Originally Posted by
Frank Petronio
Buy a camera outfit from someone on the Forum here or at APUG and you'll have a 98% chance of getting a good deal and an honest, descriptive seller. Look for someone with alot of prior posts and who participates, and they will be honor bound to be straight with you. Beats eBay, although there are some good reliable sellers there too.
You can also ask questions here, like, "is this a good deal?"
Personally, YMMV, I'd get an inexpensive but fully featured monorail with a late 1980s-1990s era 210/5.6 lens from any of the major manufacturers. Some will question getting a monorail, but until you are able to use movements, you won't learn or know what movements you want to use. If you do mostly portraits, you may find that you use minimal movements, so a folding camera like a Crown Graphic (very inexpensive) or a Graflex SLR (great for portraits but not much else) may suffice. If on the other hand you gravitate towards using extreme movements -- studio work, architecture -- then no folding camera (Linhof Technika, Wista wood or metal, Toyo Field are the come ones) will be as flexible as a good monorail.
Monorails are also cheap these days since many of the older hobby photographers aren't strong enough to lift them ;-0
Something like a Sinar F2, Linhof Karden S, Toyo G, Arca Swiss Discovery -- those would be great to start with and they sell for about $5-700. A nice 210 would be $300 and you can get a loupe (get a cheap one -- >$20), ten holders ($100), and a changing tent ($175 for a nice Harrison Pup Tent). A Rubbermaid ice chest makes a great monorail storage case. Look for a complete outfit from someone.
Your main concern with any used camera is the bellows, ask to see some close up photos or buy from someone trusted. Search here for how to tell if your bellows has pinholes. They can be replaced but you don't need that hassle early on.
Use the leftover $ for film and shoot a lot of it.
You can always sell this stuff for about what you paid for it, so later on you can decide whether you want a light, quaint little wooden camera or a heavy duty beast... but it is pretty easy to swap gear around thanks to the internet.
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