Use of f32 and f45 for 4X5 landscapes

[ic-racer]

The ultimate diffraction-resolution trade-off happens on 4x5 film enlarged to 8x10 at about f300.

IF your focal spread is 24mm or IF you view your 8x10 prints from a distance.

[Kirk Gittings]

Much of my work has been routinely stopped down to f32 and occasionally f45. Traditionally I rarely printed above 16x20 and if diffraction was objectionable I limited a print to 11x14. Since starting to print some of my work digitally 6 years ago I have started to routinely print above 16x20. I am a minimalist when it comes to digital sharpening-not looking for a "digital look" in the sharpening even on close inspection. Slight additional-careful sharpening in a print can overcome softness caused by mild diffraction in a totally pleasing way. As a result I no longer even worry about diffraction at f32 or f45 for prints up to 20x24.

[Maris Rusis]

IF your focal spread is 24mm or IF you view your 8x10 prints from a distance.

That's pretty right. The experiment I did used 4x5 film behind a Fujinon-W 300mm lens carrying alternative circular "Waterhouse" plates with pinholes. As smaller holes were sequentially tried the lens image started sharp but got softer while the pinhole image started soft and got sharper. By the time I got down to a 1mm hole 8x10 enlargements from both configurations, glass and no glass, eyeballed much the same. Continuing with even smaller pinholes gave increasingly soft images, glass or no glass.

[Armin Seeholzer]

I was surprised how sharp my APO Ronar was at f64 on my 8x10. With a 5x loupe it was just sharp with the 7x loup still okay but a bit soft with the 10x loupe it was soft!
So I would do a 5 times enlargement from this pictures without any problem!

So maybe the Ronars are the lenses to use for stoping down!
I will some day in the future test all my 360mm lenses at f 64 and also the 300 mm!
I think for example a Tessar Type holds not so good after f 32!

Cheers Armin

[Bill_1856]

Tilt/swing is only a last resort if you've stopped it down all the way (refocusing as indicted) and still have somethng out of focus.
(I expect to get burned for this opinion!)