I am recent to LF, but have a small collection of MF cameras and equipment. Old habits are hard to break, so my LF cameras have grown into a collection of two! I have a 5x7 Gundlach Korona View wood field camera and just found a Carl Zeiss Jena Universal Palmos from 1903 in fantastic condition for almost nothing ($75.00 US). I see that a lot of you are "new" equipment people, and extremely serious about very precisely evaluating the differences in modern equipment and rightly so, as it reads as if a substantial portion of the members are professionals or lifelong amateur photographers. Should there be a forum for the collector photographer like myself? It would be interesting to post questions on the old equipment and benefit from the knowledge of others who may share the collecting disease. I am currently trying to find out what a Newton viewfinder, an accessory apparently used with the Universal Palmos, for which the camera has a built-in rail (which sits empty on my camera), is, if it can be found, etc.
One thing I will make clear for those reading this: I use my collection to take photographs. The cameras do not sit in a glass case; they go out and get used. I would not get a camera and relegate it to decorative use. They are tools meant to be used, not relegated to decorative accessory status.
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