Thierry,
A very nice piece of equipment for sure, but at 3.6 kg and the bulk it has, I personnally wouldn't see myself carrying it in my Osprey backpack.
My 2.6+ kg Ebony 45SU is already a lot to carry on long treks in a 85 liters pack when crampons and a tent are part of the equation, I really don't see how I would fit a f1 or f2 in there. Others might obviously have more stamina or skills.
Regards,
Bernard
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thanks for all the input, and I was sorely tempted. I currently carry quite a load as it is, and that was not as much a consideration as time to relearn how to use it, and time to actually use it. And, budget. I'm thinking I'll be more ahead getting a new darkroom, that is, upgrading my nearly five year old computer for something more able to handle CS2.
One of the things I wanted to do with it was mentioned above, large crowds of people where I'd want a large print with enough detail so people can pick themselves out.
What I've been doing is using a panoramic tripod attachment (nodal ninja) and stitching the results (autostitch is free and seems to work just as good as the photomerge in PS, or would if I understood the parameters better). The results, when I've exposed the separate images correctly, have been fantastic. But overwhelm my 1GB computer.
The discipline for doing that is comparable to handling a view camera in terms of having to pay attention to what you're doing. But I've had to use perspective correction since there is no tilt control. And that becomes extremely tedious on a 100MB image file.
Thanks again, and your comments about why you feel working with 4x5 have helped re-affirm my decision to make those huge clear images, though using what I have.
Besides, the guy who was going to sell it has changed his mind and now wants to do more work with it himself...
Brandon Smith
[a href=\"http://BrandonSmithGallery.com]http://BrandonSmithGallery.com[/url]
Some of the panoramas are at
http://synature.smugmug.com/gallery/3657190#208794561but the largest I can show here is 1600 pixels wide and the biggest one, the park, is 19742x6453 pixels.