Purpose of Wide Angle Process Lenses.

This relates to Tito's question about the 210mm f10 Nikkor below.

I'm very curious as to the original uses and purpose of wide-angle process lense s. There have been several for sale on Ebay recently, including 300mm - 260mm - 210mm f10 Nikkors, 270 f11 WA G-Clarons, and a 260m f9 Konica Hexanon GRII that I bought. All of these lenses exhibit highly curved semi-hemispherical front a nd rear elements.

I'm sure these lenses make great wide angles for 8x10 and larger cameras. But w hat's the benefit/use of a wide-angle lens in process/graphics work. I'm assumi ng it allows for larger images with less bellows extension, thus smaller graphic s cameras. Am I right? What about light fall off?

Thanks in advance.

As to the same question that you asked on rec photo.

For vertical process cameras.