A measure of the esteem that LF photography is held in.

[Pete Andrews]

I've just found a 5x4 camera in a skip!Not some beat-up old relic either. It 's a Devere 'Devon' monorail, in dusty but perfectly functional condition. In fa ct, cleaned up, it'll be more modern, and in far better nick than the old Devere monorail I already had.The GG is perfect, the bellows look nearly new, and the only things I could find wrong were one small screw missing, and an empty bu bble-level on the front standard. It even had a lensboard attached, but no lens, unfortunately. (bummer!)

Of course, I'm over the moon, to put it mildly, but it does make me wonder if this indicates a widespread and general disdain and di sregard for large format photography.Perhaps the previous owner knows someth ing we don't about film availability in the near future?

[RICHRRD ILOMAKI]

Pete:

Lucky you.

I assume a Skip in "Merrie Old" is a dumpster?

Cheers:<)

[Bob Eskridge]

Congratulations on your find! A lot of people who may come into possession of cameras such as these think that they have no use in todays world. And since they aren't made of wood and brass they can't be antiques.

As to film, it will be around for a long time. Maybe, in the future, the name will change to something like "analog image storage medium" but it will still have a use for those of us who will insist on being differnt.

[Bruce Wehman]

Funniest dang looking accordion I ever saw!.....

[Chris Ellinger]

No market for stolen view cameras? Guess the theives should be more informed, before they go to all that trouble just to end up throwing the thing away.

[Kevin Crisp]

And the EXACT location of the dumpster is?

[Joe Lipka]

What? No bubble level on the front standard? Get back to the dumpster and dive in.

[Wayne Campbell]

Dumpster diving may become a new Olympic sport!

[Pete Andrews]

"Dumpster diving may become a new Olympic sport!" - It already is round here, and competition is fierce for the best dumpsters!Kevin, Joe: Sorry. The skip was taken away a couple of hours after my first excavation.

I was just wondering what the odds were on someone dumping a camera like that, and coincidentally, someone like me that still uses LF, spotting it and rescuing it. The camera was fairly well hidden under a liberal dusting of plaster and bits of old wood, and yet it hadn't suffered any major damage. I think I might be getting religion.

[Sal Santamaura]

Oh no, Pete, not that! Just keep chanting: even the smallest probability is not zero, even the smallest probablity is not zero, ...