New LF must have

[Bruce Watson]

This is exactly what I was fantasizing about the last time I took the trail from Yosemite valley up to Nevada falls with 16.5 kg of LF gear on my back:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/03_exo.shtml

This is the kind of thing that would make 8x10 and larger formats hiker friendly! Of course, if we thought that LF was expensive before, this little puppy should seriously break the bank.

[Bob Fowler]

That is just way too cool! I think it will more than break the bank though, probably break about a dozen banks... :-)

[Bobby Black]

Holy crap!

[David R Munson]

Holy crap!

I'll second that.

[Bruce Wehman]

The Borg.

[KenM]

Yeah, and when it breaks, you can haul it *and* your pack back out.

No thanks. Pack light, it's the only way :-)

[Dan Ingram]

Didn't I see this in Aliens? Still, I think The Six Million Dollar Landscape Photographer has potential as a TV show. I'd get one, but I scare enough people already with my Crown Graphic.

[Capocheny]

Impossib!!!!

Mind you, you won't have to worry about packing your 8x10 or 11x14 after you buy one of these things... because you'll have sold off your house, car, wife and kids, and cameras in order to fund this purchase!

Good to dream though. :>)

[Kevin M Bourque]

"...that are connected rigidly to the user at the feet...."

With wood screws, perhaps, or some 1/4" 20 bolts?

Resistance is futile. You will go digital, uh, I mean, be assimilated……

[Bruce Watson]

Kevin,

I checked a couple of years ago with Better Light. They told me at the time that taking one of their scan backs in the field was another 9 kg (20 lbs), required laptop extra. Seeing as how I could never afford a new one, I'd be looking used, and this is probably what I could find on the used market today.

So for me to go digital, I've gotta have the exoskeleton. How twisted is that?

[Kevin M Bourque]

Uh huh. Just be sure you get the cerebral implant to tie the whole thing together.

[paul stimac]

Very cool - thanks for the link.

I could buy a Wisner 20x24 and go hiking with it and put an extra seat on the back and carry my girlfriend - then maybe she won't complain so much. Isn't technology wonderful.

[tim atherton]

The US Miliatry and it's contractor friends in the military industrial complex are very keen on this and several other simialr projects - all geared towards a sort of computer game Infantryman called Combat Soldier 2020 or something ...

There's big bucks in it for whoever succeeds down the road

[Graeme Hird]

Can we get them to put an extra leg on it? Then we will have a tripod that can walk itself and the camera to the scene for us.

[John Kasaian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but A.A. had something like that. I believe it was called a "donkey";-)

[neil poulsen]

Some fantasies are like that.

[Jon_2416]

>The project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, began in earnest in 2000. Next week, from March 9 through 11, Kazerooni and his research team will showcase their project at the DARPA Technical Symposium in Anaheim, Calif.

Your tax dollars at work.

[Chad Jarvis]

Your tax dollars work on far more inane things.

[jantman]

Well, how will I afford that AND the 20x24???