Amen. I came to the same conclusion. For some reason, LF is just a lottery.
Which is a fallacy. There should not be any difference in lattitude compared to other formats. Any optical property is determined by focal length and diaphragm. Whatever the format behind that. But if you then get consistent good results in 35mm of MF but not in LF, then there is something wrong with LF.
I got fed up with it after I got these images:
Same lens, same light (images taken seconds apart) light metring incident with a L578, different films, same developer, developed according to the datasheets of the makers of the film. Focused with a Gaoursi 8x loupe and sharp on the GG. Camera was a Wista 45 with a Fujinon 180 CM-W in a black copal on a tripod with a cable release. Negative is just as woozy as the scan. Shoot this with a Mamiya 645ProTL and a 55mm and chromes and you get razor sharp negatives. It is hardly possible to make out if those "towers" are brickwork or concrete.
Thing is the next time you use the same camera, lens, film and developer you get nice razor sharp negatives with plenty of grey.
There just isn't any consistency in LF. It is just guesswork and hoping that the moon, saturn and tides align and that you haven't angered some unknown god. Maybe it helps to draw a pentagram and sacrifice a chicken but you have to draw a line somewhere.
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