Bob Monaghan wrote:
see http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/weights.html - a number of well regarded and
affordable MF cameras have modest weight factors, as the chart shows.
my personal favorite MF travel camera is the veriwide 100, which is a
stunning 6x10cm huge negative panoramic camera (equiv. to 18+mm lens on
35mm SLR in coverage) yet weighs only 34 oz (1 kg+) and is 4x6x3" in size
- and super rugged hocky puck construction, in daylight, if you can't
reach out and touch it, it is in focus ;-) see info at
http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/veriwide.html
Great old cameras - I used an original Veriwide for a few years. The
replacement was a Plaubel Makina 55W, the 55mm f4.5 Nikkor lensed modern
camera, which was excellent but nothing like as compact or wide in view.
After that, Hasselblad SWC for a while - very convenient and probably
the best optically - then down to a Fuji G645W with 45mm lens on 645 -
no way even beginning to match angles.
One of the best not-so-small compromises was a Mamiya Press Super 23 -
the later model - with their excellent 50mm f6.3 wide-angle on 6 x 9cm.
On testing this lens, I found it had been designed to cover a sheet film
format slightly smaller than 5 x 4; we obtained a Mamiya bayonet mount
from the Mamiya agents in Britain, had this mount professional set into
a recessed lens panel for the Cambo 5 x 4 system we were using at the
time, and used the 50mm Mamiya lens as an ultrawide which covered a
square 'SWC-like' 4 x 4 area in the middle of the 5 x 4 sheet - perfectly.
We later tried the same with the 65mm Mamiya lens after making up this
panel, and its coverage was nowhere as good as the 50mm.
The 50mm would have been a good lens for 6 x 9cm with movements had
Mamiya ever bothered to let the back on the press camera rise/cross. Our
press cameras were always late Super 23s which had the extending,
tilt/swing capable bellows in the back. This enabled landscapes with
incredible foreground effects - stuff in focus from six inches to
infinity - using the 50mm.
David
http://www.freelancephotographer.co.uk/