If anyones awake can you tell me if sinar f1

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Large format photography : One Thread

Can anyone tell me if a sinar f1 will collapse enough to fit well into a decent sized bookbag (backpack).

Thanks

al

-- Altaf Shaikh (nissar@idt.net), August 24, 1998

Answers

Do you own a six inch extention rail? If so leave, the rail clamp mounted on the tripod head, and slide the standards together. Still pretty bulky right? Now don't you wish you had gotten the Arca Swiss F-C instead?

-- Ellis (evphoto@insync.net), August 25, 1998.

He's right; you can't compress the Sinar down to less than six inches. Of course, then it comes time to unpack the camera and USE it, and that's when you'll wish you had Sinar's two-point focusing system, which makes finding the ideal plane of focus at least twice as fast as with any other camera, especially in low light (which happens a lot). Or maybe something will break, in which case you'll wish you had Sinar's excellent support instead of Arca-Swiss's anemic help, for which even its dealers apologize (see www.thefstop.com).

Bottom line: My own and the previous poster's snottiness aside (and, as usual, everyone will just encourage you to buy what they own already, because it reassures them they made the right decision), you have to decide whether you spend more time carrying the camera or looking through it; each person's needs are different depending on how much hiking and what kind of photography they do, and no camera is without tradeoffs. The more compact a camera folds, the more time it takes to set up. I carry my 7 lb. Sinar set up, so it's ready to take pictures within seconds. But I don't do much hiking in rough terrain; if you do, your camera should be folded up and protected in your backpack.

When I see snotty posts like the above, I worry that this will become a usenet-like "Canon vs. Nikon" forum like photo.net has become lately, devolving into a bunch of pissing wars over whose "equipment" is better. Let's hope not.

-- Another snot-nosed (brat@erols.com), August 28, 1998.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ