I'm proud to say that I resemble your grandfather.

See there, I pushed you to your goal!!

Thanks all. This was taken a couple of weeks ago - a full year after the first one posted. The only thing in common is that it is the same beach, the conditions were very different in each shot.

King: are you bald? :-)

Does it matter?

Nope it certainly doesn't matter. You're photography and knowledge is extremely inspiring. Quick question if I may - would I need a centre filter on a 65mm Large Format lens for 5x4 if I'm using B&W film? Someone suggested you may get away with it on B&W but not on transparency.

AbsolutelN...65mm is, of course, very wide angle on a 5x4 view camera format. The answer to your question depends opon the lens and the particular photograph you are going to take (as you've probably been told). Will you be buying a view camera lens?

For landscape work, you are probably not going to shift the back of the camera out to the edge of the image circle or use any extreme swings or tilts that would cause the image circle to shift to the edge of your film.

View camera lenses are designed to throw an image circle considerably larger than the format for which the lens is intended. A good wide angle 5x4 view camera lens should easily accommodate a piece of 7x5 film.

If you find out that you need one, buy one. :>)

Thanks King, I should have known the answer would be very subjective. More than anything I'm trying to decide what focal length to start off with as I can only afford one lens. On 35mm I use 17 to 24mm 95% of the time so 65mm seems about right.

...AbsolutelyN. I've been thinking about this on the way home from work. There are several things to think about here.

1) Lens falloff at the edges and corners of the frame. This is what the centre filter is designed for. Depending on the lens, you may lose as much as a full stop of light from the center to the corners. For landscape photography, lens falloff can enhance the image. Same as darkening the edges and corners of a print.

2) View camera movement. One of the great things about view cameras is the ability to move the front and back standards independently on every axis, yielding around 40 thousand permutations each (front and back), compared to approximately none for a fixed lens (cf. PC--perspective control--lenses or the lens baby).

A very wide angle lens will call for the use of a bag bellows and a special lens board that will recess the lens into the camera. This will restrict some of the camera movements. For learning view camera technique, I would recommend your buying a cheap "normal" lens (around 150mmm) or short telephoto lens (around 210mm), or borrowing one, in addition to the purchase of a high-quality wide-angle lens.

3. Focusing and lens aperture. It is more difficult to focus wide-angle lenses. A brighter image will make your life much easier. Buy the brightest (fastest) lens you can afford. You won't regret it.

You will probably love the 75mm lens for landscape work, but I wonder what you will be gaining vis-a-vis a full-frame digital SLR or larger format digital image. Would you consider renting or borrowing something similar so you can test the waters before making a substantial investment? Are you considering investing in a digital back for the 5x4?

Good luck!

1. One stop of falloff sounds ok to me - I regularly darken the edges of my images to achieve a vignetted look which I very much like.

2. The camera I'm getting has fairly limited movements: Rise 65mm, Fall 25mm,centre tilt 30° + 30°. It is a non-folding field camera, very light weight and designed for use with 45-180mm lenses. I'll be mainly using it when backpacking so quick and easy to setup and weight are very important to me.

3. I've heard of wide angles being hard to focus. I'm thinking of a Nikon 65mm f/4 if I can get hold of one which is about as wide as I can find.

I'm not planning on using digital any less than I do now. Large Format does however open up some areas I've been struggling with digital. Mainly long exposures at dusk/night where digital very quickly runs into noise issues. Film is much better suited to this type of photography and I need to be-able to produce very high quality prints. It's also a challenge and something I've always wanted to look into.

Thanks for all your thoughts, Tristan