In article ,
John J wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/5/2008 5:20 AM John J spake thus:

otzi wrote:

May I venture a look at the Crown Graphic. Bog simple, light, easy,
quick to use, robust, easy to repair, and there are lots and lots on
the bay. [...]

I did not mention the Graphics because I thought that the user was a
student who would need it for a class, and for LF that always means a
camera with generous movements, which the Graphic does not have.

I too second the emotion of looking for a Crown Graphic,

As a university instructor I must disagree -IF the student is assigned
to a large format project which requires camera movements.

As a former BFA candidate in photography at one of the better programs
(at least, it was then), I agree with you: a camera with movements as
limited as those of a Crown or even a Technikardan would not have been
sufficient for most of the exercises we were assigned that required a
large format camera.

I owned a Wisner Trad at the time and there were studio exercises in
the lighting and large-format classes which required me to get a monorail
from the equipment cage just like everyone else, because the Wisner didn't
have enough flexibility to get them done.

On the other hand, a Cambo or Calumet or Graphic View would have worked,
and those crunch down small enough to go in a backpack with some very
minimal disassembly. Not as compact as a field camera but they will
get it done and they are quite cheap.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon
"Even experienced UNIX users occasionally enter rm *.* at the UNIX
prompt only to realize too late that they have removed the wrong
segment of the directory structure." - Microsoft WSS whitepaper