Dslr back

[Leigh]

For this reason, digital lenses would work great with black and white film, because B&W film have their grains all on the same plane.

Except that the image circle of digital LF lenses is MUCH smaller than that of the corresponding film lens.

- Leigh

[Frank Petronio]

You need very finely geared controls to make minute movements - that would would have to study and test on preview and with test shots to optimize - this is why they make special view cameras with mirco-geared movements for digital backs.

Simply putting a DSLR onto a regular 4x5 camera will work, but very poorly.

You're wasting your time trying to do things on the cheap. A tilt-shift lens makes more sense.

[Greg Lockrey]

Thank you for the advice. I tried this method with DSLR, but as you said, because I was changing the lens position I gave up.

Now on a large format like a Sinar you can adjust the rear focus. I understand Minolta makes a bellows that has rear focus control.

[Gene McCluney]

For a digital capture system that most closely compares to film capture in large format, the solution (within its limits) is the Betterlight Scanning Back. I have one. It is laptop computer controlled, is tethered to a control box that is operated by a computer. But, it slides in a 4x5 view camera just like a film holder and scans almost the full 4x5 image area. A mask is provided for accurate composition. It requires continuous light (no flash), as it can take several minutes to acquire the image. It is capable of the highest quality work, as it is not a Bayer-sensor type imager. It captures full color information at every pixel, no interpolation. They have been around long enough that you may be able to find a used one at a similar price to a high-end DSLR body. You can use full view-camera tilts, swings, and shifts with this solution, just like film. There is a battery powered option for location work. Many art museums and galleries use this system for the photography of original paintings for the purpose of making prints of the highest quality of original art works.

The next choice would be a medium-format digital back. Most higher-resolution medium format backs have an imager about the size (slightly smaller) of a 6x4.5 roll film negative....Like many medium format film SLR cameras shoot. With an adapter, you mount this back on the back of your view camera, usually a sliding adapter that had a ground glass with cropping marks on it, so you can compose on the glass, then slide the back in place of the ground glass to take the photo. These can be used under battery power, saving files to internal compact flash card, or tethered to a computer. Since the back mounts directly onto the camera, there is no mirror box to get in the way of (or obscuring) the image circle of a highly tilted or shifted lens, and you can use these backs with flash. There are even view-camera adapters for these that allow shifting the back in precise amounts to stitch very large files. The pixels are larger on these backs than the less-expensive DSLR 35mm format cameras, thus yielding a better image, smoother, more film like.