which LF camera + lens for photo realist artist (think Chuck Close)

[neilaldridgefineart.com]

As a budding photo realist painter i am consistently frustrated with poor image quality when working from photographs and Chuck Close is a great inspiration to me as are many photo realists and i am always saying to myself "if only i had a more detailed image to work from 'i know' i could produce work as good as those i admire and im sure a large format camera is the way to go. i used a large format camera briefly in the studio when i was at art school many years ago and know what they are capable of but this was a very long time ago.
im keen to take my work to the next level but need some guidance. please can someone offer some advice.

[prendt]

Only the best one!

[Steven Tribe]

I know very little about Close or any of the "photorealists". He used the super big (20x24) Polaroid camera at some stage in his artistic wandering.

If you want colour prints to work on, you must realise that you will use a considerable fortune in learning and using the traditional analogue system in really large format. Digital would be a lot cheaper. My limited experience with "artists" who work from photographic images are the Christopher James' type who seem to start their artistic odessey with mostly very basic images where the content is more important than "photographic" qualities.

This is in the wrong category - but where should it go?

[ian.wray.1048]

Hi. I'm not sure what sort of subjects you paint, but a modern dslr's used proficiently will produce an awful lot of detail, so I'm not sure that large (or even medium format) is necessary. What sort of camera are your problem images taken with?