Nice review. I am actually interested in the long term survival of this design and that was actually one of the reasons that I did not jump on the Kickstarter for this camera.
My 4x5 Intrepid is an absolutely awesome camera and the design for that size of a camera seems almost perfect. After two years bouncing hither and yon in a Lowepro backpack my own Kickstarter 4x5 is still very solid and works as well as it did when the box that contained it first arrived at my door.
Of course 8x10 is a lot larger. This Intrepid is a very light camera for 8x10 and it will be interesting to see how the owners feel about these cameras after having backpacked with them for a year. Will they be robust or will they come apart on the trail too easily? A smaller, 4x5 camera is almost certainly less affected by the stresses of backpacking than this larger camera will be, so there may be more need for revisions than there was on the 4x5. I do want to buy one but instead of being an early adopter I think I'll wait a bit until the bugs are worked out.
Bookmarks