Shooting wide open with a TLR

[diyosa]

or well, film in general.

Do you do it?

Before i "found" film I shot completely digital and almost always wide open (well, i still do). I think my dslr would freak out if I took it past 5.6 not knowing what to do.

Now, with the TLR I feel this need to shoot wide open, more out of habit and what I'm used to. Mostly because it's how I see shots in my head, with selective focus.

if you don't, why not? Is there a point of optimal sharpness on TLRs. Namely a Rollei 3.5 and Mamiya 80/2.8.... Is it 2 stops above wide open?

Thanks for any input you can give.

 

[uhligfd]

Well, if you shoot a landscape, wide open, where do you focus?

I think that the selection of focus: where, how deep is one degree of freedom in photography; another is the chosen equivalent exposure, the next the angle of view, etc etc.

If you give up all or some of your degrees of freedom, what do you get? Robotic repeated shots, repeated looks on all images from macro to birds in flight to landscapes, portraits, architecture shots.

Not too good an idea, unless your pics are just one pony acts of one subject matter.

 

[Sonny Boy Havidson]

To be put in parallel with an guitar amplifier setup: man always tends to put to much saturation. In photography, man always tends to reduce too much DOF.

 

[laurentb]

I'll shoot wide open each time I feel it's needed, whatever the camera is. I especially like using this with my TLR because I like the bokeh of my Tessar lens.

I'll use it less often when using the Rolleinar, because the DOF is already so short that I'm usually happy to get a bit more.

 

[Matus]

wide open as wide open - only depends on result you want to achieve and on the focusing skills (whether your hand or AF of your camera).

I do shoot wide open with my Rolleiflex T if I want the effect that the lens delivers in that setting. I found out I have to be careful not the move the camera after I have focused with the build in loupe.

 

[Merkin]

For me, the amount of shallow DOF I use tends to be inversely proportional to the amount of time a particular camera or style of camera stays on a tripod. I have certainly been known to shoot MF handheld, but I almost never use a tripod for 35mm or digital any more. For me, MF at its best is all about precision at the expense of speed- very careful metering, composition, and focus, with enough depth of field to make everything seem more real than real, yet still faster in the real world than LF.

 

[ZeissFan]

There are a lot of people (including many on this board) who will only shoot a lens at its maximum aperture. That is, they have just one approach to photography. And certainly while photography is an individual thing, it also can be limiting.

As you learn more about photography, you'll learn that there are situations in which it works and situations in which it doesn't work.

Accurate exposure and good, interesting compositions will trump the wide-open approach any day.

 

[retnull]

I shot a lot of MF when I was just starting with photography. I shot a lot indoors in low-light, wide-open. Nothing wrong with that!....but, most shots turned out not as sharp as they should have been. The reason was usually not some fault of the lens: it was just that it can be difficult to focus precisely with the tiny DOF of MF, wide-open, close-up.

 

[Sanders McNew]

I shot a lot of MF when I was just starting with photography. I shot a lot indoors in low-light, wide-open. Nothing wrong with that!....but, most shots turned out not as sharp as they should have been. The reason was usually not some fault of the lens: it was just that it can be difficult to focus precisely with the tiny DOF of MF, wide-open, close-up.

My experience has been that it is much
easier to do this sort of work with a TLR
(in my case, Rolleiflexes) because you
can focus anywhere on the viewscreen
-- not like a rangefinder where you have
to focus with a center spot. And I find
that I can reliably hold the Rolleiflexes
steady at speeds down to 1/4 second.

A common mistake shooting with wide
apertures, with all cameras, is to focus
using a center spot, and then swing the
camera to place the subject off-center.
If you are using a TLR in low light, you
must resist the impulse to rely on the
center spot, and use the entire screen
to lay focus where you want it.

 

[David William White]

The 'sharpness' difference of apertures is minute, and can only be determined with camera on a sturdy tripod in lab conditions. Certainly not something to count on to give you any kind of advantage in the real world.

I don't want to sound dogmatic, but shooting 'wide-open' is generally a subversion of the optical resolving power of photography, although it can be enjoyed in small doses when done creatively. One of the reasons for shooting a TLR is the larger negative and the greater detail you are capable of capturing, so it kind of defeats the purpose of shooting wide open -- you can do that with a smaller, cheaper camera just as well.

If you look at the great TLR photographers (say, Avedon or Arbus, but many others), and the sharpness and depth of field they are able to achieve, you'll see that TLR's sing at f/16 and f/22. They don't need 'selective focus' to isolate their subjects like we sometimes think we do (when we're too lazy to optimize the composition). And if you get into macro work (great with TLR's as they can be racked out quite a bit), you will be operating at f/22 or smaller.

That said, if you really want to go to town with selective focus, shallow-depth of field, and you aren't quite getting what you got before, then here are some suggestions you might try:
-hairspray or vaseline on expendable filter
-extreme closeups (like doing a face-shot in four frames, slightly overlapping)
-double-exposure (one at f/16 and one at f/3.5 & maybe defocused)
-motion blur (track moving subject at slow shutter + f/22 so background is blurred)
-curve the negative (or the paper) when you print

 

[newspaperguy]

FWIW - I think it's generally accepted that most lenses put out their best when stopped down one or two clicks from wide open.

But personally, I was always a believer in "f-8 and be there."

 

[mrisney]

I like the bellows and wide open on the Mamiya. It makes the whole Depth of Field and point of focus challenging for me. I shot this, thinking I had the watch and the glasses, I got the eyeglasses, but missed the watchface. Still love the image though, and lurve my C220

 

[David William White]

FWIW - I think it's generally accepted that most lenses put out their best when stopped down one or two clicks from wide open.

True. I agree. But other factors like camera shake, lens flare, and diffuse lighting tend to dominate, especially for the kind of shooting indicated by the original poster.

 

[David William White]

I like the bellows and wide open on the Mamiya. It makes the whole Depth of Field and point of focus challenging for me. I shot this, thinking I had the watch and the glasses, I got the eyeglasses, but missed the watchface. Still love the image though, and lurve my C220

I'm not wanting to be a real prick or anything, but this kind of shot is endemic of an overdone style. For me, the watch and eyeglasses are pedestrian and of far less interest than the one (possibly) unique thing I want to look at, which is sadly out of focus.

I'll shut up now.

 

[bmattock]

It has been my experience that TLR cameras (6x6 120 film, to be clear) tend to vignette wide-open - at least the ones I have (Yashicas, not Rollei). Some like that look, but I do notice it.

 

[Turtle]

optimal sharpness is pretty unimportant unless DOF considerations are already met.

My TLRs vignetted wide open and produced a beautiful look. Resolution on the Rolleicord was not amazing but the feel was fantastic.

 

[David William White]

optimal sharpness is pretty unimportant unless DOF considerations are already met.

Succinctly put.