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Last summer, I acquired a lovingly used and well maintained 4x5 speed graphic in perfect condition. Reading about large format photography made it sound difficult, but i was comfortable with the camera in a couple of hours and it only took a couple weeks to reliably get good pictures. The difficulty of loading, unloading and carrying film holders got annoying fast, film and processing is more expensive, and I'm not the biggest fan of the 4:5 ratio. I'd always been a fan of panoramic formats, a rollfilm back seemed to be a good option. Graflex rollfilm backs only go up to 6x7 and are pretty pricey and old. Horseman, Arca-Swiss, and others make 6x12 backs, but they're priced in the $1000 range - more than 3x the cost of my camera, lens, and tripod combined, and would take hundreds of shots to recoup the investment. There are a few inexpensive Chinese-made backs available on eBay with minor differences. I got my hands on a used Guohua for just over a hundred dollars. It has a 6x12 opening and doesn't come with any masks for 6x6 or 6x9. The design is quite simple to the point i though there were pieces missing or that it wouldn't work when i first saw it. Thankfully there were no directions to throw away. The 120 spools snap between pins that are held in place by a folded piece of sheet metal. It holds tightly, but it's almost too tight when trying to replace spools, and i worry that the sheet metal might bend after a few years of use. Film tension is handled by small metal clips that push on the middle of the spool. It's just enough to keep the winding knob tight while advancing and keep the film tight across the gate. I was concerned at first that it would not be light-tight. There is a red window to see through to the back of the film. There should have been a piece of foam or felt between the window and the pressure plate but it was missing on mine. I ran through 2 rolls of ISO 400 B&W film, left the holder in sunlight, and also shined a flashlight into the window, but all the film surprisingly came out without any ghosts. I later put some felt between the window and the pressure plate just in case. I've read complaints about slight ghosts around the edge of the frame from stray light reflecting on the edge of the film window and hitting the film. I was able to see this in two examples - however it was less than a millimeter from the edge where it would most likely be concealed by a mat in a frame, and even still it was hardly noticeable without looking for it. I may consider in the future modifying the window by painting it flat black or beveling the outer edge.              
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Photography