The photograph in question could not have been made without Scheimpflug. Using lens tilt, one extends horizontal DOF, regardless of f/stop. So basically, if done correctly, with a wide angle lens, one can get from their feet (immediately in front of the lens) to infinity in focus at maximum aperture (f/3.5). Some stopping down is prudent in order to put the lens characteristics at their best. Most lenses are at their best somewhere around f/8. Also stopping down a little will help hold vertical DOF (which suffers with lens tilt).
Lens defecation, on wide angle lenses (for 35mm cameras) comes into play around f/11. For maximum sharpness, anything smaller than f/11 will actually loose overall sharpness. It is therefore impossible, to even think about photographing a scene like this, using f/stop alone to hold DOF for printing BIG prints. My personal belief is that Bob actually lost some sharpness by using f/16 rather than f/11. If one is not going to print mural sized prints, then f/16 and smaller work just fine. But I urge Bob to not ever go past f/11, or f/13 in extreme cases, if he wishes to make sharp LARGE prints.
:-) Jim On Oct 9, 2008, at 9:10 AM, Bob Adler wrote:
Hi Frank, Bought a big epson when my son moved out :-) 9880...I did not try it without the tilt/shift. My camera was about 4 inches above the foreground rocks. Upon printing large you can see, close up, some definte unsharpness, particularly in the foreground, but that's with your nose up against the print. From viewing distance it's pretty darn sharp.So my guess is that w/o T/S, it would have been even more difficult as I was stopped down to f16 as it was. Besides, my knees and back were killing me by the time I was done so I didn't feel much like experimenting. :-)And one lesson I learned was that stray light coming into the eyepiece can REALLY screw up your metering. Each initial shot was way underexposed; I had to go to manual metering to move the histogram into the middle from the far left. Later Jim told me he had experienced the same issue which was resolved by blocking the light coming into the eyepiece (the camera has a built in eyepiece shutter). Problem solved!I stopped using my handheld meters with this outfit; I love the histogram. In the "old" days I probably would have walked away with a bunch of underexposed shots on Velvia and not been able to capture as much dynamic range even if properly exposed (Pt. Lobos can have some real dynamic range challenges on a clear day). I had a polarizer and 2ND filters on; 1 x 1.2ND and 1 x 0.6ND) and still bracketed the heck out of it moving the histogram from the left 1/3 to the right 1/3 in 2/3stop increments.I'm glad you like the image. Buying the new system hoping to get acceptable quality output was an act of faith, but it seems to have worked out OK. I had a lot of terrific guidance from Jim; very fortunate for me indeed.Best, Bob ----- Original Message ---- From: Frank Filippone <red735i@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: hasselblad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2008 7:55:06 AM Subject: [HUG ] Re: A Sad DayHow, or rather, where, or on what? 40x60 printers are not exactly home printers….The coastal shot proves you have not lost your touch…….. wonderful……. Did you try it without the tilt? I am interested if there was sufficient DOF to handle the shot…….Frank Filippone red735i@xxxxxxxxxxxxx I printed it out 40x60
