It appears that Michael Reichmann's experiment with his digital field camera setup (see http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...tal-view.shtml and http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...ing-ants.shtml) has ended, and his kit is now for sale:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/...howtopic=18617
Note Gary Ferguson's comments (which Michael says he agrees with) regarding the real world limitations of such a setup:
Like 4x5 it's slow and cumbersome, but unlike 4x5 you're not rewarded with a unique viewfinder experience or gold standard quality. You're squinting at a 37mm x 49mm image, trying to make precise camera adjustments that will be later scrutinised at much higher enlargements...And rather than slipping a cheap film holder into the camera, you're gingerly attaching, and then detaching, a very expensive and delicate digital back before each exposure. So check your insurance, scrutinise the weather forecast, and brush up on your sensor cleaning techniques!
So it appears that practical digital view camera options for field use are limited to architectural cameras (such as the Cambo Wide) which support rise/fall but not swing/tilt; stitching several "lower" resolution MF digital shots together using a standard 4x5 camera (as suggested by Richard Sexton at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...al-ebony.shtml), which sounds good for architecture but problematic for shooting moving objects or dealing with rapidly changing light; using tilt/shift lenses on SLR's, which have limited coverage and focal lengths; or using a scanning back (slow, bulky and again difficult to use with moving subjects or changing/low light).
I doubt any of this will surprise those who have been following digital technology, but it does mean that (excluding for the moment the argument about digital versus film image quality) digital has yet to introduce a practical, functionally equivalent replacement product for film-based field cameras.
I take no pleasure one way or the other in any of this; I am pretty agnostic regarding the film versus digital debate. But it does appear that some of us will be holding onto our film cameras longer than originally anticipated (possibly much longer). I just don't see myself stitching together an entire matrix of digital SLR captures to compensate for a lack of camera movements: compensating for wind motion effects, lens distortion or falloff, light changes, depth-of-field limitations, etc. would take most of the fun out of photography for me. After working in the computer industry for 20 years, I don't want to spend still more time sitting in front of a computer.
So let's keep working on buying more film and keeping at least a few film processing labs healthy, right?
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