Posted by Tom Nevesely on September 12, 2006 at 1:36 PM
After buying and then selling a large format camera I bought the 24mm TS-E lens a couple months ago. I like the tilts I had with the large format but it wasn’t really practical for me. I like to travel, hike and go climbing so my LF camera always stayed at home and my Canon DSLR came along. I decided as a compromise that I would take the money from the sale of my large format camera and lenses and buy a tilt shift lens instead.
I like to shoot landscapes at dusk – mountains at sunrise, etc. and I’m having trouble focusing. I’m familiar with how to focus and tilt but I find it hard to judge sharpness in such a small viewfinder especially when it’s still kind of dark outside. Because the 24mm isn’t wide enough on my 10D I’ve been using this lens on my Elan 7E film body. So I can’t check the lcd for sharpness and also the 7E’s focus indicators are too close to the center of the frame to be really useful to me. I like to have something in the very foreground – bottom of the frame with the mountains stretching almost to the top of the frame. Ideally I need focus indicators close to the edges of the frame. I also bought a “cheap” angle finder from e-bay that magnifies the viewfinder by 2.5x but again this only allows me to see the center of the viewfinder.
So with all of that said does anyone have any tips or ideas to help with the focusing?
Thanks.
Posted by Don Miller on September 12, 2006 at 2:03 PM
Do you focus on the far, tilt for the near with large format? I start with this practice, usually.
I don't try to focus stopped down. I get an equally blurry image wide open, then stop down. The 5D zooms sufficiently to check focus on the LCD.
From my LF experience I'm confident in estimating tilt. But I don't try to do really complicated movements. If the tilt movement isn't obvious I just stop down.
Posted by Todd Caudle on September 13, 2006 at 11:38 PM
There's so much inherent DOF with a 24mm lens that just getting close on your focus and tilt is going to be enough, once you stop down to f8 and beyond.
Discussion
2 repliesI like to shoot landscapes at dusk – mountains at sunrise, etc. and I’m having trouble focusing. I’m familiar with how to focus and tilt but I find it hard to judge sharpness in such a small viewfinder especially when it’s still kind of dark outside. Because the 24mm isn’t wide enough on my 10D I’ve been using this lens on my Elan 7E film body. So I can’t check the lcd for sharpness and also the 7E’s focus indicators are too close to the center of the frame to be really useful to me. I like to have something in the very foreground – bottom of the frame with the mountains stretching almost to the top of the frame. Ideally I need focus indicators close to the edges of the frame. I also bought a “cheap” angle finder from e-bay that magnifies the viewfinder by 2.5x but again this only allows me to see the center of the viewfinder.
So with all of that said does anyone have any tips or ideas to help with the focusing?
Thanks.
I don't try to focus stopped down. I get an equally blurry image wide open, then stop down. The 5D zooms sufficiently to check focus on the LCD.
From my LF experience I'm confident in estimating tilt. But I don't try to do really complicated movements. If the tilt movement isn't obvious I just stop down.