I am looking at these three view cameras for 8x10 size work, and would like to hear back from anyone who knows something about them or better yet, has used one of them and can talk about likes, dislikes. I have not made a decision yet on which one is best for me. They are all top of the line models, all expensive. Dealer support for any one of them is an 'unknown' for me. At this moment, I guess I am partial to the Arca, as I can get it overseas for a fairly good price.

I have yet to locate anyone anywhere that uses anyone of these pieces of equipment. Every retail outfit I have talked to about them says they are special order and no one seems to have demo models in-house to let you get a hands-on to see what they are really like.

Intended use: Architecture, Studio.

-- R Urban (roger.g.urban@ucm.com), September 01, 2000

Answers

Just out of curiosity, is there a market for 8x10 architectural photography?

-- Stewart Ethier (s_ethier@parkcity.net), September 01, 2000.

The last studio I worked in shot furniture almsot exclusively - although they did do things from machine parts to tractor trailers on occassion. All their cameras were Horesman - most 8 X 10, but they did have 2 or 3 of the 4 X 5's.

We never used the calculator. I never heard anyone complain about them. Smooth, solid, flexible. If we ever had a gripe it was that you had to have a really solid stand under them because the L standards seemed to pick up any vibration and magnify it. There was one stand we wound up using more than we wanted to because of this and we always had to waaaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaa-it for it to settle down before actually opening the shutter.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), September 01, 2000.