There is a old joke--Why is it that when you're searching for your keys, they are always in the last place you look. I have been through lots of types of cameras, before I came to discover view cameras, and I went through lots of view cameras before I discovered Arca-Swiss.

There is another line in the camera community that you first view camera is not your last--thats not a comment on the pervasiveness of camera addiction, but rather that view cameras are so different from other cameras, that few people know what the want or need when getting started becuase they take their prejudices from smaller fixed architecture cameras--film or digital--and apply them mistakenly to their first view camera. Well I'm living proof that that isn't wrong.

I got to Arca Swiss late after trying wood field cameras (Shen Hao), Metal technical cameras (Linhof Technika, Rittreck, Horseman) and various monorail cameras (Sinar, Linhof) first. I don't know that the Arca Swiss F-Line will be my final resting point, but it stnads a pretty good chance. It has the weight, size, and portability of a field or technical camera the flexibility in use of a monorail and some of the flexibility in configuration of some of the most flexibile systems like the Sinar system.

So why not start there? Primarily three reasons. First--as mentioned above, I started with smaller systems, and I made many of the wrong choices--wood field and metal technical both appealed to me due to the fact that folded into a compact box. That also made fell better about protection for portability. Second--while there is lots of info online on Technikas Sinars, there is very little info on the modern Arca Swiss cameras. And finally, Arca Swiss are pricy.and hard to find unless you're buying new.