I've spent the evening loading sheet film for both my 4x5 Linhof Technika field camera (colour film) and the 8x10 Cambo monorail view camera (black and white film). The 8x10 colour film has yet to arrive from the US. I plan to load up the 5x7 colour sheet film tomorrow night, once the bellows of the 5x7 Cambo has been checked for light leaks.

It is 15 years since I have used these large format camera and the bellows of the 5x4 and 8x10 have had to be replaced. My plan was to start using the 8x10Cambo view camera tomorrow morning to shoot some black and white studies of rock forms below the cliff tops.

After loading the 8x10 film I did a dummy run with the gear to see how things would work out. I loaded up the computer bag with the 6 dark slides, picked up the monorail camera in one hand and the Linhof Heavy Duty Pro tripod (with its geared centre post and Profi 3 pan tilt head) in the other hand, then started walking.

I only made it through the front door. It was too heavy, even though I've been doing weights and cardio at the gym 4 days a week for a year to built up my strength for this. The 8x10 view camera is so bulky that it won't fit in the Lowe Pro Trekker pack that I had bought. There is just no way that I can walk a couple of kilometers over rocks with this kind of camera gear balanced in each hand. An exercise in failure?

So no rocks. It's ten paces from the car for this kind of 8x10 equipment. So the 4x5 Linhof field camera is going to have to be the portable large format camera. It's what most people do, anyway.

Update.
The bellows of the 5x7 Cambo has light leaks and I need to order a new one from Custom Bellows in England.

I used the 4x5 Linhof field camera this morning. Suzanne and I walked up a path that ran along a fast flowing Currency Creek for 30 minutes or so to this location.

Suzanne carried the Pro Trekker pack with the 4x5 Linhof camera whilst I carried a medium sized Linhof tripod. I could not carry pack and tripod. I could only do so if I had a carbon fibre tripod that could be attached to the pack.

I also used the 8x10 Cambo this afternoon carrying the camera and tripod in each hand for half a kilometre along a boardwalk to the mouth of the Hindmarsh River in Victor Harbor. That was my limit. It's an exercise in self-punishment.