Hi,
I've been shooting architecture with DSLR's and tilt shift lenses as well as medium format film for many years but am new to large format photography. I'm looking at buying either the Arca Swiss F-Line Metric or the Field version to shoot mainly architecture plus some landscapes. I plan to shoot 5x4 as well as some 6x7 with the roll back. A digital back is a possibility in the future but it will be all film for now.
I'm leaning towards the Field version because of the reduced weight/size and the universal bellows allows for greater lens flexibility without switching bellows around. My only concern is the reduced front rise on the field. The field camera has "Front: 25mm rise, 35mm fall Rear: 100mm rise only" whereas the regular metric has "Front and Rear: 3.9" (100mm) geared rise". I expect that when shooting architecture front rise will be my most used movement so am I limiting myself too much with the field version? I realise you can incline the bed (tilt the whole camera) and re-level to get extra rise but is this going to be annoying if I'm doing it regularly? 25mm rise on the Field doesn't sound like much but maybe it is? Being new to Large format I have no idea.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
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