Don't want to nit pick ya'll and I love to try just about anything transparent taped to the front of my camera but I just had the pleasure of shooting 8x10s wtih an 1000 mm Nikkor and thought I'd share some of the experience.
I was shooting the bronze doors on the new L.A. Cathedral for the artist. Standing at the camera position and holding up a transparency you can clearly see the benefits of great glass and large format. My eyes are correted to at least 20-20. When I asked the optomitrist told me they were better than, about 20-15, 20-10. There is 3/4" lettering on the door and I was standing at least 100 feet away. You couldn't even see the texture of the lettering by eye but in the trans held at arm's length you could clearly see that it was lettering though I couldn't read any of it. 8x10 transparencies are the ne plus ultra of sharp photography. I've shot a lot of 4x5s and they look great but shooting paintings with an 8x10 is like 'god's own eyes' its as though you are looking through a loupe (at a 4x5) except all over the painting all at once. My point? We like view cameras for many reasons but one of them is getting great negs. Really cheap glass can degrade that to the point they are not even as good as enlarging a 6x6. All of us should have at least one really sharp lens and it would be worth evenings at MacDonalds slinging patties for six months to pay for one. One counter argument is that almost anything on a 4x5 or larger camera can give you textures-and the feeling conveyed by texture- that no 35mm could ever capture. And of course of many of the inexpensive lenses discussed here are really great lenses that are inexpensive only because they are being sold as surplus. Will ---William Nettles [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nettles Photo / Imaging Site http://www.wgn.net/~nettles Find out what's happening in Echo Park: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Cameramakers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://rmp.opusis.com/mailman/listinfo/cameramakers
