What is produced by twisting the bellows?
While researching Sinar Norma cameras, I found this picture:

It seems that the photographer who was using the large format camera was twisting the bellows of the camera using the flexibility of the rail mount.
What is this technique called and where can I see some examples of the results?
large-format bellows monorail-camera
add a comment |
While researching Sinar Norma cameras, I found this picture:

It seems that the photographer who was using the large format camera was twisting the bellows of the camera using the flexibility of the rail mount.
What is this technique called and where can I see some examples of the results?
large-format bellows monorail-camera
add a comment |
While researching Sinar Norma cameras, I found this picture:

It seems that the photographer who was using the large format camera was twisting the bellows of the camera using the flexibility of the rail mount.
What is this technique called and where can I see some examples of the results?
large-format bellows monorail-camera
While researching Sinar Norma cameras, I found this picture:

It seems that the photographer who was using the large format camera was twisting the bellows of the camera using the flexibility of the rail mount.
What is this technique called and where can I see some examples of the results?
large-format bellows monorail-camera
large-format bellows monorail-camera
asked 8 hours ago
MicroMachineMicroMachine
651519
651519
add a comment |
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
The general/umbrella term is using camera movements. A tilt/shift (or perspective control) lens for an SLR is a very limited way of bringing such movements to a type of camera that doesn't natively have them. Rail-type view cameras usually have a full suite of movements available; field cameras (flatbed view cameras that usually fold up into a sort of carry case) usually have restricted rear movements.
In this case, the movements obviously being used are rear rise, front fall and front swing. There may be a small amount of tilt on the front or rear standard, or both, but it would be a very small amount since it's not obvious in the picture. There is no discernible rear swing, but there could be a small amount for fine-tuning. There is a lot of fine tuning to do in large format photography.
Rise and fall is moving either the lens or the film/sensor up and down. Shift moves either from side to side. Tilt points up and down. Swing points side to side.
The position of the lens in space determines your viewpoint - it's where your "eye" is in space. Front rise/fall and shift will control that. In this case, it's likely that the photographer used quite a bit of front fall because the desired view was looking down-ish, and it can be easier to make some adjustments (tilt and swing) when the camera rail stays level. Simple angles are easier than compound angles.
The position of the film/sensor determines your framing from that point of view; that's handled by rear rise/fall and shift. Think of it as cropping without having to crop anything - you get a full frame provided that the image circle of the lens can cover the full frame. In this case, the photographer wanted the film plane more or less vertical for reasons discussed below, but wanted the viewer to be looking downwards. The rear of the camera has been raised above neutral. The combination of rear rise and front fall gives a pretty steep angle, but still leaves quite a bit of room on the standards for further adjustment if necessary.
As for the tilts and swings, the rear settings are used mostly to control the perspective in the image - how the lines converge and so on. To a first approximation, if you want a brick wall to look square to you, the film plane of the camera needs to be parallel to the wall. In this case, there is probably something in the background that should look vertical, like a tree of hill, and would appear to be leaning severely if the whole camera was pointing down. Keeping the film plane vertical solves that problem. (That can also be done by pointing the rail down and tilting the back back, but there's your compound angles already. What if you need to swing as well?)
The front tilt and swing is mostly about placing the plane of sharpest focus where you want it to be - see the Wikipedia entry for the Scheimpflug principle. As with a tilt/shift lens on an SLR, you can also use front tilt/swing to remove sharp focus from part of your image, or to make miniature effects, etc., but that's pretty rare in the large format world - getting enough in focus is the usual problem.
All of those movements have legitimate uses, many of which aren't really much of a concern when your camera is small and lightweight and easy to point and your film/sensor is small and depth of field is relatively easy to achieve (whether with small aperture or with focus stacking). Even perspective corrections are often easier to do in post, with some detail loss. When you live in a world where a 90mm lens is wide-angle, the game changes just a little.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
The photographer was just tilting/shifting the lens to change the way the imaging circle would be recorded. The bellows are not being "twisted". If you look at the camera frame and the lens holder, they are both perpendicular to the ground.
See How does a tilt-shift lens work, and why does it solve certain problems?
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "61"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fphoto.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f104645%2fwhat-is-produced-by-twisting-the-bellows%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
The general/umbrella term is using camera movements. A tilt/shift (or perspective control) lens for an SLR is a very limited way of bringing such movements to a type of camera that doesn't natively have them. Rail-type view cameras usually have a full suite of movements available; field cameras (flatbed view cameras that usually fold up into a sort of carry case) usually have restricted rear movements.
In this case, the movements obviously being used are rear rise, front fall and front swing. There may be a small amount of tilt on the front or rear standard, or both, but it would be a very small amount since it's not obvious in the picture. There is no discernible rear swing, but there could be a small amount for fine-tuning. There is a lot of fine tuning to do in large format photography.
Rise and fall is moving either the lens or the film/sensor up and down. Shift moves either from side to side. Tilt points up and down. Swing points side to side.
The position of the lens in space determines your viewpoint - it's where your "eye" is in space. Front rise/fall and shift will control that. In this case, it's likely that the photographer used quite a bit of front fall because the desired view was looking down-ish, and it can be easier to make some adjustments (tilt and swing) when the camera rail stays level. Simple angles are easier than compound angles.
The position of the film/sensor determines your framing from that point of view; that's handled by rear rise/fall and shift. Think of it as cropping without having to crop anything - you get a full frame provided that the image circle of the lens can cover the full frame. In this case, the photographer wanted the film plane more or less vertical for reasons discussed below, but wanted the viewer to be looking downwards. The rear of the camera has been raised above neutral. The combination of rear rise and front fall gives a pretty steep angle, but still leaves quite a bit of room on the standards for further adjustment if necessary.
As for the tilts and swings, the rear settings are used mostly to control the perspective in the image - how the lines converge and so on. To a first approximation, if you want a brick wall to look square to you, the film plane of the camera needs to be parallel to the wall. In this case, there is probably something in the background that should look vertical, like a tree of hill, and would appear to be leaning severely if the whole camera was pointing down. Keeping the film plane vertical solves that problem. (That can also be done by pointing the rail down and tilting the back back, but there's your compound angles already. What if you need to swing as well?)
The front tilt and swing is mostly about placing the plane of sharpest focus where you want it to be - see the Wikipedia entry for the Scheimpflug principle. As with a tilt/shift lens on an SLR, you can also use front tilt/swing to remove sharp focus from part of your image, or to make miniature effects, etc., but that's pretty rare in the large format world - getting enough in focus is the usual problem.
All of those movements have legitimate uses, many of which aren't really much of a concern when your camera is small and lightweight and easy to point and your film/sensor is small and depth of field is relatively easy to achieve (whether with small aperture or with focus stacking). Even perspective corrections are often easier to do in post, with some detail loss. When you live in a world where a 90mm lens is wide-angle, the game changes just a little.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
The general/umbrella term is using camera movements. A tilt/shift (or perspective control) lens for an SLR is a very limited way of bringing such movements to a type of camera that doesn't natively have them. Rail-type view cameras usually have a full suite of movements available; field cameras (flatbed view cameras that usually fold up into a sort of carry case) usually have restricted rear movements.
In this case, the movements obviously being used are rear rise, front fall and front swing. There may be a small amount of tilt on the front or rear standard, or both, but it would be a very small amount since it's not obvious in the picture. There is no discernible rear swing, but there could be a small amount for fine-tuning. There is a lot of fine tuning to do in large format photography.
Rise and fall is moving either the lens or the film/sensor up and down. Shift moves either from side to side. Tilt points up and down. Swing points side to side.
The position of the lens in space determines your viewpoint - it's where your "eye" is in space. Front rise/fall and shift will control that. In this case, it's likely that the photographer used quite a bit of front fall because the desired view was looking down-ish, and it can be easier to make some adjustments (tilt and swing) when the camera rail stays level. Simple angles are easier than compound angles.
The position of the film/sensor determines your framing from that point of view; that's handled by rear rise/fall and shift. Think of it as cropping without having to crop anything - you get a full frame provided that the image circle of the lens can cover the full frame. In this case, the photographer wanted the film plane more or less vertical for reasons discussed below, but wanted the viewer to be looking downwards. The rear of the camera has been raised above neutral. The combination of rear rise and front fall gives a pretty steep angle, but still leaves quite a bit of room on the standards for further adjustment if necessary.
As for the tilts and swings, the rear settings are used mostly to control the perspective in the image - how the lines converge and so on. To a first approximation, if you want a brick wall to look square to you, the film plane of the camera needs to be parallel to the wall. In this case, there is probably something in the background that should look vertical, like a tree of hill, and would appear to be leaning severely if the whole camera was pointing down. Keeping the film plane vertical solves that problem. (That can also be done by pointing the rail down and tilting the back back, but there's your compound angles already. What if you need to swing as well?)
The front tilt and swing is mostly about placing the plane of sharpest focus where you want it to be - see the Wikipedia entry for the Scheimpflug principle. As with a tilt/shift lens on an SLR, you can also use front tilt/swing to remove sharp focus from part of your image, or to make miniature effects, etc., but that's pretty rare in the large format world - getting enough in focus is the usual problem.
All of those movements have legitimate uses, many of which aren't really much of a concern when your camera is small and lightweight and easy to point and your film/sensor is small and depth of field is relatively easy to achieve (whether with small aperture or with focus stacking). Even perspective corrections are often easier to do in post, with some detail loss. When you live in a world where a 90mm lens is wide-angle, the game changes just a little.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
The general/umbrella term is using camera movements. A tilt/shift (or perspective control) lens for an SLR is a very limited way of bringing such movements to a type of camera that doesn't natively have them. Rail-type view cameras usually have a full suite of movements available; field cameras (flatbed view cameras that usually fold up into a sort of carry case) usually have restricted rear movements.
In this case, the movements obviously being used are rear rise, front fall and front swing. There may be a small amount of tilt on the front or rear standard, or both, but it would be a very small amount since it's not obvious in the picture. There is no discernible rear swing, but there could be a small amount for fine-tuning. There is a lot of fine tuning to do in large format photography.
Rise and fall is moving either the lens or the film/sensor up and down. Shift moves either from side to side. Tilt points up and down. Swing points side to side.
The position of the lens in space determines your viewpoint - it's where your "eye" is in space. Front rise/fall and shift will control that. In this case, it's likely that the photographer used quite a bit of front fall because the desired view was looking down-ish, and it can be easier to make some adjustments (tilt and swing) when the camera rail stays level. Simple angles are easier than compound angles.
The position of the film/sensor determines your framing from that point of view; that's handled by rear rise/fall and shift. Think of it as cropping without having to crop anything - you get a full frame provided that the image circle of the lens can cover the full frame. In this case, the photographer wanted the film plane more or less vertical for reasons discussed below, but wanted the viewer to be looking downwards. The rear of the camera has been raised above neutral. The combination of rear rise and front fall gives a pretty steep angle, but still leaves quite a bit of room on the standards for further adjustment if necessary.
As for the tilts and swings, the rear settings are used mostly to control the perspective in the image - how the lines converge and so on. To a first approximation, if you want a brick wall to look square to you, the film plane of the camera needs to be parallel to the wall. In this case, there is probably something in the background that should look vertical, like a tree of hill, and would appear to be leaning severely if the whole camera was pointing down. Keeping the film plane vertical solves that problem. (That can also be done by pointing the rail down and tilting the back back, but there's your compound angles already. What if you need to swing as well?)
The front tilt and swing is mostly about placing the plane of sharpest focus where you want it to be - see the Wikipedia entry for the Scheimpflug principle. As with a tilt/shift lens on an SLR, you can also use front tilt/swing to remove sharp focus from part of your image, or to make miniature effects, etc., but that's pretty rare in the large format world - getting enough in focus is the usual problem.
All of those movements have legitimate uses, many of which aren't really much of a concern when your camera is small and lightweight and easy to point and your film/sensor is small and depth of field is relatively easy to achieve (whether with small aperture or with focus stacking). Even perspective corrections are often easier to do in post, with some detail loss. When you live in a world where a 90mm lens is wide-angle, the game changes just a little.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
The general/umbrella term is using camera movements. A tilt/shift (or perspective control) lens for an SLR is a very limited way of bringing such movements to a type of camera that doesn't natively have them. Rail-type view cameras usually have a full suite of movements available; field cameras (flatbed view cameras that usually fold up into a sort of carry case) usually have restricted rear movements.
In this case, the movements obviously being used are rear rise, front fall and front swing. There may be a small amount of tilt on the front or rear standard, or both, but it would be a very small amount since it's not obvious in the picture. There is no discernible rear swing, but there could be a small amount for fine-tuning. There is a lot of fine tuning to do in large format photography.
Rise and fall is moving either the lens or the film/sensor up and down. Shift moves either from side to side. Tilt points up and down. Swing points side to side.
The position of the lens in space determines your viewpoint - it's where your "eye" is in space. Front rise/fall and shift will control that. In this case, it's likely that the photographer used quite a bit of front fall because the desired view was looking down-ish, and it can be easier to make some adjustments (tilt and swing) when the camera rail stays level. Simple angles are easier than compound angles.
The position of the film/sensor determines your framing from that point of view; that's handled by rear rise/fall and shift. Think of it as cropping without having to crop anything - you get a full frame provided that the image circle of the lens can cover the full frame. In this case, the photographer wanted the film plane more or less vertical for reasons discussed below, but wanted the viewer to be looking downwards. The rear of the camera has been raised above neutral. The combination of rear rise and front fall gives a pretty steep angle, but still leaves quite a bit of room on the standards for further adjustment if necessary.
As for the tilts and swings, the rear settings are used mostly to control the perspective in the image - how the lines converge and so on. To a first approximation, if you want a brick wall to look square to you, the film plane of the camera needs to be parallel to the wall. In this case, there is probably something in the background that should look vertical, like a tree of hill, and would appear to be leaning severely if the whole camera was pointing down. Keeping the film plane vertical solves that problem. (That can also be done by pointing the rail down and tilting the back back, but there's your compound angles already. What if you need to swing as well?)
The front tilt and swing is mostly about placing the plane of sharpest focus where you want it to be - see the Wikipedia entry for the Scheimpflug principle. As with a tilt/shift lens on an SLR, you can also use front tilt/swing to remove sharp focus from part of your image, or to make miniature effects, etc., but that's pretty rare in the large format world - getting enough in focus is the usual problem.
All of those movements have legitimate uses, many of which aren't really much of a concern when your camera is small and lightweight and easy to point and your film/sensor is small and depth of field is relatively easy to achieve (whether with small aperture or with focus stacking). Even perspective corrections are often easier to do in post, with some detail loss. When you live in a world where a 90mm lens is wide-angle, the game changes just a little.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
answered 6 hours ago
user81592user81592
711
711
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
user81592 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
add a comment |
The photographer was just tilting/shifting the lens to change the way the imaging circle would be recorded. The bellows are not being "twisted". If you look at the camera frame and the lens holder, they are both perpendicular to the ground.
See How does a tilt-shift lens work, and why does it solve certain problems?
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
add a comment |
The photographer was just tilting/shifting the lens to change the way the imaging circle would be recorded. The bellows are not being "twisted". If you look at the camera frame and the lens holder, they are both perpendicular to the ground.
See How does a tilt-shift lens work, and why does it solve certain problems?
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
add a comment |
The photographer was just tilting/shifting the lens to change the way the imaging circle would be recorded. The bellows are not being "twisted". If you look at the camera frame and the lens holder, they are both perpendicular to the ground.
See How does a tilt-shift lens work, and why does it solve certain problems?
The photographer was just tilting/shifting the lens to change the way the imaging circle would be recorded. The bellows are not being "twisted". If you look at the camera frame and the lens holder, they are both perpendicular to the ground.
See How does a tilt-shift lens work, and why does it solve certain problems?
edited 7 hours ago
answered 7 hours ago
xiotaxiota
9,33931552
9,33931552
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
add a comment |
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
Thank you. However, i thought this looked like a very different technique from a tilt shift lens - I own a tilt shift lens, and you can only tilt and shift the lens but it remains aligned to the film plane / sensor. On this photo, the lens is also pushed down the axis of the film plane (to the right and downwards), which tilt-shift lenses do not do. The technique on the photo seems closer to freelensing but with bellows.
– MicroMachine
7 hours ago
2
2
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
Moving the lens rightwards and downwards is shifting. Freelensing and tilt-shift are variations of the same technique (moving the imaging circle around). The amount the lens can be moved is limited by the size of the imaging circle.
– xiota
7 hours ago
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Photography Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fphoto.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f104645%2fwhat-is-produced-by-twisting-the-bellows%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown