How Pro Photographers Get SHARPER Images Than Beginners

In this video, we're going to talk about how pro still life and product photographers focus their cameras.
Most photographers start out shooting with a camera that's not focused well. As you progress, you'll learn to focus your camera more and more accurately. In this video, we'll provide a tutorial on how pro photographers focus their cameras, so you can learn the same techniques and start shooting beautiful still life and product photos like a pro!
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[@TinHouseStudioUK]

the rest of the video was too nerdy for youtube so I have it FREE here www.patreon.com/tinhouse

[@ruibandeirafotografia]

i like nerdy 😀

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

welcome aboard@@ruibandeirafotografia

[@fredzh]

'SHIME - floog'

[@sivasudhanbalamanoha]

Thank you for keeping it free. very informative .. can you suggest other resources to learn about technical cameras in detail.

[@xfrench]

Totally worth it. You've sold me on the kit, now all I need is money.

[@hishamalyahmedi1366]

what's the kit called?

[@robertolding]

Great to see you using a technical (view) camera setup. My career started with view cameras .... uhhh .... strike that .... actually my career began with me loading film holders for use in view cameras! Glamorous, right? As a product photographer using a DSLR, I dislike doing focus stacks, but they are a necessity. I must admit that I am amazed at how well the stacking software I use manages to align everything. I don't know how the software coders figured that out, but kudos to them. My biggest concern with focus stacking is that it involves moving the lens rather than the sensor/film plane. When that happens, the POV of the shot changes. This is one of the many reasons you occasionally see strange artifacts. The lens moves either further or closer away from the scene/subject, which reveals or hides different areas of the scene. When you compare the first shot and the last shot of a stack, you'll see differences in the POV. When you use the sensor/film plane for focusing, the only thing that changes is the crop, the POV remains the same.

[@motorvelo]

Imagine having to do this on a ground glass screen on a 5x4 with the lens open then stopping down, under a black cloth, with a loupe on the screen, checking critical focus, until you felt you could commit to an expensive Polaroid, prior to committing to actual film. Then getting a sheet of film rush processed at the lab before breaking the set and moving on to the next shot. Incredibly we 6:37 even moved on to the next shot sometimes and hoped skill and experience meant we got it right. Which mostly we did. Then add getting the exposure spot on or looking to push or pull the processing to change the results by fractions of a stop. That’s when photographers really earned their fees.

[@ConnorRayArt]

An average day for me during the nineties. Rinse and repeat 5-20 times a day, it was awesome!

[@carterphotography7170]

Same here loved it! @@ConnorRayArt

[@carterphotography7170]

And don't forget loading and cleaning film holders at 11:00pm for the next days shoot!

[@motorvelo]

Off loading film into empty film boxes and sending a sheet or two for a rush protest, then putting the rest of the film from a shoot into another box to be ready should the exposure need adjusting, reloading the film holders ready for the next shot. Never once seeing the actual shot, other than via a Polaroid. Shooting film on commercial jobs as hardcore, but exhilarating.

[@stormfalconstudios]

I love large format photography

[@fanjan7527]

I've been meaning to play with movement cameras for yonks now. YONKS!!! I'll build up to it in the coming months.

[@liamstrain]

It's fun to see the things I use for architecture, used for product. Great video Scott.

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

Focus stacking can be so tricky to get right. Focus stacking software is imperfect and can introduce fuzzy artefacts into the output-image where there's a crossover between front and rear parts that should both be sharp but cannot both be sharp in a single image. I've been looking at a few options to get a tilt-shift lens but as this is still only hobby & learning for me I'm not ready at the moment to spend a large sum on it!

[@mchervino]

The focus stacking app I use allows you to manually reblend fuzzy areas with whatever image from your series of pics. It's pretty simple.

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

@@mchervino Yes, it is possible to retouch, but depending on the image it can also be quite a bit of extra work requiring a lot of precision-editing and it doesn't have an undo for mistakes. At least, I could not find it in HeliconFocus. What app do you use?

[@mchervino]

it's called Focus Stacker. Super user friendly. Correcting mistakes is a cinch, it literally takes seconds. In the editor it displays the final pic next to one from the series. Along the bottom of the screen you can select whichever image from the series. You can zoom in by 400% and it zooms to the same area in both images automatically. You use a size adjustable circle to click and drag over the problem areas in the final pic and just swaps the pixels for the one from the series. It's up to you to decide which image from the series has the sharpest pixels for that spot in the final image. If you make a mistake, or don't like the results, you click the erase icon and the circle then erases whatever you drag it over. It literally takes seconds.@@TimvanderLeeuw

[@bcleste]

I love your videos. I am an amateur, with no intentions of becoming a pro. But you're the only photography youtuber who isn't selling anything other than knowledge. I just pulled the stereotypical american "nailed it" with my PC lens. I was photographing a building and I used tilt to get the lines straight but had set focus before I tilted. So now the sign is in focus the top and bottom of building are out of focus and everything inside the building and behind it are in focus.

[@motorvelo]

If you used a Sinar system it has a scale on the movements that tells you where to focus based on the nearest and most distant points of focus needed and the festooned of choice.

[@andreiaustin4895]

I'd go further & say, the Sinar setup offsets the tilt & twist axes away from the optical axis, allowing you to "lay" the focus planes down, top to bottom &/or side to side. The process is further refined by making the tilt/swing on the rear standard (ground glass/sensor) FIRST, reading the degree of tilt/swing on that rear standard, then dialling an equivalent amount in the OPPOSITE direction on the lens standard. Finally, the rear standard is returned to zero. This process is very accurate, even on a ground glass & cuts down massively on the iterative adjustments required for "on-axis" tilts & swings. My $0.02

[@motorvelo]

@@andreiaustin4895 an excellent summary of the advantages of the sinar tilt and twist design as applied to their P series.

[@podnucmo5]

@@andreiaustin4895 I appreciate your brain, kind stranger.

[@jonjanson8021]

I use an old school 2x3 Cambo technical camera originally designed for a 6x8 roll film back. For digital I made a Nikon F mount adapter to fit the rear standard. I use Nikon and Schneider large format lenses.

[@andrewbuckler]

I use a similar setup, horseman vhr, with Nikon large format lenses.

[@jonjanson8021]

Excellent!@@andrewbuckler

[@jonjanson8021]

In fact better than mine, more portable.

[@charlieasyoutube3465]

Always thank you for your material. So informative and stimulating.

[@gregryan3252]

Reminds me of a large format bellows camera, which I believe this is mimicking with a digital camera for the back.

[@VladimirLadev]

I would love to see a direct comparison of the View MV to the Sinar P3. I guess it would be a great promotional video for Cambo as well.

[@fernanmateos]

Really interesting; thanks for the video, Scott!! The only thing that would make this 120% would be to see the difference in look vesus the same shot with focus stacking :)

[@Sonybo100]

It's not just about how it looks visually, it makes your workflow more efficient, since sometimes you can''t focus stack, or focus stacking for multiple photos might become really overbearing.

[@fernanmateos]

​@@Sonybo100I am fully aware, but Scott specifically talked about a distinct look is the focus stacking - so I feel very curious as to how would it compare with the photo using movements.

[@Twobarpsi]

Simply fascinating to watch!

[@radry100]

tl;dw: tilt shift lens

[@MartinGollery]

Focus stacking on Olympus is a whole different ball game compared to other cameras. In three or four years You'll start to see that in other cameras

[@AK-ContentCreatIon]

HI! Sir. you can stack the picture with the moving parts, and add in the rest...what are you talking about....? Nice Content and very nice workflow and studio!

[@chrischrosmelimelo]

I tried Cambo and find it unecessary complicated. I'd rather have a back and a sinar but with a gfx i find that the best practical solution are Canon TSE lenses on an adapter. You get macro and 17-24-50-90-135 focal lenses.

[@CostaMesaPhotography]

Looks like a tilt-shift (or equivalent) lens... I think your video title is appropriate because for this type of specialty photography, a "pro" would have the proper equipment rather than using work-around techniques that "amateurs" use... focus-stacking, hyper-focal distance, etc... The issue isn't so much getting "sharper" images, which is a different subject related to lens quality/resolution, focus modes, etc...but rather the issue you present is when the scene you want in focus is at varying distances from the sensor. In many other genres, simple depth of field, or using hyper-focal distance is more than adequate for the job. Good video though showing how a product-photography pro does the job right.

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

Yeah a TS lens is like the convenient (but with limitations) version of this.

[@rumorscameras]

wjat about tilt shift lenses from canon?

[@terryhope2074]

all I have to say is Scheimflug, probably spelt incorrectly, but corrected correctly.

[@Popa_Bogdan_Light_Drawing]

thank you!

[@danwhiteside5452]

Great insight Scott. Do you find yourself using the full tilt degree range for a shot like this?

[@jag09]

Can you touch on using the bellows matte box

[@danwongphoto]

David Burnett I think is the guy you're thinking of Scott!

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

Amazing yes. His surname vanished from my mind

[@mr.flotography2269]

My man said f64 what lens is that because that blew my mind.

[@JOHANNAANNABLE]

What is the part in front that is attached to the lens please? Can I get one on ebay?

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

It’s a mamiya RZ lens hood. Lee filters make them for most cameras

[@mastaLuke2]

Scheimpflug is even in german a weird name - speak the „ei“ more like „eye“, then it could be right 😊

[@terencemorrissey4413]

What are good tether cables?

[@tarktari]

What about shooting directly above? Would that achieve full image focus without technical movements? Or would that simply not provide the perspective and framing you want?

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

if alls level then you dont need any alteration in focus plane.

[@hyprz]

how much does the focus system cost?

[@m49v50]

LONG LIVE VIEW CAMERS

[@killpop8255]

I was under the impression you are an outlier with the Cambo, but you are saying you aren't?

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

In terms of who uses them?

[@killpop8255]

@@TinHouseStudioUK yes.

[@diotough]

It's not Scheimpflug principle, it's Scheimpflug principle ... see, there's you're correction.

[@MitchellFX5]

I was wanting to see a technique that was used to separate beginners versus professional, not a piece of tech that is expensive that likely only pros have.

[@rstebnicki]

Want to use TS lens but focusing is big issue. There are rumours that Canon will make next TS-E with AF for RF.

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

Be interesting to see how that works, id imagine most times you would still need to use MF once a swing or tilt is applied

[@rstebnicki]

@@TinHouseStudioUKneed to wait and see...

[@chrischrosmelimelo]

​@@rstebnicki I can't imagine why anyone would want AF on those lenses and no reason why Canon would spend any energy and money in RD in this kind of market, when they already have the one and only perfect line of TSE lenses on the market.

[@drewsaunders2531]

“Shime” like “shine” with an “m.” “Flu” like the disease. G like “goo” without the “oo.”

[@adriannasyraf3534]

f16?????? that's diffraction territory

[@jonjanson8021]

I pronounce it as Sh*t Plug. which is easy to remember and say.

[@justinparker1148]

With the tilt and shift function are you losing part of the image circle if you use a native lens for the camera? I know at one point you were using larger vintage lenses to get the sharpest part to cover the sensor but I’m not sure if that’s a requirement given the adjustments you’re making or purely a preference on your part

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

Its less about native but more about the size of the image circle a lens makes. Some full frame lenses make huge image circles, some medium format lenses make just enough.

[@justinparker1148]

@@TinHouseStudioUK makes total sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain! 🙏

[@ConnorRayArt]

The Mamiya RZ lenses have an image circle of more than 90mm. Modern Rodenstock or Schneider lenses for medium format backs have a typical image circle of 70, 90, 100 or 120mm. Scott used 24x36mm sensors before and he is now using a 33x44mm sensor. Lots of room unless using extreme movements.

[@darkphotographer]

thig is that you can not realy go to you local camera shop and buy it , and it cost a arm and leg , just because only one company make it , yee 2000euro for a thing worth 100 ,, lets charge whatever wee want photographer will need it ,, and is without the mamiya Lents , and i have 3 mamiya rb lents that a just collecting dust ,

[@thenexthobby]

So if a beginner had that gear and knew how to use it, would they get sharper images than pros who do not? :)

[@memcrew1]

Are you using a TS lens?

[@AIbot21432]

he uses a mamiya rz 110mm or 80mm, no need to use a TS lens with his system, the whole thing is a big TS and more

[@memcrew1]

@@AIbot21432 Ok, thanks for the response.

[@steevewhitehead1416]

Who makes all this bellows gear you use? All I can find on line is cheap nasty trash.

[@TinHouseStudioUK]

Its made by Cambo

[@MrYourcoffin]

Fortunately, I only shoot industrial products, so I can take my damn time and focus stack.