I've always wanted to experiment with a large format camera. I have an old medium format camera, and looking at the 6cm square transparency on a lightbox is mesmerizing enough - I can't image how incredible it must be when your original frame is 8x10 inches! The detail must be insane!
Also, the larger the format, the less depth of field you're going to get at any given f-stop. Where f/8 is usually enough on a 35mm slr to get you pretty good depth of field, on an 8x10 camera I think the equivalent stop would be somewhere around f/32. most 35mm lenses smallest stop is 22 (some go to 32), but I know a lot of LF lenses go to f/64. The relationship between focal length and field of view is also similarly changed.
It seems to be a lot of work and patience to work with large format (everything is manually set), but I think it'd be really cool to give it a shot (pardon the pun :)).
