Forgive my enthusiasm. I am an oil painter. Over time, I have shot most smaller formats. I have gone from digital (for action I use a canon eos 1ds), to 6x6 (Rollei 6008af film - fantastic sophisticated camera), to using a view camera.

I just purchased a wonderful arca swiss classic. It is so surprising at how similar shooting large format (4x5 in my case)is to painting or drawing from life.

It appears that many of the skill sets needed for painting are also used for LF. What a fantastic surprise.

Anyhow the thing I really need to learn, is how to use this thing for figurative work. Not pretty naked women with fake boobs, but real living humans. At this point point, I can sketch a figure at about the same speed as set up for LF.

I wish to avoid formalized posing. That is so boring to me. All those years of life drawing I guess. So here are my thoughts. Please give me your advice.

I want to use my heavy duty motion picture tripod mounted on locking casters for moving around. I need to zone focus from various positions real fast. Suggestions on high speed zone focus would be really appreciated. Perhaps this doenst exist.

I will have a confederate to speak with the subject so they pay less attention to the guy behind the cloth. Im gonna try and use flash as much as possible to avoid those really long exposures.

What do you do to get an effective portrait within these limits?

Thanks

George