Which bed scale?? (question for large-format film shooters)

[Gary R. Smith]

My Toyo has a 150mm Nikkor lens.

I haven't been happy with the focus on any of my shots to date.

I'm not sure which scale I should use on the bed to extend the lens: the orange or the white?

Does it matter?

 

[Pete Askew]

The scales simply show the distance between the front of the lens board and the film plane. The white scale is the normal one and the orange / red scale is for when rear extension has been applied.

I assume you are focussing using the screen at maximum aperture and then stopping down to give the depth of field you desire and maybe modifying the focal plane with movements. Are you unhappy with the critical points being not in focus or is it more the ‘scale’ of that focus?

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Hi Pete! I now understand what the white and orange scales are.

My lens has a "switch" up to focus = full open/down closes the aperture so it opens to whatever is set when you shoot.

It is possible that the sandwich of my gg/Fresnel has been a part of my problem. It seems that with my gg flipped wrong-way around, I'd be focusing on the wrong side of the glass which might just be enough to throw off good focus and give me soft results. Post #15 in this thread shows the best I've gotten from the Toyo compared to a shot from my Sony a7R3 with a 50/1.8.

 

[Pete Askew]

Having the screen the wrong way round certainly would throw the focus out. Mind, depending on the image and the f-stop something should be in sharp focus and in the last one it looks like some parts are.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Hopefully with the gg in the correct orientation and a larger loupe my next set of test shots will be better.

Thanks for your help Pete!