diffraction. What about LF you compare to ?
I mean what if you want the sharpest possible image your camera can get without diffraction ?
What are the best aperture for both (according to diffraction - not lens feature) and what does this imply for DOF comparison ?
Do you really succeed with any image ? This is not my experience (weird artefacts often) , but I don’t have the last version.
Does this density make senses due to the “film chemistry grain size” (don’t know how to name it in english) or does this oversample it or undersample it given the max resolution LF camera images can really reach with no loss of sharpness ?
(Of course it depends of kind of film and its development. Just take the sharpest film possible - but not microfilm 
nor any kind of very contrasted and sharp film not suitable for usual photography).
One should compare the cameras with the same focal plane.
To archive that you must either change the lens and keep the same distance or keep the same lens and change the distance. Whatever you do your dof is getting less. In that program I made the LF camera is not present. I tried to open it but I’ve problems with it. But I can show you the figures for a MF camera.
I don’t know where you got the figures from.
George
And that is what I do with my D850, because I’d rather get it right in the camera than spend hours trying to fix things in post production.
Due to the focal lengths and, thus, physical aperture size, diffraction is less of a problem with LF.
Actually, taking into account blur circle size based on pixel pitch, I have found it best to avoid anything smaller than f/10.
On the Ebony, it is generally accept that two stops lager than the minimum aperture suffices. Especially when using tilt - so f/32 for an f/64 lens.
f/10 for the D850 and f/32 for the Ebony, although you can obviously get away with much larger apertures when tilt or swing is involved.
Grain density depends on film make. I only used Fuji Acros because it doesn’t really have any grain worth worrying about.
But scanning resolution needs to take account of the finished print size. If I’m printing at 240ppi, then for a 50" x 40" print, from a 5" x 4" neg, 2,400ppi gives me the necessary pixels without having to interpolate.
Not when discussing cameras with movements, which effectively increase the DoF that a lens gives at 90°.
No it is not when using movements.
You cannot use a DoF calculator with movements, sharpness is all assessed with a loupe on the ground glass screen. If you’ve never used an LF camera with movements, I doubt if you can ever understand how it works.
Take a look at my website. Most of the LF images were made at f/32 and everything is sharp from the camera to infinity. On the full sized print of this image…
… you can read the writing on the pieces of paper on the pews.
You see, I said you can’t understand it. Take a good read of the PDF I posted. Lens tilt changes the plane of sharp focus from vertical to an incline that starts under the camera and proceeds away at anything down to almost totally horizontal. At which point, the DoF is very small at the camera end of the wedge, but enormous at the far end. Look carefully at the diagrams Merklinger has provided.
But, as I find when I run LF workshops, as soon as you see it in real life, you will realise what it does. Is Brittany too far to come for a workshop?
This thread seems to actually be about the relative merits of a 35mm camera with a fixed focal plane lens vs a LF camera with a variable focal plane (tilt shift) when capturing a landscape image.
Mike’s favorite web source seems to address the concept, if not the technical details.
https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/format.htm#4x5
Specificly:
1.) Perspective correction with every lens, and
2.) Tilts that allow you to bring the entire image into perfect focus WITHOUT needing to stop the lens down
So, can this LF benefit be captured with a 35mm sized camera with a T-S lens or gymnastics using a T-S pano head.
The LF is likely 4x5 ratio vs. the 2x3 ratio of 35mm, so the FOV in both directions is not the same. This can be reasonably overcome by image stitching with the pano head. Other 35mm tricks include focus stacking and angled panos to better approximate the LF’s focal plane and FOV.
So @joanna, why are YOU choosing the 35mm format when you have the skills to fully use the LF camera? What techniques are you using to get the most out of the 35mm format? Upsizing is just making up pixels and can be done with either format.
I don’t know why you add new items all the time. Comparing 2 cameras is done statical not with movements. When I say “with the same focal plane” I mean with the same object occupying the same size. Shooting an object occupying 80% of the frame with both camera’s.
I don’t know what you mean with this.
You can use the dof calculator for any camera. It gives you the sharp area before and after the focal plane. What you’re referring to is that it’s difficult to get the focal plane on your subject. But that is complete different.
Again I thought we compared the FF and the LF sensor, with prime lenses. In that case dof is getting less with a larger sensor.
Your statement “At which point, the DoF is very small at the camera end of the wedge, but enormous at the far end.” is different from what you wrote before that a shift/tilt lens gives more dof, or is unbeatable. The lines of the dof are no lines parallel to the sensor anymore.
When I’m in the neighbourhood on vacation I ill visit you. Assuming you mean Bretagne with Brittany.
George
Yes, this is the most important reason for using tilts.
Well, yes it can, sort of. The only problem is inspecting such a small image area to check for sharpness.
Reluctantly, because I am getting older and the thought of carting a 15 backpack is proving more and more daunting and, also, having to develop and scan to get to a digital image because I don’t have the space (height) for a darkroom with an LF enlarger.
Mainly limiting my aperture to no smaller than f/10 in order to avoid diffraction and shooting landscapes with a 28mm lens at hyperfocal distance in order to maximise available DoF.
Agreed. And that all depends on what resolution you scan film at and grain size (which digital doesn’t suffer from)