Who in the world would want to buy a view camera? Interestingly, there appears to be quite a resurgence of interest in large format, concurrent to the expansion of digital. Go figure. (Or, go shoot figure. Your choice. ;-) ) If you are considering a large-format camera to gain the advantages of larger film size, along with maximum control over your images, here are a few things to consider. Obviously, these are my opinions, so consider ingesting a certain amount of sodium chloride before actually implementing any of these suggestions.

What you get with Large Format: In addition to much larger negatives, the big advantages of a view camera (or, a field camera) are the ability to control the perspective (no more tilting verticals on buildings) and the ability to control the plane of focus. Both of these aspects are provided through the movements of the lens standard and the camera back - either individually, or in combination.

Basic Considerations: The basic choice is between a studio-oriented monorail design and a field camera (I'm including Graflex designs within the field camera category). Determine where and how you'll be using the camera, and what you'll be shooting, and make the obvious choice. Caveat 1: movements (swing, tilt, bellows draw, etc.) on field cameras are often limited. For product and some architectural work, a field camera may not offer enough perspective control to get the job done properly. Caveat 2: A monorail can be used in the field, but doing so is gawdawful inconvenient. Caveat 3: Watch the budget. Good, modern lenses with multicoating are quite expensive. Figure out the minimum kit you'll need for whatever you plan to do, and add up the totals in advance. Buy f5.6 lenses (that's about as "fast" as they get for view cameras) if you can. Lenses with f8 or f9 are common on older designs, but they are tough to focus with in anything but bright sunlight, and will cause you to miss things in the corners of the ground glass that can ruin the shot. (It's a bitch to discover these things after developing the film.)

Used or New?: You can save a ton of money by buying used, but you need to be quite careful in doing so. Insist on inspection and testing rights prior to finalization of the sale. Then, check for mechanical wear on the moving parts, and inspect/test for light leaks on the bellows. A leaky bellows makes the camera useless, of course, and you may or may not be able to find a replacement bellows - depending on the brand and age of the camera. Custom-made bellows are rather expensive. Buying new avoids that, of course, but at the obvious price.

Features to look for:

1. Determine max and min bellows extension - that determines what lenses can be used on the particular camera. The rule of middle finger (rather than thumb - if it doesn't work, you're screwed) is a bellows extension of at least 1.5x the longest lens you want to use. Remember, 150mm is "normal" on a 4x5, and 360mm is "moderate telephoto". There are "telephoto" design lenses, which have shorter back-focus requirements, but they are sometimes hard to find. If you want to do macro work, you'll need 2x the focal length of the lens to get a 1:1 reproduction ratio. Thus, bellows extension is a matter of trade-offs between the work you want to be able to do, the lenses you want to use, and weight. Some view cameras have interchangeable bellows - meaning you can substitute a "bag" bellows for the usual pleated design, providing more convenient use with short focal lengths. This is a common feature of monorail cameras, but a seldom-found feature on field cams.

2. Movements - for field cameras, a tilting back, and tilt, shift, swing, rise and fall on the front standard are minimum requirements for convenient use. Additional movements on the back are good, but can generally be worked around through different positioning of the camera in combination with adjustments on the front standard. A reversible back (change from vertical to horizontal) is also desirable - using the tilt head on the tripod to make the change puts all the weight on the tripod socket, which can have disastrous results.

• rise/fall - as you might guess, rise and fall are the ability to move the lens standard and/or the back of the camera up and down. Front rise is the first step in perspective control, as it lets you adjust what part of the scene (vertically) ends up on the film while keeping the camera level. A relatively small amount or rise makes a big difference with a distant object - think basic triangle geometry here. Back rise and fall allows you to adjust what portion of the image formed by the lens ends up on the film. With back rise, you are essentially moving the film up and down within the cone of image created by the lens - very handy for making compositional adjustments without having to reposition the camera.
• shift - Shift is the horizontal equivalent to rise and fall.
• tilt - Tilt provides both perspective control and focus plane control. With back tilt, for example, you can point the camera at an upward angle, and then tilt the back to be vertical again, thus avoiding "keystoning" of buildings or other verticals within the scene. Tilting the lens standard similarly forward to the vertical returns things to "normal" and gives you the usual vertical plane of focus. Tilt also allows you to control the plane of focus, moving it from the usual vertical to whatever you want (within the limits of the camera movements), so you can have both near and far objects in sharp focus. This is the famous Scheimpflug rule. Note, however, that depth of field (DOF) behaves strangely with tilt. While DOF still extends on both sides of the plane of sharp focus, it essentially forms a wedge around the tilted plane of sharp focus, with the narrow end of the wedge at the camera position. Thus, you have to be careful with elements within the image that may extend or protrude outside that wedge of DOF - particularly near objects that fall in the narrow end of the wedge.
• swing - Swing is the horizontal equivalent of tilt, and is similarly used for perspective control and control of the plane of focus.

3. Lens Coverage - Any lens projects a cone of light toward the film. How large that cone of light is determines the coverage of the lens, and is usually referred to as the "image circle". Image circle specs for a given lens are usually stated in terms of the measurement inside the full image cone where the image is acceptably sharp, and is usually stated at a particular f-stop, because it varies with the f-stop for most lens designs - the smaller the f-stop, the larger the image circle. Coverage of a given lens is important because it determines how much you can use the camera's movements without vignetting the image on the film. More coverage is better, of course, but it often comes with trade-offs in size, weight, and expense. At a minimum, the image circle must be at least as large as the diagonal measurement of the film size being used (about 155mm for 4x5), so you can take a "straight" shot with no movements with the lens focused at infinity.

4. Weight - depending on how you'll be using the camera, weight can be a major consideration. For backpacking, lighter is better, and that will push you toward newer designs with modern materials, and probably buying new, rather than used. The trade-off with weight is mechanical stability and durability. Some designs are kinda flimsy - meaning parts of the camera can move around in a stiff breeze (not good).

5. Parts availability - consider/determine whether key parts are easily available, particularly lens boards. Few parts for view cameras are interchangeable, but some can be easily remanufactured.

What I did: Because I do a mix of styles, including some studio commercial work, I started with a new (albeit "entry-level") Toyo monorail, and started buying the lenses I needed as I went along. Later, I added a Toyo field camera (again, new) so I could use the lenses on either camera without having to remove them from the lens boards. (Most of my lenses are mounted on field camera lens boards, and I use an adapter board on the monorail.) I chose to go with all Schneider lenses. Different brands will have slightly different color renditions, and consistency can be critical for commercial work. However, I could have picked Rodenstock as my standard just as easily. Nikon and Fuji also offer excellent large-format lenses, and there are some real classics of older manufacture on the used market, as well.

In the "experience teaches" department, I wish that I had gotten over my prejudice against gel and resin filters a lot sooner. Buying glass filters for big lenses is awfully expensive, and I wasted a lot of money doing so. HiTech has a great system that uses 4" gel and resin filters, and has adapter rings for virtually all lens sizes. I wish that I had discovered it earlier. My 300mm f5.6 Schneider Symmar, for example, takes a 105mm filter - special order in most cases, and about $400 a pop. (ouch!)

While I've purchased a number of lenses to provide various commercial capabilities, for landscape use, I find that over 90% of my work is now done with either the 110mm Schneider Super Symmar XL (relatively small and compact, extensive coverage, and superb sharpness) or a 210mm Schneider APO Symmar lens. To a large extent, however, your optimal lens kit will be determined by how you "see" the world, in other words, which focal lengths are consistent with your artistic vision. If you're not sure, walking around with a 4x5 framing aid, taking imaginary pictures for a few days, will help you decide what you really need, lens-wise. The opening on this framing aid, cut from a scrap of matte board, is the size of the image area on a 4x5 neg (96mm x 122mm), and the knots in the string are tied at various standard lens focal lengths. To use it, hold the knot for the desired focal length to your cheek, extend the frame so the string is taut, and what you see through the frame would be what the film would see.

Large-format Resources

Badger Graphic Sales, Inc. (http://www.badgergraphic.com/) - one of the leading LF dealers for both new and used gear

B&H Photo-Video (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/) - good selection, good to deal with, plenty of info on the products

KEH Camera Brokers (http://www.keh.com/) good source of used stuff

Luong's LF Web site (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/) good info resource

Paul Butzi's LF site - an excellent resource for various LF topics

Kerry Thalmann's LF site - an excellent resource for lens information

Newsgroup - rec.photo.equipment.large-format - an excellent resource with participation from a wide range of LF experts and practitioners, a few "heavy" opinions

Magazines - View Camera and Camera Arts - both published by Steve Simmons (http://www.viewcamera.com/) - good resources, low-key articles