With the permission of Corran who made the image and posted it in an earlier discussion, I wanted to share some thoughts on employing minimal f stops in concert with optimal focus plane selection in an effort to keep diffraction to a minimum (even though some will argue that contact printing is indifferent to diffraction - which I do not believe is the case) and discuss the topic.
As an 8x20 photographer myself I contend that the image made by Corran on 8x20 with a 305mm lens with a modest from tilt could have been made at f32 and maintained sharp focus throughout as there are no complicating components of the proper film plane in the photograph.
The question therefore becomes do we ascribe to the minimal focus criteria in concert with judicious film plane selection as I feel is the desired case or do we overly employ increasingly (and I would comment unnecessarily) small f stops and let diffraction creep into our ULF photography? I have never made an 8x20 photograph beyond f45 in a long time and hope that I never have to in the future. ULF film costs and a desire to optimize the process inherently leads me to keep produced resolution as high as possible without sacrificing on image quality. Interested to see where the body intellect comes into on this topic.
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