Well, it happened again--I missed the best light. I was up at Convict Lake in the Eastern Sierra, nice light, but cloudy and changing fast. My friend gets a perfect composition and perfect light with a 35 mm SLR. It turns out that I chose a very similar composition, but by the time I am ready (maybe 5-7 minutes later) the light has changed and wind has kicked up obscuring the wonderful reflection of snow covered peaks on the lake.

So I get to thinking, "How can I speed up the setup?" (besides practice, which I will definitely be doing). I identified several areas that take me too long and am hoping for suggestions to speed up setup:

1) Leveling the camera - I use a Gitzo leveling base (which I love) with an Arca Swiss B1 on Gitzo 1325. It still takes me too long to get the ballhead level in two dimensions. When I get one right, the other has moved. My current camera, a Wista DXII doesn't have bubble levels. I have been using a small pen-sized level I bought at a hardware store. Tips on working faster with the ballhead? Should I buy a bubble level and attach it to the camera? If so, which one? Should I consider switching to a pan head like the Bogen 410 compact geared head?

2) Setting up the camera - this is actually not too bad, I like the Wista best of the three cameras I have owned (Tachihara, Toho are others). Does take some time to unfold and attach the lens, but reasonable. Certainly a non-folding Ebony or perhaps a monorail set up with lens already on it would be faster.

3) Attaching the hood and checking for vignetting - I am using Lee Prohood for Cokin P adapter. Not my favorite. Finding adapter rings for lenses and setting things up, checking for vignetting takes me WAY too much time. Would the regular Lee system be better? A camera which has a good compendium hood (Toyo AX, Arca Swiss)? I will definitely keep the Wista for multi-day backpacking trips, but may want to get another 4X5 for shoots closer to civilization. The Bright Screen I got from Maxwell Precision Optics for the Wista is a joy to use--much better than either the Tachihara or Toho.

Thanks for any help.

--John