Scheimpflug — A NEAR MISS

[Walter Glover]

Working my way through scanning my 10x8 negs during lockdown in the Care Facility a neg or two came up that reminded me that I had bought myself a Fujinon-C 600mm 1:11.5 (which I sold to Murray Fredericks along with the Toyo 810 M for hiss first Lake Eyre series).
Having only Base tilt I set myself a Scheimpflug challenge at Alan Davidson Oval with that 600mm doing a near/far of the fence around the field and including a cement works for a bit of height as well. the batter appears to have had a bit of a swing but i don't recall if it a hhit or a miss. But I certainly missed. The near palings are not critically sharp top to bottom and the plane of focus meets the top of the cement tower but doesn't quite make it down to the fence.



Toyo 810M MkII, Fujinon - C 600mm 1:11.5
Ilford HP5 plus, Ilford DDX 1+6
Jobo ATL 2 Plus Expert Drum

[Maris]

It's a pretty darn good "near miss" considering you were laying down an almost flat Scheimpflug plane with a 600mm lens. Sure, you could have focussed half way up the pickets and sent the focus plane half way up the cement tower for best compromise. Then the off-plane blur is invisible in the sky; easy to say and downright hard to do.

I use a 610mm f9 Apo-Nikkor and find focus placement is both critical and ambiguous - where to focus, what to focus? But I take the coward's option: stop way down to f128, shoot, and hope nothing moves. I'm only doing contacts not enlargements so the diffraction doesn't show.

[Walter Glover]

Thanks Maris,

It wass part test and part tutoring myself of decades of using the pretty quick and accurate Sinar. two-point focussing system and depth of field calculator.

[RoganJosh]

I still like it Walter. There's enough in focus to keep my attention and the high key printing gives the scene a dream-like quality. Might not be for the purists though.