Hi Dick
If I plan to photograph a tall building using 5x4 and analogue lens, let us say you need 5 cm of rise, how much rise would you need on a digital lens and digital back, to photograph the same building with equivalent focal length and equivalent angle of view.
What Doug says is correct,,, if the longer digital lens can do the job re lens field of view.
If you plan to photograph a tall building with verticals parallel (back vertical), the minimum lens field of view is twice the angle above the horizontal from the camera to the top of the building, regardless of film or sensor format, so "lens factors" for different formats might have little to do with this application.
(2* is only enough for a building with a point on top (e.g. a spire) so you can paint in the vignetted sky.)
If you have to shift 100mm of film 50mm to get the top of the building in, with a lens of the same field of view and focal length, you would have to shift the 50mm sensor 75mm, and then, presumably, stitch to get the rest of the building in.
75mm is the original shift plus half the difference in the format dimension.