I was introduced to this site by Stephan Dietrtich when I was looking for Wollensak Verito examples.  Wow!  Finally found a site that reflects my interest. By way of introduction, I'm a computer architect working at nothing really important. 'Nuff said about that. I started off in the music biz as a composer. Got tired of that. Then I found film photography with LF equipment. Much more interesting and rewarding. Although I have sharp lenses in the kit, I've found that the classic lenses work better for me here in the east coast rain forest. Especially in winter when there's less clutter. The challenge of east coast landscape photography is that there's just so much stuff in the way. Grand west-coast visions just aren't available here. Yes, we have mountains (what the west-coasters call foothills), but you need to be in a balloon or a cherry-picker to see them through the brush. Thus, I'm left with pointing into the forest instead of around it and that's where the classic lenses shine. IN the forest, it's all about shape and pattern -- seeing the forest instead of all those trees. Sure, you can get the effect by shaking the camera or just blurring things with bad focus, but it's not the same. Classic lenses, especially portrait lenses, allow one to narrow down the plane of sharp focus just so much better and with more control. Within that plane, petzval formulas will even allow selective focus on the same plane. And, that's just what's needed in the forest. 

Add to that the glow that can be obtained with an old rapid-rectilinear shot wide open, or the graphics effect that happen with a single meniscus and on and on, and the possibilities sometimes become overwhelming. 

And so, I offer some efforts that show where I am in the journey. What I love about this site is that I no longer need to feel cowed by what the 'contemporary' world is doing. Very gratifying to find wide-open to be a more interesting direction.

George

This is in Watchung Reservation, NJ in March 2008. I used a Voigtlander Heliar 300mm at around f/6 with the focus on the lit up tree. It was evening and the sun was just above the horizion.

Light Source