Quote Originally Posted by Michael Kadillak View Post
Weight reduction comes at a price.
In general that's true, but design matters a lot. Used with wide-ish lenses (and thus short extensions) and with everything properly tightened down, the Phillips Explorer is a rock. Even with a monster lens like the 480 Sironar-N and the base extended to accommodate, it's still respectably rigid - more so than the Canham 5x12 I owned for a while was at any extension.

Hugo's website shows only a reversing-back model in 11x14. I don't know if Chamonix is set up to do custom designs for a single buyer, but they should certainly have the capability to build something close to the Explorer if not quite match it in weight.