I've been shooting 4X5 (mostly B&W) heavily for the last few months or so and have been very satisfied with the results.
Today I went back and printed a few of my very best quality 35mm film scans and they look like crap after getting so used to 4X5. No surprise I guess. Anyway, I suggest any of you yearning for better quality images give 4X5 a shot. The lenses and "bodies" ( monorails) arent very expensive used and give an incredible bang for the buck. I spent about $2500 for two cameras, ( a press and a monorail view) and 6 lenses used (great shape) on ebay. Really good lenses too.( Schneider & Fujinon). As a comparison, I spent over $4000 on my P67 with 8 lenses and of course the quality is lower with P67 than with 4X5. Another nice thing about 4X5 is that it isnt going to be obsoleted by digital soon. My 4X5 scans are ~90 Mpixels @2400 dpi. Large prints (13X19 on my Epson) really give a "You are There" result. No darkroom / bulky enlarger is needed with todays scanners either.. Sure, there are certain types of photography you cant do with a 4X5, but for the ones you can like portraits, landscape, and architecture, the quality trumps small and medium formats by a wide margin. Lastly, it's alot of FUN! Try it , you'll like it. P.S. no TTL meters, no AF, no winders, no zooms, no AE, No batteries, But thankfully, you dont need them. There is one downside, NO SMC Pentax large format lenses! JCO J.C. O'Connell mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jcoconnell.com My Business references & Websites: http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/jco/
