Roger - in my opinion dust is a far bigger problem with MF SLR's than view cameras. For one thing, smaller film obviously needs a greater
degree of enlargement, so any minor dust or film flaws which might be present are much more conspicuous. Then given the fact that Zone
expansions cannot be fine-tuned per individual shot like sheet film, there arise a lot more instances when you need to resort to harder paper grades, which in turn exaggerate any issues on film or neg carriers etc. Now the mechanical issue: Big SLR's have a lot of moving stuff - a big mirror, a curtain shutter very close to the film. So if any little bits of film get inside the camera, like when changing lenses, they tend to get moved around quite easily and hence onto the film itself. Believe me, I'd rather shoot and print sheet film any day of the week. But tonite I'll probably start spotting some spectacular prints I did take with a P67 SLR recently. In one instance it was a roadside shot where the dramatic light was shifting so fast I simply didn't have time to set up and focus the view camera. In other recent instances,
the shots were taken on what was really my wife's vacation, when a slow and methodical view camera would be annoying to her. In this
case, I got off several shots I really wanted with the 6x7 while she was taking some snapshots herself. I don't have the same dust issues
when shooting 35mm film simply because I only make very small prints from 35mm. With 120 roll film there's an inevitable temptation to
make 16x20's which simulate large format prints, even though they really aren't.
