>>4379864Depending on enlargement and film size diffraction isn't as much of an issue with large format. Generally speaking f/22 is around where aberration and diffraction are at the optimal compromise. If you mess around with a DoF calculator you'll see that f8 is not going to give you much DoF with anything over 120mm. 4x5, 150mm, f8 with focus set 5 feet away is about 7 inches DoF, compared to 18ish at f22.
Pic was shot at f96 with my 1000mm lens. It's cropped, so put the height around 8 inches to sort of get a feel for how a contact print would look IQ-wise. In person the print looks really nice even if it is somewhat soft.
It is more important to have an even level of sharpness edge to edge. If the image has a super sharp center but soft edges it can be distracting and ugly, and look much worse than an evenly soft image.
>light meterI picked up a sekonic l708 years ago and have been using it for almost everything. Fantastic meter for outdoors and studio because it can trigger flashes. They're a little pricey now, unfortunately.
I also have an incident meter that doesn't need batteries as a backup as well.
