Hello,
I've been shooting wilderness landscapes for the last several months using a digital camera and just a single 28mm manual lens with some grad filters. A couple of weeks ago I borrowed a 4x5 Toyo monorail with a 210mm lens to have a taste of the LF world (always liked it, but never got the chance to try it before) and after seeing my first negatives, got hooked. It's very expensive to shoot but certainly worth the additional effort, especially if I manage to keep my 4x5 slides only for the most special light situations.
A monorail is to bulky for me to carry up in the mountains and a field camera is out of my budget for the moment since I have to pay a lot to enter it into the country (even with a reliable shipping agent in Argentina).
Frank Petronio kindly pointed me to the Graflex cameras which are generally sub us400 and seem compact enough for backpacking. I really like the concept of a tough inexpensive camera which get the job done and read almost all I could on the graflex site but still have some questions:
1). It seems like the speed graphics and the pacemakers have almost field camera capabilities, but the speed have a shutter and the pacemakers don't. Does that mean that I can mount any lens I have on the speed shutter and just use it?
2). There are a lot of ads stating something about top and side rangefinders. I'll be focusing on the screen, are they really important?
3). I've read that the Crowns are very WA friendly and allow front tilt if you drop the bed. Does this mean I can't use a 90mm on a Speed or a pacemaker?
4). Can I mount a panoramic back on any of these cameras? (6x12)
5). Based on my current 35mm experience and several weeks with the Toyo, I'll be using a 90mm lens for 90% of my shots and will add a 210 later on for some compact scenes where I do need some additional tilting. What Graflex model is the most adequate for me?
In case, someone want to have a look at my recent digital stuff to have a general impression of what I'll be doing, I have some shots here http://www.flickr.com/photos/24544103@N02/
And last but not least, If you have a nice graflex camera or any other alternative gathering dust and want to sell it and give it a second life in the Patagonia mountains and steppes, I'm open to offers and the best part is that the agent I'm working with, can pick it in a shipping address in Miami, so, no troubles for the seller with international shipping.
Well, thanks for reading and for any info.
Have a nice week,
Nicolas.