warren_williams

<p>Wouldn't a Nikon F2 be in the running? No battery, interchangeable finders, built very well and no limit on older lenses. No autofocus but I think that is all you'll be giving up.</p>

<p>Help! I recently bought a A12 with the "flying V" on the release button along with a 500C. I ad had light leak problems with an earlier back which I had to replace the seal on (successfully) so I did a preemptive seal replacement on my recently purchased back. After running a roll of Ektar 100 through it there were leaks on about 3/4 of the photo. I tried to reinstall the seal figuring I had not seated it properly but the next roll of Portra 800 was even worse. I notice the spaces between he images varies a little - on actually overlap but come darn close ant the edges of the image don't form a nice crisp edge. I'm assuming I'm looking at a repair to cure the spacing but does anyone have any ideas about the leak. Do leaks happen other than through the dark slide slot. The back itself looks to be in very good shape and serial numbers match.</p><div></div>

<p>Nice. Having fallen in love with photography (again) with a SWC about five years ago I can really relate to one lens, one film, no onboard meter, no blinking lights and nothing to distract the eye in the viewfinder. Set hyperfocal distance, see the image and push the button.</p>

<p>If you can live with the limitation of a very wide view the SWC is probably the most compact, easiest medium format camera to use and gives amazing results. Set lens at hyperfocal distance and shoot away.</p>

<p>The PCE or any rising lens is less useful in interiors than exteriors. The point of using rise is to eliminate what is commonly felt to be less interesting foreground (usually about half the image on the average exterior shot at a distance) in favor of building coverage. You want the foreground in an interior shot since it's part of the building - it's the same as if there were interesting gardens in the foreground of an exterior shot. There are other uses for tilting and shifting lens in interior architectural photography but less prevalent in small format where inherent depth of field is larger. </p>

<p>A non-trivial consideration is that the Nikkor 14mm and the 14-24 won't take filters so the huge front element is vulnerable to damage depending on how careful you are. Both the Zeiss 15mm and the 16-35 take filters though large ones. The 16-35 also has vibration reduction though a lower max f-stop. I've been agonizing over this choice for while and there are no clear winners, in my opinion</p>