I've seen some massive, super sharp prints with a very narrow DOF (I might compare it to f2.8 when working with a 85mm 1.8D Nikkor lens on a Nikon D200 digital camera and the subject is about 2 to 3 meters away). He's a student and his equipment was under $1000,- he claimed, dunno what equipment though, might have been a Sinar. The effects and pastel-like unsharpness he achieved was far beyond anything I've ever seen (even compared to high end digital, like Nikon D3X digital camera's or Canon 5D mkII's!).

I'm reading for hours now in the internet (including this forum and tons of articles by Ken Rockwell) to figure out ways to work with DOF.

As far as I can figure out these are all variables:
-Lenses (duhh) & f-stop set
-Bellow extensions
-Camera movements

In theory I know how to calculate or review the 'plane of sharpness' (or whatever it's called ) and I know I should lean the lens a little bit forward to get a bit of extra sharpness. But what confuses me is that most of the lenses I find (like on e-bay) have a f-stop of 5.6 as the largest opening. I know there are some big differences between lensen on digital and LF, but can't seem to figure it all out..

I guess my question would be: are there other ways of working with DOF, except from changing the f-stop? And... how?

Hope the silly questions will get less silly soon!