Having now read through the six pages here on this topic, and having drooled all the way through, I pose the following question to this esteemed and experienced crew (does flattery help?!):
What would you recommend as a great tech camera outfit? What body, what two or three lenses, what viewing mechanism, how to handle latency, is the Cube helpful enough to warrant the expense, etc? Approx. cost would be helpful, too, before I take the plunge... I'm not made of money, but I lust after the perfect image! I know there may be a few recommendations of different systems, so perhaps adding the major couple pluses and minuses of any recommendations would be most helpful.
I currently have an IQ180 and the PhaseDF system with the 35mm, 80, 150 and 300 lenses. My priority is landscape photography, so the current setup is not optimal, although it works fine in some situations. Also, I like photographing in remote, cold, wild places (emphasis on cold!), so to the extent a certain rig is not good in the cold, I should avoid it. Also, weight and portability matters since I often hike in many miles to get to a location.
Thanks in advance!
Will
The cold isn't an issue for a tech body or shutter until far after it's highly impractical for the human operating it.
Look through any thread on getdpi which includes the word "cube" and you'll get the idea real quick. Some people pass because it's not in their budget. But no one who has one is anything less than crazy about it.
There simply is no universally "ideal" tech camera. The reason there are no less than a dozen models out there (in a very small niche mind you) is that each has it's own mix of features, size, weight, and aesthetics. For any given person one is going to be ideal, which for another person would make no sense at all.
You have several decisions to make to narrow in on the right tech camera for you.
Handholding? - all of these systems can be hand held, but several of them are much more comfortable/sensible to hand hold. A Cambo Wide
RC 400 and RS 1250 for instance have molded wooden handles which is easier on your skin in cold weather, and easier to grip. Naturally whether they fit YOUR hands is something best determined by you by trying them on. Some users never ever hand hold (always using a tripod), some almost exclusively hand hold, so how much this matters depends entirely on you.
Tilt? each system has a different feature set when it comes to tilt. Arca has tilt on every lens without the need for a special panel, lens version, or adapter. Cambo allows both tilt and swing at the same time but only for some lenses. Alpa requires special short barrel version of a lens for tilt/swing and can only accomodate some lenses in this manner.
Shift+Rise/fall? some of the smallest bodies only have one direction of movement and require rotation/remounting of some kind for the other direction. For instance with the
Cambo Wide RC400 you can mount a tripod foot on both the side and the bottom to facilitate easy switching from rise/fall to shift. On the
Arca Factum you use an L-bracket which provides mount points in either orientation. However, in no case with these small uni-direction bodies can you do both rise/fall and shift simultaneously. If this is important (either for stitching or normal compositional needs) then you need a body like the Cambo Wide RS or Arca Swiss RM3Di which have both sets of movements natively (no remount/rotation required).
Extensibility? Do you have any plans in the future to experiment with a full sized view camera (e.g. for macro, tabletop, still life, or larger ranges of movements)? If you buy a small tech camera is it possible in the future you might add a larger tech camera (for larger range of movement and stitching)? The Arca R series can be used as the front standard on a Arca Swiss view camera and/or the R series lenses can be used directly on a view camera by means of a simple lens plate.
Film? Is compatibility with film important? Each line has varying compatibility with small and large format film.
Range of movement Each body has a different capacity for rise/fall/shift. Lay out the image circles (or if you're working with a good dealer they can generate charts like I did on
this thread) to evaluate how much movement you might want/need.
I'm obviously biased towards Arca Swiss and Cambo over Alpa, but I'd be the first to tell you all three make great, precise, beautiful cameras. Even after going through every feature you're missing out on the most important question: which one "does it for you"? And that you can only answer by putting them in your hands and playing. Which one fits your hands, feels natural, and gets out of the way of the image making process? The answer will be different for everyone. That's why we keep demo units in stock for in person or remote-via-rental evaluation.