When I was in high school I had an English teacher who had a foolproof plan for quitting smoking. He smoked a pipe. In order to smoke the pipe he needed three things together in the same place at the same time: pipe, pipe tobacco, and something to light the pipe tobacco. His stop smoking plan was that he couldn't ask for any of those items if he should be without one of them. If he had the pipe and tobacco but no light then he wouldn't smoke. It wasn't that often that he could get all three items together at the same time. Shooting large format is kind of like that. It's taken some time to get everything togther. First I got the camera. Then I had to modify a back for 4x5. Then I had to get lenses. Then I had to rebuild a Packard shutter since the lenses were shutterless. Then I had to get film holders. Then I had to get a heavier tripod. Then I had to get a case for the tripod. Then I had to get something to carry all of this since my back would collapse if I tried to carry it.

The last piece of the puzzle was a combination step ladder / hand truck from QVC (Item V23464. They have funky links so I can't direct link.) That's it on the bottom of the pile. The tripod bag is actually for microphone stands. (The tripod bag was from 5150 enterprises on eBay. Look for "NEW HEAVY DUTY CAMERA TRIPOD EQUIPMENT BAG" for 15.95. Incredible deal!) The camera and camera stuff is in a surplus Swiss Army pack. Sure is easy to carry it all this way.

All up and ready for action.

The bag hanging from the tripod is actually a bag that attaches on top of the Swiss Army pack. It's for holding food but works great for holding film holders. With the tripod legs fully extended I need to be on the first step to focus. The top step also is great as a little table to put lenses, etc.

You can see the Packard shutter on the front of the lens. I now have five film holders (ten exposures) ready to send off Monday to Panda Lab. Also a roll of pinholes taken last Sunday on World Pinhole Day and a couple of rolls of panoramics. I will have plenty to scan in another week! Time to clean up my other 10 4x5 film holders and load them up. It's great shooting a view camera again.