I've been looking deeper into purchasing my first 4x5 camera for a couple of weeks, thought I'd ask for a little advice in narrowing my focus. I'll be working primarily on location, with wide to normal lenses (150mm at the longest end, 75 or 90 at the short if workable), in a sort of general-purpose usage. Little or no landscape, some architectural (but not as a business or professional need), mostly 'art'/portraiture/etc..
Ideally, I'd buy a monorail for the widest range of movement, but my only experience with 4x5 has been a loaned Calumet 4x5 - between the focusing cloth, Texas humidity and bulky case I'm a little worried about that route. A field camera would be ideal for what I want to do (a camera to carry with me on road trips and around the area), but I'm worried that limited movements would make it difficult to narrow focus as much as I'd like for certain artsy images.
Bulk is much more of a concern than weight, I won't be hiking for miles and hours but I hated the inconvenience and problems of the Cadet package. My budget is roughly $1000, give or take, I'm not looking to jump into anything immediately.
I'm also not sure exactly how the difference in movement between a Shen-Hao field, a Badger M2/Toho FC-45X and normal monorail (ToyoView 45CX or similar) alters final usability in terms of images. How limiting are limited movements? Is it feasible to wander around an area (drive/walk) with one of the intermediate monorails (the Badger or a Sinar F1)? How much meaningful movement is lost with a Shen-Hao compared to a FC-45x/M2?
Recommendations for literature that covers this sort of question - illustrated differences in movements, etc. would also be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt Powell
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