Shooting Watches/Jewelry on 4x5

[Zachary Goulko]

I am having a hard time getting sharp images, trying to shoot watches on a Sinar 4x5, with a Rodenstock 150mm f/5.6 Digital APO Sironar lens.

After adjusting tilts/swings, I verify focus both on the ground glass with a 10x loupe, as well as with Live View, at 100% zoom. Both seem to be sharp, however, after shooting, the image appears soft around the edges.

I am shooting approximately 2ft away fromt the subject. Do I need a macro lens for this type of photography?

Any advise is appreciated.

[Mike W]

Any large format lens is a macro lens (because of the bellows).

I've used a sinaron in school to shoot watches as well (what are the odds) and they came out soft as too....I did something wrong while focussing though, and live view is a b*tch.

Maybe you should try adjusting the focus a little more than you think is right, see what that does.

Maybe you could post some images/100% crops?...

[Schewe]

Any large format lens is a macro lens (because of the bellows).
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Actually no...just cause you can focus the lens doesn't mean it was designed for that taking distance. Most general purpose lenses are designed for 1:10-infinity. APO (or closeup lenses) really are designed for 1:10 to 1:1 distance.

The APO lens the OP is talking about SHOULD be good in the taking distance he's talking about. There are two factors that may be negatively impacting his sharpness. First off, stopping down more than 2-3 stops from wide open may lead to a lot of loss of resolving capability of the lens at its optimal F stop.

The other thing may be the severity of the swings & tilts...obviously the lens will preform less good at the extreme edge of the circle of confusion. Combine that with stopping down too far for depth of field and you may be in the situation where what you need to shoot conflicts with the laws of physics. You can try cutting back on the swings and tilts, open up a bit and even back off to reduce the depth of field demands and tolerate less overall resolution. But, I'm not sure there is a magic bullet out there to solve this issue.

The other thing to consider is focus stacking a couple of separate shots and blend to accomplish the required depth of field. More work for sure and not suitable for all subjects but can result in an optimal image sharpness.

[Graham Mitchell]

Maybe you could post some images/100% crops?...
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+1

[yaya]

E_Edwards who posts here regularly is what I consider to be the master and authority when it comes to shooting jewellery on 5X4 digital.

Hopefully he can chime in with some advice

Yair

[marcwilson]

Remember of course that once you start to use swing and tilts you change the plane of focus so what you see as soft edges may well be the normal out of focus areas in front of and beyond the plane of focus.

The best advice I can give is to  tether up and practice...that way you will get your technique right up to speed, learning what works and what doesn't in terms of apertures, movements, etc and all with a nice big screen.



Marc

[BJNY]

What a big difference I saw when I switched to using Rodenstock Makro-Sironar lenses.
The image snapped into focus on the ground glass, so obviously better than any APO lens optimized for infinity distance.

Other brands are good as well, such as Schneider G-Claron (150mm, 210mm, 270mm, 305mm, & 355mm), Fuji AS (180mm, 240mm, 300mm, 360mm), and Nikon AM-ED (120mm, 210mm).  I've used every one of these lenses except the Nikon 210mm.

[Zachary Goulko]

+1
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Here is a 100% crop, straight out of the camera. Processed with ACR, no sharpening applied.

It just doesn't seem sharp to me. Especially compared to Macro primes on a 1ds II.

BTW, this was shot at f16, to try and gain a little DOF.

[bryanyc]

Here is a 100% crop, straight out of the camera. Processed with ACR, no sharpening applied.

It just doesn't seem sharp to me. Especially compared to Macro primes on a 1ds II.

BTW, this was shot at f16, to try and gain a little DOF.
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ZG: a lot of what has been posted is quite accurate and very important:  You may be too close for the optimal performance of the lens, you may be using too small an aperture, the swings etc with a digital lens may put you outside of acceptable image circle.

But there can be other factors involved as well.  Stability of the camera (strobe eliminates this) or of the object.  As you stop down the actual plane of focus does shift some also.  The lens could have been dropped and out of alignment or the elements not tightly screwed together.  Airplanes sometime vibrate the screw threads open (has happened to me).

Can you recompose a shot from the same position for a subject 10ft away, same exposure, and get what you feel is a tack sharp image?  Is another lens with the same set up much better?  Are you using strobe?

[E_Edwards]

Here is a 100% crop, straight out of the camera. Processed with ACR, no sharpening applied.

It just doesn't seem sharp to me. Especially compared to Macro primes on a 1ds II.

BTW, this was shot at f16, to try and gain a little DOF.
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Hi Zachary,

As Schewe mentions earlier, just because you can focus doesn't mean that the lens will deliver sharpness when you push it beyond its boundaries.

In this case (and I don't know what back you are using, so I don't know the size of the chip, is it an old generation back?), but it looks to me that you are so close, way beyond 1:1, probably 3:1 as you say you haven't cropped, that any lens, even the very finest, will have problems, especially when you use tilts or any other displacement of the front or rear standards, which means you are not using the centre of the glass perpendicularly.

For this sort of work, and having tried APO Schneiders and Rodenstocks from when I used to use 4x5 film, I can tell you that a good Macro Digital made for the job will produce better sharpness than the film lenses (I regularly use the 120 Macro Digitar from Schneider). Even so, I never go beyond 1:1 or thereabouts if I can help it.

So:

-Try a bit less than 1:1, i.e. pull back and crop the image.

-Try f8

-Don't use any tilts, swings or shift. (And you hardly need them for your sample shot). You will experience depth of field problems as such close range, but then you know that lenses rapidly fall off at small apertures, so you are always trying to get a balance of all the elements)

-Minimise flare, shade your lens (as flare can cause some loss of sharpness and contrast).

But really you need to invest on a Macro Digitar. (Even so, don't expect miracles, you still need to do everything you can to maximise sharpness).

I shoot watches all the time and often at close distances to get the sexy details of the watch face or the watch movements, the quality is amazingly pin sharp, so much so that often I just can't believe how lucky we are to live in a period of such great new technology.

Edward

[BobDavid]

Am I missing something? The 100% crop looks sharp to me.

[DavidP]

I have that lens, I have been pretty happy with it. It definitely looses sharpness at f16, I try to not shoot beyond f11, unless I absolutely have to then I will have to sharpen more.

[Zachary Goulko]

Hi Zachary,

As Schewe mentions earlier, just because you can focus doesn't mean that the lens will deliver sharpness when you push it beyond its boundaries.

In this case (and I don't know what back you are using, so I don't know the size of the chip, is it an old generation back?), but it looks to me that you are so close, way beyond 1:1, probably 3:1 as you say you haven't cropped, that any lens, even the very finest, will have problems, especially when you use tilts or any other displacement of the front or rear standards, which means you are not using the centre of the glass perpendicularly.

For this sort of work, and having tried APO Schneiders and Rodenstocks from when I used to use 4x5 film, I can tell you that a good Macro Digital made for the job will produce better sharpness than the film lenses (I regularly use the 120 Macro Digitar from Schneider). Even so, I never go beyond 1:1 or thereabouts if I can help it.

So:

-Try a bit less than 1:1, i.e. pull back and crop the image.

-Try f8

-Don't use any tilts, swings or shift. (And you hardly need them for your sample shot). You will experience depth of field problems as such close range, but then you know that lenses rapidly fall off at small apertures, so you are always trying to get a balance of all the elements)

-Minimise flare, shade your lens (as flare can cause some loss of sharpness and contrast).

But really you need to invest on a Macro Digitar. (Even so, don't expect miracles, you still need to do everything you can to maximise sharpness).

I shoot watches all the time and often at close distances to get the sexy details of the watch face or the watch movements, the quality is amazingly pin sharp, so much so that often I just can't believe how lucky we are to live in a period of such great new technology.

Edward
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Hi Edward,

To answer your question I am shooting with an Aptus 75. The camera is on a heavy stand, with a large geared head, which feels very steady. For lighting I am using high speed Grafit packs.

I have made a couple of changes:
Opened up to f11
Backed up about another 6 inches
Placed another strobe with no diffusion, strictly as a specular modeling light on the watch, to help with the focus on the details.

This helped me achieve better focus. I guess I have to crop and lose some real estate, in exchange for sharpness and DOF.

[klane]

Some of the digital lenses are good past f11 my 60 and 90 (schneiders) only lose a little sharpness at f22, personally I think the sample looks pretty sharp.

[Henry Goh]

Could it be more of a blooming than focus issue?